In a rather telling move, Microsoft has for the first time ever, allowed third parties to produce themes for the company's flagship operating system, Windows 7, thanks to a new scheme called "Windows 7 Theme Experiences".

Companies like Pepsi, Coca Cola, Ferrari, Infiniti or Twentieth Century Fox have been given unprecedented access to the Windows 7 desktop in an apparent bid by Microsoft to lure advertising money and help global brand names "connect with consumers".

Darren Huston, corporate vice president of the company's consumer and online group, said in a statement that "The new Windows Theme Experience and Windows Personalization Gallery in Windows 7 allow consumers to customize their technology to reflect the things in life they are most passionate about."

Microsoft has also confirmed that selected companies will be able to add their logos to Windows 7 and Vista gadgets as well as IE8 add-ons and themes packages that includes backgrounds (and nothing much).

PARIS (Reuters) - An Internet company that planned to throw envelopes of cash to passers-by from the top of a bus in Paris had to cancel the publicity stunt for security reasons after thousands of people turned up, police said on Saturday.

About 5,000 people gathered near the Eiffel Tower, with groups spilling into neighboring streets and bursting through crowd barriers before the planned handout of banknotes by the online marketing company Mailorama.fr.

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Police in riot gear were called in and there were around 10 arrests.

"We couldn't anticipate that there would be so many people," Stephane Boukris, a spokesman for the organizers told France Info radio.

LONDON (Reuters) - Alison Cooper is set to become the second youngest female chief executive of a FTSE 100 company as she looks to put sales growth at the top of her agenda for the world's No 4 cigarette group Imperial Tobacco Plc (IMT.L)

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 13 (IPS) - When the U.N. children's agency (UNICEF) commemorates the 20th anniversary of its landmark international treaty protecting the rights of children next week, there will be two countries skipping the celebrations: the United States and Somalia.

"It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land," presidential candidate Barack Obama said last year during his election campaign.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was adopted unanimously by the United Nations back in 1989, will be 20 years old on Nov. 20.

Described as the world's most rapidly and universally ratified human rights treaty, the Convention has been ratified by 193 states.

But the only two countries that have not ratified the treaty have nothing in common.

"Somalia is understandable," Kul Gautam, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general and ex-UNICEF deputy executive director, told IPS.

The researchers have now found new evidence that suggests the society would not have been so easily destroyed if they had not cut down the forests around them.

Analysing plant remains and pollen in soil 1.5m deep, the team was able to trace an important sequence of events which show the clearing of woodland for agriculture.

"At the bottom of the profile there is a lot of huarango pollen and little evidence of human impact," explains Dr Alex Chepstow-Lusty from the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima, Peru who also took part in the study.

"Then, at 80cm deep, maize pollen becomes common, showing the importance of this crop, suggesting a greater need for food and an increasing population," he says.

"It is now we notice a big impact on the huarangos and a major decrease in their pollen."

"Then suddenly corresponding with the El Nino event at AD500 or shortly afterwards, the pollen is dominated by weeds in the family Chenopodiaceae, which are adapted to salty conditions and this landscape is now the desert seen today."