S?stien Loeb has capped a perfect season by clinching the world championship with second place at Rally Japan

S?stien Loeb has capped a "perfect season" by clinching the world championship with second place at Rally Japan. The Citro?driver needed to finish in the top three to secure his second world title and end the slim hopes of Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg. He had been on course to do that all weekend but received an unexpected boost when Solberg crashed his Subaru out of the lead to promote Loeb to second place."It is fantastic," said Loeb, who finished over a minute behind winner Gronholm's Peugeot. But he was not dismayed at being denied another chance to secure a top-six placing in the second event. "It was the correct decision to abandon the second race," Martin said "There was no grip and a lot of standing water. This is the kind of circuit where, if someone crashes, the bike or the rider ends up in the middle of the track. As there was no vision, it would have been asking for trouble."Valentino Rossi scored his 10th victory of the season in Saturday's MotoGP round at Qatar, but only after fellow Italian Marco Melandri had come close to his first win in the series.Melandri pushed his Telefonica Honda inside Rossi's Gauloises Yamaha on the final lap, but ran wide on the exit from the corner and finished second..

Help them develop road-sense by travelling as much as possible by foot. "Battery-reared" children will lack confidence as they grow up. Researchers have found a link between children who become victims of bullying and the protectiveness of their parents.. Troy Corser gave Suzuki their first ever win in the 18-year history of the World Superbike Championship when he finished second in the Italian Grand Prix at Imola yesterday. Corser, riding for Belgium's Alstare Corona team, managed the unusual feat of taking his second world title almost a decade after he first won the Superbike title in 1996 on a Ducati.Chris Vermeulen, riding the Winston Ten Kate Honda, beat Corser in the first race yesterday to be 55 points behind his rival. Vermeulen still had a theoretical chance of taking the title with three races to go, but yesterday's second race was cancelled due to torrential rain, handing the championship to Corser.Yamaha's Noriyuki Haga finished third, while Britain's outgoing world champion James Toseland had to settle for fourth place when he ran off the track on his Xerox Ducati.Steve Martin achieved the best result of the season for Carl Fogarty's Foggy Petronas FP1 team when he claimed fifth place in his 100th finish in a World Superbike race. Give them a chance to know their physical limits through tree-climbing and other outdoor play. Fewer than one child in a million is killed by "stranger danger" each year, and today's children are more secure than ever before Children learn to be safe through experience.

Remember your own childhood and the enjoyment of getting dirty, and playing without adult supervision Try to resist media scare-mongering. The more we and our children get out and use streets, parks and public spaces, the safer everyone will be Get out with your children Let them see you enjoying the outdoors Join together for outings with other families Let children roam together. The full version of this article appears in the October 2005 issue of 'The Ecologist' magazine. www.theecologist What you can do Parents as well as policy-makers have a part to play in giving their children the chance to enjoy nature There's safety in numbers. We parents also have the power to resist the seductions of consumerism and play our part in restoring to children some of the freedoms we took for granted when we were young. We can say "no" a little more, switch off the screens and direct our children's curious eyes to some altogether more expansive vistas ©2005 Tim Gill.

Having been part of the original campaign to introduce home-zones to the UK a decade ago, I recently surveyed some 40 schemes to assess their impact. More than half reported more children walking, cycling and playing in the street. Intriguingly, some schemes have also seen falling crime-rates and rising levels of community activity in the form of litter collections, festivals and street parties. Some communities have gone even further and worked with local councils to create "home zones": people-friendly streets, based on continental designs, where the street-space is transformed from a car corridor to a shared space in which people can meet, children can play and the driver is a guest. Many communities are crying out for safer streets with lower speed-limits and less traffic. A growing alliance of environmental, road safety, and children's agencies has signed up to "20's plenty" , the call for a standard speed limit of 20 mph in residential areas. Exciting outdoor environments are all very well, but children have to be able to get to them.