Sight translation 2

1. US toll landmark in Iraq sets off peace rallies

The death of the 2,000th US soldier in Iraq is expected to trigger peace rallies in Washington and across the America.

Outside the White House, Cindy Sheehan, the peace activist whose 24-year-old son died in Iraq has promised to "symbolically die" over the coming days until she is arrested. "What I think it’s going to take now is non-violent, peaceful civil disobedience all over the country," said Mrs Sheehan, who plans to lie down in the street opposite the White House today. She told supporters: "Go to your senators’ offices, to federal buildings. Sit down and say enough is enough. The killing has to stop sometime."

The call for protest was echoed by Move On, a coalition of anti-war and left-wing groups that has organised protests against the Bush Administration in recent years. Move On released a new television advert, asking "How Many More?", and has co-ordinated more than 1,000 vigils that are due to take place this evening.

The Answer coalition, an anti-war group that drew more than 100,000 protesters to a rally in Washington last month, said "public opinion in the United States has decisively turned against the war in Iraq just as it turned against the war in Vietnam three decades ago."

2. Do More Tech Toys Make You Happier?

If only you had a video iPod, a better car and more tech toys, you'd be happier, right? Wrong.

That's the conclusion of "The Happy Planet Index," a study by the London-based New Economics Foundation (NEF). They wanted to find out if happiness, as measured by people's assessment of their quality of life, was directly related to consumption. If consuming more made people happier, then a country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a traditional measurement of national success, would reflect the nation's happiness.

But it didn't. Just ask the people of the tiny South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. According to the Index, they are the happiest people on the planet. Nearly 180 countries were compared by where consumption levels, life expectancy and happiness intersected, and Vanuatu came in first. But, when measured by the old-fashioned GDP, Vanuatu is # 207 out of 233 countries.

Don't expect to find a high-tech heaven in Vanuatu. As befits a paradise, its economy is built around tourism and small-scale agriculture. In fact, the tech-heavy countries did not fare as well. Germany takes 81st place, Japan is #95, and the U.S. comes in at #150.

3. Предчувствия

1. Смешение людских умений с животной интуицией дает порой небывалый эффект.

2. Владимир Высоцкий отдыхал как-то у друзей в Крыму, когда там произошло землетрясение.

3. За несколько минут до его начала собака крымских приятелей в буквальном смысле – лаем, рычанием, демонстрацией немалых клыков – заставила всех, в том числе и приглянувшегося ей барда, выйти из дома на улицу. И тем спасла всем людям жизнь.

4. Или более свежий пример. Кошка замдиректора новосибирского представительства «Межрегионгаза» утром выскочила на улицу, забралась под «Вольво» хозяина и категорически отказалась вылезать из-под машины.

5. В конце концов разозленный хозяин наклонился, чтобы вытащить ее, и ….. увидел прикрепленную к днищу взрывчатку.

4. Thief nailed selling a million stolen screws

1. A German factory worker stole over a million screws from his employer and skewed the market with his cheap stolen goods, police said Friday.

2. "In the end, it became obvious that screws were being sold for much less than they usually cost," said a spokesman for police in the southern city of Wuerzburg.

3. Over two years, the 33-year-old assembly plant worker smuggled between 2,000 and 7,000 screws out of work each night, and auctioned them on an Internet site, police said. The scheme cost his firm around 110,000 euros ($156,000).

4. The man confessed after officers raided his home.