England has expressed displeasure on rescheduling of Twenty20. India has allegedly forced the rescheduling. Australia and South Africa also supported the Indian move. The Twenty20 Champions League will now take place on December 3-10 in India. It was earlier scheduled in the months of November and October. The first test will be played in Ahmedabad. The test and one day series between India and UK is also scheduled during this period. The second test will be played I Mumbai after four days.

London, August 15 : A new kind of photosynthesis that uses arsenic instead of carbon dioxide to harvest light promises to rewrite evolutionary history - at least that of arsenic metabolism on Earth.

Some bacteria use arsenate - arsenic with four oxygen atoms attached - as an energy source. It was thought that this form of metabolism didn’t get going until long after photosynthesis filled the atmosphere with oxygen about 2.7 billion years ago.

When this happened, naturally occurring arsenite would be transformed into arsenate.

But, according to a report in New Scientist, Ronald Oremland and colleagues at the US Geological Survey in Menlo Park, California, were puzzled by the great range of arsenic-eating bacteria.

London, Aug 15 : All British combat troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq by the middle of 2009, leaving a few hundred military trainers to continue instructing an Iraqi Army division based in Basra, according to proposals confirmed by defence sources.

The British sources also said that the Government had no plans to maintain a permanent base in Iraq, although they emphasised that no final decisions had been taken.

Details of the new British personnel structure are to be negotiated in the status-of-forces agreement to be signed with Baghdad, The Times reported.

The Ministry of Defence insisted the move was backed by the US, which it said is “intimately involved” in discussions about the British withdrawal.

London, Aug 15: Right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange which has close links to Conservative Party leader David Cameron’s inner circle, is facing legal action for accusing British mosques of distributing extremist literature.

The Independent has learnt that the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in west London has hired the law firm Carter Ruck to sue the think-tank for defamation.

An initial complaint will be made “very soon”, The Independent quoted a source close to the case, as saying.

Al-Manaar claims that Policy Exchange fabricated several receipts used as evidence of purchase.

London, Aug 15 : Great grandmother Ivy Bean has become the oldest person on Facebook — at the ‘grand’ age of 102.

While chatting at the care home where she lives, the former mill worker came to know about the internet social networking site.

She told them: “I’d like to have a go.”

Now the sprightly widow keeps in touch with friends and family via emails.

Carers set up her group site, Oldest person on Facebook — Ivy Bean, and began posting news and videos about her.

Ivy, who is slightly deaf but still bright as a button, said: “I heard about Facebook and wanted to know what it was about.”

“I love being online and it beats writing with a pen,” The Sun quoted her, as saying.

London, Aug 15 : British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is preparing to offer one of his best friends a key job in Downing Street to help him to mastermind the Government’s autumn fight-back.

Wilf Stevenson, who was previously the head of the controversial charity the Smith Institute, is being lined up as a strategy adviser to the Prime Minister and is expected to help draft radical new policies to win back voters.