World Vignettes — Church rejects Gay marriages

The vote came a day after the presiding Bishop Edmond Browning reminded clergy and laymen of his request a dozen years ago that they make everyone welcome. “It was Jesus, not me, who said there would be no outcasts,” Browning told more than 1,100 church leaders and nearly 10,000 visitors attending the 10-day episcopal general convention.

Huge church bell

MOSCOW: A massive bell was raised to the top of the newly rebuilt Christ The Savior cathedral on Saturday as Moscow’s mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the head of the Russian orthodox church looked on.

The raising of the ceremonial bell weighing more than 27 tonne, the largest cast in Russia in this century, marked yet another step toward completion of a church that dominates the Moscow river skyline near the Kremlin. The church will have 14 bells in all.

The project is to be virtually completed by this fall, in time for celebrations marking Moscow’s 850th anniversary.

Queen `webhead’

LONDON: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has become a “webhead” and regularly surfs the internet from Buckingham Palace, it was reported today.

After a year of coaching by her husband Prince Philip, the Queen, 71, has become a dab hand at navigating the information superhighway and even sending e-mails to a few select subjects, The Sunday Times said. The Queen is particularly keen on conversing with highly placed confidantes around the country and the Commonwealth, the paper reported.

Computer implants

OTTAWA: Researchers are developing an electronic device the size of a grain of rice that may eventually help paralysed people walk.

Although the project is yet far off, for now, researchers say that within a year they will be able to use glass and metal capsules containing computer chips to alleviate shoulder pain for a trial group of stroke patients. It is generally felt that this breakthrough has immense possibilities including therapy for incontinence to treating spinal cord injuries.

Old warship

MASSACHUSETTS: The last time USA Constitution sailed into Marblehead harbor under its own power, the warship was under full sail fleeing a pair of British frigates during the war of 1812. The 200-year-old wooden ship returns today, under tow but on the way to its first voyage in more than a century. “Just the fact that…she’s alive and well is remarkable overwhelming in a way,” said David Cashman, who commanded the ship nicknamed `old ironsides’ because it deflected cannonballs so easily from 1987 to 1991.