Stephen Hawking, the famous international physicist, has been appointed to the post of distinguished research chair at a quantum theory and cosmology institute founded by Research In Motion co-CEO Mike Lazaridis.

The institute issued a statement, in which it was informed that regular stays would be conducted by Hawking at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, starting in the summer of 2009.

Vancouver (Canada), Nov. 29 : A Canadian businessman, who was held hostage by terrorists inside the Trident-Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai said that he was saved from being killed by terrorists because he drifted off to sleep and ignored a mysterious knock to his door.

Vancouver-based Jonathan Erlich, 40, told the Globe and Mail newspaper that he decided to give a miss to a friend’s invitation for a nightcap in the Oberoi Hotel''s plush lobby on Wednesday night, drifted off to sleep and only woke up after hearing a loud explosion on the street below.

He said that when he went to turn on a light, a second, more powerful blast rocked the hotel. He peered in the hall and heard a guest say something about a bomb.

New York/Waterloo  - Stephen Hawking, 66, the internationally known theoretical physicist, is to serve as guest professor at a Canadian university after he reached retirement age from Britain's Cam

Montreal  - Barely six weeks after Canadians elected a minority Conservative government, opposition parties Friday vowed to bring down the Tories.

Elder statesmen from the left-of-centre Liberal Party and the socialist New Democratic Party were discussing a possible coalition government, with former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and NDP leader Ed Broadbent engaged in talks about a deal.

All three opposition parties - the Liberals, the NDP and the separatist Bloc Quebecois from the French-speaking province of Quebec - have angrily rejected the Tories' economic plan that contained no stimulus package for Canada's slumping economy.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 28 -- Mike Cammalleri's first career hat trick followed by Curtis Glencross's game-winner carried Calgary to a 4-3 win over Vancouver Thursday.

HANLEY, Saskatchewan, Nov. 27  -- Canadian authorities said they charged a man who proposed building a pharmaceutical plant in Hanley, Saskatchewan, with fraud Thursday.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police charged Gordon Carl Summers with five fraud-related counts plus other charges, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Summers, also known as Gordon Summer, was arrested after a months-long probe of his company, Vigor Biopharma, the CBC said.

The drug company had said last year it was ready to develop a $2.5 billion-a-year business by making a cancer drug from yew trees.