Tzipi Livni, the leader of Israel's ruling Kadima party, has come from relative political obscurity to within sight of the prime ministership within just 10 years.

Ammon Shea spent a year reading the Oxford English Dictionary - 20 volumes, 21,730 pages and 59 million words - and he rates poring over a dictionary as enriching as a novel. Why? To find the word "unbepissed", for one thing.

Was it a boat? Was it a plane? A bit of both in fact. The Ekranoplan is one of the more obscure products of the fight for technological supremacy in the Cold War. Nigel Paterson recounts its secret history.

A London council must buy a park for more than 100 times its true value because of an obscure wartime law.

A driver is found unconscious almost a day after her car overturns and is left obscured by the side of the road in Dorset.

First a shortage of sheep - now the wet summer is blamed for obscuring Dorset's Cerne Abbas giant.

Widely used anti-spam tools are helping to convert crumbling books and other documents into accurate digital copies.

Heavy smog shrouds Beijing's main Olympic Stadium, just four days before the Games begin.

The advent of digital downloads has made life tough for record companies. But as cult Libyan artist Ahmed Fakroun has found, they can also rescue careers after years of obscurity.

The advent of digital downloads has made life tough for record companies. But as cult Libyan artist Ahmed Fakroun has found, they can also rescue careers after years of obscurity.

Scientists in St Andrews discover that dust particles are heavily blocking light from distant galaxies.

Our streets bristle with CCTV cameras but tracking suspects requires long trawls through hours of footage. Facial recognition software is one shortcut, as is a new system that tracks clothing logos. How does it work?

Burma's ruling junta lays the blame for two small bomb blasts in Rangoon on an obscure exiled student group.

Whirlwind blows himself out in World Championship bid

At least three people die in a 50-car pile up on a motorway obscured by fog and smoke in the US state of Florida.

Drivers with obscured number plates and dirty lights are targeted in a police crack down.

Sri Lanka close 28 runs ahead of England on 379-4 after three days of the second Test in Colombo.

From penniless obscurity to recognition 250 years after his birth as one of the greatest Britons, how did a mystical outsider like William Blake win a place in our hearts?

An elderly motorist may have died when his view became obscured by the low afternoon sun.

Trees are to be felled on woodland which has begun to obscure historic views between a park and castle.