By Jerome Starkey,
in Maywand, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province
Scotsman
11 August 2008

ONE of Afghanistan's most wanted drug lords is on the run after escaping a massive airborne assault by British paratroopers, American Green Berets and elite Afghan commandos.

The opium baron Mullah Multan, who has close links to the Taleban, fled along underground tunnels after hundreds of Nato troops stormed into his headquarters in southern Afghanistan last week.

It was the biggest raid against an Afghan drugs target since 2001, but the troops failed to make any significant arrests.

Kandahar Province

Afghan commandos, from the country's counter-narcotics force, and troops from 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, spearheaded the operation, code-named Operation Southern Beast, by swooping on a series of compounds at the heart of Multan's heroin empire.

The troops were backed up by unmanned Predator drones, fighter jets and Apache gunships.

( >>Continued )

By Russell Jackson
Scotsman
11 August 2008

SCIENTISTS have stumbled on a material that could turn science fiction into reality – a material that makes objects invisible.

Ever since the author HG Wells' novella of 1897, The Invisible Man, the story of a scientist rendered invisible by a potion, researchers have been intrigued by the notion of invisibility.

Now scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have engineered a material that for the first time can bend light around three dimensional objects making them "disappear."

The research – funded by the American military – paves the way for stealth tanks, aircraft and even warships that can disappear from enemy soldiers' sight.

( >>Read on )

The UK's first hand transplant and Europe's first voicebox transplant are being planned by British doctors, the Daily Telegraph has learned.

Photos and story here.