WASHINGTON: For the first time since its inception, the United Nations Development Programme will have a non-American head - Mark Malloch Brown, the UN and the World bank have announced. The appointment of Brown, World Bank president James Wolfensohn's image-builder, is widely viewed as punishment for the US for its failure to give its assessed contributions to the UN on time. Brown, a Briton, however, sought to console the Americans, saying in an interview to The Washington Times: ``I am married to an American and work in the (United) States.''

At the same time, Brown, said: ``I am not altogether happy at efforts to paint me as the American candidate. Look, I have a lot more mud of humanitarianism on these boots than legend would have it. I am not a puppet of World Bank or the US. I am a UN guy, an international guy who has spent his whole career moving around the field."

Benazir gets a reprieve

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's top election commission on Saturday adjournedproceedings to disqualify from parliament former premier Benazir Bhutto and her jailed husband, sentenced to five-year imprisonment in a corruption case, thus allowing the opposition leader some time to appeal against the high court verdict in the supreme court. Following a request from Benazir's lawyers, chief election commissioner Abdul Qadeer Choudhury fixed May 17 the next date for hearing the disqualification references, fowarded by Pakistani parliament, against the former premier and her husband Asif Ali Zardari. Benazir, who is currently in London and faces immediate arrest on her arrival in Pakistan, has announced she would not return to the country until supreme court gives its verdict on her appeal.

Giant radio telescope

BEIJING: China is to build the world's largest radio telescope which will help provide global, round-the-clock remote control and communication services.

The ambitious project incorporates a 500-metre diametre spherical radio telescope located in the Karst valley insouth west China's Guizhou province, Xinhua News Agency said on Saturday.

According to a researcher with the Beijing astronomical observatory, Nan Rendong, a number of small spherical glass sections, which can be adjusted by computers, will be assembled in the valley to form a 300-metre effective aperture for the telescope.

``The sensitive and high resolution telescope will help in China's deep-space exploration project,'' Nan said.

It will also make up for the gap in longitude between the current three deep-space exploration and sensing stations, which are located in the US, Spain and Australia, providing global, round-the-clock remote control and communication services, Nan said.

Major discovery

WASHINGTON: Scientists comparing newly found rock formations in Brazil with similar volcanic rocks on three other continents have discovered the most widespread lava flows in earth's history.

The massive eruptions 200 million years ago tore apart the ancient continent of Pangea and may have causeda mass extinction of animals, the researchers report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

On Saturday, remnants of this event include the new Brazilian find as well as other formations in South America, West Africa, Spain and North America among them, the towering palisades along New York's Hudson river.

The previously unrecognized area of ancient lava flow covers about 2,500,000 square km in the Amazon basin. An analysis of the newly found rocks showed the eruption occurred at the same time and had the same origin as lava flows found on the other continents, said Paul Renne of the University of California at Berkeley.