> Schoolkids to get classes in plane

Primary school pupils could soon be given geography lessons in a 40-seat private jet.

The children’s teachers plan to install the £35,000 static aircraft in a playing field and kit it out with touchscreen TVs and a glass floor.

Google Earth images would then be played in and under it to give the sensation of flying.

‘If we said, “Let’s visit the rainforest”, we could use technology in the plane to make it look like they were there,’ said David Lawrence, headteacher at Kingsland Primary School in Stoke-on-Trent.

> Singapore appears affected by damaged undersea cables “SMW4″

Over a week ago, news emerged that three undersea cables on the Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4 (SMW4) system had been damaged. Several countries reported disruption in Internet and telephone services due to the fault, although SingTel–one of the 16 telcos that developed the system–told ZDNet Asia that Singapore was unaffected.

However, a ZDNet Asia reader going by the name of Toh, sent a traceroute report Monday via e-mail, stating: “It appears traffic going through SingTel’s network through Europe is affected. [Traffic] going through the [Los Angeles] link appears OK.“

Traceroute is a widely-available tool deployed to determine the path taken by data packets as they move across an Internet Protocol (IP) network. A similar tool is available on Windows platforms, called tracert.

According to recent reports online, India’s Bharti has redirected traffic away from the affected SMW4 to the i2i cable, which it co-owns with SingTel.

An IDG News Service report said India’s Reliance Globalcom’s traffic was automatically diverted via the Pacific, but a spokesperson noted that customers might face slower connection to European sites.

Outages seem to have hit the Middle East region more severely, with communications between the Middle East and Europe and Asia seriously affected over the past week.

A recent report from The National said a representative from UAE-based telco, Etisalat said repairs along the cable system stretched beyond Thursday, as initially projected, because of complications in a cable located off Egypt.

The report said Internet providers in the UAE have been redirecting traffic to Asia and the United States, with bandwidth-heavy activities such as video streaming and online gaming, temporarily blocked to keep overall service afloat.

SingTel could not be reached for comments by press time.

> Woman claims ‘Merry Christmas’ got her fired

A Christian woman claims she was fired from her job because she greeted callers with “Merry Christmas,” but the vacation rental company says it’s no Scrooge and the woman is just a disgruntled employee.

Tonia Thomas, 35, said she refused to say “Happy Holidays” and was fired, even after offering to use the company’s non-holiday greeting. The Panama City woman filed a federal complaint that accuses the company of religious discrimination. She is seeking compensation for lost wages.

“I hold my core Christian values to a high standard and I absolutely refuse to give in on the basis of values. All I wanted was to be able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ or to acknowledge no holidays,” she said Tuesday. “As a Christian, I don’t recognize any other holidays.”

Thomas said she is Baptist.

Her former employer, Counts-Oakes Resorts Properties Inc., said she wasn’t fired for saying “Merry Christmas,” but would not elaborate.

“We are a Christian company and we celebrate Christmas,” said Andy Phillips, the company’s president. Thomas is “a disgruntled employee,” presenting a one-sided version of what happened when she was fired Dec. 10, Phillips said.

Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based legal group that advocates for people discriminated against because of their religion, is representing Thomas before the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. Their complaint also accuses the company of harassing and taunting Thomas after she was fired by calling the police to watch her pack her belongs and leave.

Thomas could have hard time winning the case, said G. Thomas Harper, a Jacksonville-based labor attorney who writes a newsletter on Florida employment law.

“I wouldn’t think an employee has the right to insist (on saying Merry Christmas) unless that really is a tenet of their faith. She would have to make a strong case that was part of her beliefs, if not, it becomes insubordination,” he said.

Thomas has found another job, but she makes less than the $10.50 an hour she earned with the rental company. She said the trauma of being fired and the pay cut has made for a tough holiday season for herself, her husband and their 6-year-old son.

Harper said when it comes to holiday greetings, the smartest choice might be ignoring the season.

“The best option is just not to say anything,” he said.

> ‘Human igloo’ saves woman’s life

A woman managed to survive for three days buried deep in snow – by acting like a giant human igloo.

Donna Molnar, 55, was last seen on Friday when she left her home west of Toronto in a snowstorm to get baking supplies.

Her van was found abandoned by the side of a windswept rural road late the next day.