At a glance

Monster sapphire unveiled in Thailand
KANCHANABURI (THAILAND): A jeweller in western Thailand has unveiled a sapphire the size of a football, one of the largest such precious stones ever found. Jeweller Udom Saeheng said the monster gem, weighing 7.1 kg (15.69 pounds), or about 35,000 carats, was found in Kanchanaburi province about 120 km west of Bangkok. "When we first saw it, we thought it was just a piece of rock, but we tested it thoroughly and found it was a genuine sapphire," she said. Showing the blue-coloured stone to journalists, she declined to say what it might be worth. Large though it is, it is not the biggest sapphire ever found. That distinction probably belongs to Myanmar, where a 63,000-carat star sapphire was unearthed in 1972.

Moscow library goes online
MOSCOW: The Russian State Library has unveiled a books by e-mail system which will allow readers around the globe to read any of its 42 million books, manuscripts and documents at the click of a mouse. Staff at, whatused to be called the Lenin Library said the system would bring the imposing colonnaded library - said to be second only to Washington's Library of Congress in size - up to scratch with other world-class libraries. It has linked its electronic catalogue to the internet and says it will e-mail readers extracts from any of its books within 48 hours of receiving a request.

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