Sir Paul Callaghan, a top New Zealand scientist who gained international recognition for his work in molecular physics, has died after a long battle with bowel cancer. He was 64.
His death was announced yesterday in Wellington.
Sir Paul was best known for his work with magnetic resonance.
An outspoken public intellectual, Sir Paul argued in favour of commercialising science.
In 2004, he founded Magritek, a Wellington-based company that used magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear magnetic resonance for industrial and research applications. (PA)
Slovenian PM charged with libel
A Ljubljana court has filed an indictment against Slovenia’s centre-right prime minister Janez Jansa for libel over allegations he made against a prosecutor, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The premier accused Branka Zobec Hrastar of forging evidence and abusing her position in a bribery case over a €278 million deal with Finnish company Patria signed by Jansa and his government in 2006.
Jansa is on trial in the Patria affair, which was Slovenia’s biggest ever defence deal, but has dismissed the case and the allegations against him as a farce.
The Delo newspaper said Ljubljana district court had confirmed an indictment was filed last month against Jansa’s lawyer Franci Matoz and “another unidentified person” for libel and false charges against Zobec Hrastar.
“The other unidentified person is nobody else but Jansa,” Delo reported, quoting unnamed sources. (AFP)
Woman to marry murdered soldier
The pregnant girlfriend of a French soldier killed in a dramatic gun rampage will marry her partner in a posthumous ceremony, a family lawyer says.
Lawyer Gilbert Collard says that 21-year-old Caroline Monet will marry Abel Chennouf, who was shot dead at a cash machine in the town of Montauban near Toulouse earlier this month.
The 25-year-old soldier was one of seven people allegedly gunned down by Mohamed Merah, a French citizen who claimed to be acting as an Al-Qaeda foot soldier.
Such ceremonies are unusual but not unheard of in France, where the law allow posthumous marriages in cases where a fiancé dies before the wedding. The law states that such weddings can only be approved by the French president “in grave circumstances”. (PA)
Anger at playing of spoof anthem
Kazakhstan has called the playing of a spoof of its national anthem at an international sporting event “a scandal”, and demanded an investigation.
Maria Dmitrienko won a gold medal for Kazakhstan last Thursday at the Arab Shooting Championships in Kuwait, but during the awards ceremony the public address system broadcast the spoof anthem from the 2006 film Borat, starring Sacha Baron Cohen, which offended many Kazakhs by portraying the country as backwards and degenerate. (PA)
Magazine in pregnant cover row
A pregnant Jessica Simpson on the cover of Elle magazine was apparently too much for some customers of a Tucson Safeway store, where a worker covered it with cardboard.
The April edition features the photo of the singer/actress/ fashion designer with one hand over her breast and another wrapped around her nude belly.
The Arizona Daily Star reported the manager of the store received multiple complaints, prompting a worker to cover the image with cardboard. (PA)