Papers focus on hunt for Bin Laden

Now that the Taleban has fled Kabul, many of the papers switch attention to the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

On its front page, The Daily Telegraph reports that American forces are "exploiting the Taleban's collapse" by taking the search for Bin Laden into southern Afghanistan.

But the task of finding him is proving a difficult one, according to The Times.

A defence source tells the paper that intelligence on Bin Laden's whereabouts always comes too late, as he continues to move "from place to place" using a variety of vehicles, as well as mules and horses.

The Independent puts forward the theory that Bin Laden may no longer be in Afghanistan.

It says western intelligence agencies have received reports that he may have fled over the border to Pakistan, to be sheltered by "sympathisers in the country's secret service".

But The Sun sounds a more confident note, claiming that "crack SAS troops are closing in on Bin Laden".

It's also one of several papers to report Tony Blair's call for the people of Afghanistan to turn Bin Laden in immediately, pointing out that America is offering a reward of $25m.

Several papers give a vivid illustration of how things have changed in Kabul this week.

Both The Telegraph and The Independent carry a photograph of a young Afghan woman, showing her face for the first time in five years.

Double tragedy

One of the more heart-rending stories to emerge from the aftermath of this week's air crash in New York, appears in The Mirror.

Naomi Gullickson lost her husband in the collapse of the World Trade Center on the 11 September.

As the paper reports, she "turned to her father, Jose Perez, for support", but on Monday he was one of the passengers killed when American Airlines Flight 587 came down in Queens.

The Mirror says that Mrs Gullickson broke down in tears when her three year-old daughter asked "Why is everybody dying?"

Stressed out

According to the Daily Express, scientists have found that young women may have a special hormone which helps them cope better with stress than men.

The paper says that in a memory test, the performance of male college students depended on their level of a hormone, cortisol, produced during stress.

But there was no such correlation in the women. The scientists believe this is because of oestradiol, a female sex hormone, which is showing potential as an anti-stress hormone.

Politically correct Santa

Evidence that political-correctness can still throw up some bizarre situations appears in The Times.

It reports that a department store was told that its advertisement for a Father Christmas was discriminating against women

The Job Centre in Liskeard in Cornwall refused to accept the advertisement until the store's owner wrote a letter explaining why the post was suitable for a male applicant only.

The store contacted the Job Centre to say that the successful applicant, if female, should have "a deep voice, whiskers, a big belly and no readily discernible bosom".

The paper says the Department of Work and Pensions has accepted that this was a "misunderstanding", as there is no problem advertising for a Father Christmas