Just two short days left until the much-talked about G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland kicks off. British Prime Minister Tony Blair is hosting the meeting of the world's eight largest industrialized nations (Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the US, Britain, Canada and Russia). Aid for Africa is at the top of the agenda  with global warming and terrorism figuring prominently as well. Geldof -- likely pooped from putting on 10 concerts around the world in order to call attention to Africa -- will be there. But, the oodles of protestorss showing up with their own very long agendas are not exactly welcome guests. Many are anti-globalists and some are just tagging along for the ride. Guardian correspondent Matthew Tempest  (who spent several weeks as a fellow at SPIEGEL Online) is on scene with colorful accounts of what's really going on.

Puzzle Addiction

A new puzzle is taking England by storm.>The puzzle is said to be so addictive that it will keep you up all hours of the day and night. Certainly it will hamper any attempt to do a proper day's work. Its genius lies in its simplicity. Players must enter numbers into a grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9. A number of digits are already entered onto the grid to help you and there is only one solution. Puzzles range from the simple to the mind-bogglingly difficult. 

The first puzzle  appeared in The Times in November 2004, brought to the UK by Wayne Gould, a retired judge, who became fascinated by Su Doku having discovered it in a Japanese puzzle book seven years earlier. The game of logic quickly achieved an avid following, which prompted many other British newspapers to follow suit and publish their own puzzles. Puzzle games, as exemplified by the crossword, breed loyal readers, who prefer to complete the same type of puzzle each day and therefore stick to the same newspaper. Newspaper editors desperate to sell more newspapers realized they had struck gold, and a Su Doku war ensued.

The publishing phenomenon shows no sign of abating. Newspapers, books, websites and mobile phone  companies have embraced the puzzle with undisguised glee. One bright spark has even invented a puzzle solver , to aid the lazy or assist the canny in winning a myriad of prizes offered by publishers for the correct solution. The puzzle now looks set to conquer the world, with American newspapers looking to get in on the act. A craze is born.

Take Three for Ground Zero

The third time, famously, is the charm. That, at least, is what New York officials are hoping. On Wednesday, a new design (the third) for the tower to be erected on Ground Zero in Manhattan, was unveiled. If built, the 1,775-foot skyscraper would be the tallest in the United States and would cost an estimated $1.5 billion to build. But, the new design  of the so-called "Freedom Tower" -- by architect David Childs -- is supposed to be much safer than the last, designed by Berlin architect Daniel Libeskind. Its base is further back from the sidewalk -- to prevent truck bombs -- and the foundation will be reinforced. While the design is intended to evoke the grace of the original, not everyone is happy with it.  Indeed, it loses almost all the mystique of the Libeskind original . But New York governor George E. Pataki isn't one of them. "New Yorkers have always reached for the sky," he said at a Wednesday press conference. "And we'll never stop."