Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing has said that the 9/11 attacks were not as bad as the reign of terror waged by the IRA on mainland Britain. The Associated Press (AP) reports Lessing, in conversation with the leading Spanish daily El Pais, as saying "September 11 was terrible, but if one goes back over the history of the IRA, what happened to the Americans wasn't that terrible. "

A nine-year-old Indonesian-Chinese math prodigy on Tuesday started his university studies in Hong Kong, the Chinese media reported. And it looks like March Tian Boedihardjo is off to become the youngest holder of a master's degree by breezing through his first lessons at the Hong Kong Baptist University. The Hong Kong-born Boedihardjo described the mathematical analysis lecture on Tuesday as easy and said he learned it two years ago.

The U. S. Embassy in Manila has come to the aid of "blistered and crackled" paintings made by the foremost Filipino artist in the lobby of the Philippine General Hospital, the country's first public hospital. Willie Estonato, a painting conservator from the National Museum said, the murals created by Carlos "Botong" Francisco in 1953, were already on the brink of collapsing.

A magazine which featured a cartoon mocking the heir to the throne of Spain making love with his wife was ordered to be removed from news stands. Copies were seen for sale on eBay last Saturday. The cover price of the weekly magazine El Juevez is $3. 46, but copies but were seen on a Spanish eBbay website selling for up to $138 per copy. High Court Judge Juan del Olmo said last Friday that the cartoon "struck at the honor and the dignity of the people represented" has ordered authorities to confiscate and apprehend all news stands that sells the copy of the magazine. The current government in Spain announced that each new born child in a family will receive $3500. 00 to raise the birth rate in Spain. Thus, the magazine used this as feature in cartoon to mock the royal family. In the caricature, Prince Felipe was seen smiling and telling his wife Princess Letizia, "Do you realize that if you get pregnant it will be the closest that I come to working in my life!" Under Spanish law, anyone found guilty of insulting and mocking the royal family can face up to two years in prison and be slapped with substantial fines. Spain's royal family, unlike those from other European nations, received only little attention from the press.

A group of 30 Spaniards selected by psychologists for their unusually high levels of stress and anxiety were allowed to run wild throughout a Spanish hotel, smashing whatever they wanted to with sledgehammers and pickaxes. Among the lucky winners who were selected from a pool of 200 applicants were a corporate executive, a soon-to-be-married couple and a single mother.