Area works to offer fair deal

Cheadle is set to become a Fairtrade town - making theStaffordshire Moorlands one of the first districts to support thescheme, which offers better prices to farmers and workers in thedeveloping world.

Cheadle's Moorlands' neighbours Leek …

9/11 Mastermind Confesses in Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, confessed to that attack and a chilling string of other terror plots during a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to a transcript released Wednesday by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read during the session, which was held last Saturday.

The transcripts also refer to a claim by Mohammed that he was tortured by the CIA, although he said he was not under duress at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo when he confessed to his role in the attacks.

In a section of the statement that was blacked out, he …

Dutch KPN to cut 1,400 jobs at Getronics unit

Dutch computer services firm Getronics, part of telecoms company Royal KPN, said Tuesday it plans to cut around 1,400 jobs _ 10 percent of its work force _ to save money and adapt to weak market conditions.

Getronics said the move would be completed around the end of the second quarter and would help it save euro60 million ($79 million) annually.

Royal KPN NV bought Getronics, a major government contractor in the U.S., for euro766 million …

`Fun guy' Quayle pushes school message here

Vice President Dan Quayle spent nearly two hours at a Catholicinner-city school Thursday.

Then he ditched class to sneak out to the ballpark.

He blamed his truancy on former Gov. James R. Thompson. Quaylesaid Thompson told him "it would be a good idea for me to come to theopening of the White Sox because my mother and father are die-hardSox fans."

Before the game, Quayle was visiting the kids at St. ElizabethSchool at 4052 S. Wabash and talking about President Bush's "21stcentury" educational program.

"It was a great experience to meet him. . . . I was veryscared," said eighth-grader Valerie Hildebrand, 14, who gave Quayle ablue-and-gold St. …

Italy PM replaces penis on statue, angers experts

ROME (AP) — Italy's culture ministry on Friday defended Premier Silvio Berlusconi for giving ancient marble statues in his office replacement body parts, to the horror of art restorers.

The ministry, which is led by a close ally of the premier, said in a statement there's no cause for alarm: The hand added to Venus and the penis added to Mars are attached by magnets and can be removed without damage.

For decades, restorers have widely agreed that missing parts of ancient statues should not be recreated.

Rome daily La Repubblica quoted Vatican Museums director Antonio Paolucci, one of Italy's top restoration experts, as saying "it's a pity" restorers didn't say no to …

After 63 years, death photo of famed WWII reporter Ernie Pyle surfaces

The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.

But he is not asleep; he is dead. And this is not just another fallen GI; it is Ernie Pyle, the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II.

As far as can be determined, the photograph has never been published. Sixty-three years after Pyle was killed by the Japanese, it has surfaced _ surprising historians, reminding a forgetful world of a humble correspondent who artfully and ardently told the story of a war from the …

New routes for easyJet

The first easyJet flights to three new European destinations weredue to take off from Bristol International Airport today.

The company has added Madrid, Budapest and Rome to its growingnumber of low-cost routes available from the airport. MeanwhileEastern Airways' flights to Aberdeen started yesterday.

Ed Winter, easyJet's chief operating officer, …