stray bullets

Tinker, tailor, soldier, defector — John le Carré: I nearly left the West John le Carré, the espionage writer, has revealed that he was tempted to defect to the Soviet Union during the cold war.... Le Carré’s remarks are particularly intriguing because his own career as a secret agent was in effect destroyed by the treachery of Kim Philby, the double agent.

Briton was safe-cracker for Osama Bin Laden and Idi Amin He described the Al-Q'aeda head as "friendly" and the Ugandan dictator as "fun". I heard a rumor that when Osama was training with the CIA in the U.S. during the Russia-Afghanistan War that he was known as Tim Osmond. When the first "Wanted" photos were released in the late 1990s, some CIA officers were reported to have said, "Hey, that's Tim!"

Stephen Hawking to unveil strange new way to tell the time Prof Stephen Hawking is to unveil a remarkable £1 million clock with no hands that pays tribute to the world's greatest clockmaker.

Hurricane Ike's Sprawl a Meteorological Mystery Considering the vastly different dangers posed by these storms, it's natural to wonder just why some storms get so big while others stay small, despite having the same hurricane-force winds. Why, in other words, is Ike such a titan? also: History's Worst Storm Surges

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