■ United States
Asteroid skims past Earth
An asteroid hurtling through space came within a hair's breadth -- in astronomical terms, at least -- of crashing into the Earth early on Monday, US scientists said. Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14 was discovered by the Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which claims the title of "the world's principal detector of asteroids" said Roger Sudbury, a spokesman for the lab. "We were the discoverer," said Sudbury of the Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14, which passed some 432,000km from the Earth at 0425 GMT. The distance between the two bodies was slightly greater than that between the Earth and the moon -- a close shave in the vastness of outer space.
■ United States
Plan made for Castro's death
The US should be prepared to move quickly to pour aid and advisers into Cuba in the event of Fidel Castro's death, to turn the island away from communist rule, a government report due for release this week will recommend. The report, the second from a group set up by US President George W. Bush three years ago to intensify US pressure for regime change in Cuba, calls for US$80 million to be put aside to step up opposition to Castro. It also warns that US efforts to bring down the communist system that has governed Cuba since 1959 could be undone by Venezuela's leftwing president, Hugo Chavez, who could use his oil wealth to try to continue Castro's legacy.
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