A TELECOMMUNICATIONS blackout that threw phone and Internet connections in New Zealand into chaos was likely to have been caused by rats, the country's top telecoms company said.
The outage also disrupted banking and air travel and closed the country's stock exchange with communications disrupted throughout much of the country for five hours on June 20.
Rats apparently chewed on a fibre optic cable running up the east side of the North island near the capital Wellington, Telecom New Zealand spokesman John Goulter said.
The problem was compounded when the fibre optic cable on the west side of the island was accidentally cut at the same time by workmen in Taranaki on the west coast.
Communications Minister David Cunliffe downplayed the problem as an accident and said: "I think getting two accidents of this type at the same time is a freak occurrence".
新西全国信公司称，新西日前生全国性信中断事故，致国以及网接，罪魁首有可能是老鼠。
6月20日的信中断事故波及到全国多地区，金融及航空受到影。券交易所也被迫。
新西信公司言人John Goulter称，很明，老鼠咬断了穿越新西北部、首都惠附近的一根光。
与此同，更糟的是，位于北西部的光恰巧被西海岸Taranaki的工人切断了。
通部David Cunliffe 此事描淡写，称只是一个意外，他"我同生个的事故很罕"。
God's mail delivered to Wailing Wall
寄给上帝的邮件
ISRAEL'S postal service this week delivered 1,000 letters addressed to God, his prophets and the messiah, to their presumed address: the Wailing Wall in Old Jerusalem, the holiest Jewish relic in the world.
Mailed since the beginning of the year, the bundles of letters were delivered to the Wailing Wall by postal director Yossi Sheli where a rabbi placed the envelopes between the crevices of the ancient stones.
In December 2003, an Israeli rights group accused the post office of usurping people's privacy for publishing letters written to God on its website.
"I am in awe in front of you and you know how much I love you. Will you help me to stop bickering and become a good little girl?" ran one such letter.
British farmers want 'couch potato' removed from dictionary
英国农民要求将"couch potato"从词典中删除
BRITISH potato farmers were taking to the streets to call for the expression "couch potato" to be struck from the dictionary on the grounds that it harms the vegetable's image.
The British Potato Council wants the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to replace the expression with the term "couch slouch", with protests planned outside parliament in London and the offices of Oxford University Press.
Kathryn Race, head of marketing at the Council, which represents some 4,000 growers and processors, said the group had complained in writing to the OED but had yet to receive a response.
