Sunday Times 2
Oscar’s red carpet to exude sophistication, not sex
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – When actresses sashay down the red carpet before the Oscars ceremony today, they are expected to be wearing gowns exuding glamour and sophistication, not flesh-exposing jaw-droppers. Performers at this month’s Grammys were issued a “wardrobe advisory” ahead of the big music awards show, telling them to cover up and keep buttocks, nipples [...]
Sunday Times 2
Obama, Japan PM firm on N.Korea, cautious on China
WASHINGTON (AFP) -US President Barack Obama pledged with Japan’s new leader to take a firm line on a defiant North Korea but the two sides also tried to calm rising tensions between Tokyo and China. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe carefully avoided disagreements with Obama after previous Japanese governments’ rifts and declared: “The alliance between Japan [...]
Sunday Times 2
China admits polluted ‘cancer villages’
BEIJING, Feb 23 (AFP) -China’s environment ministry has acknowledged the existence of “cancer villages”, after years of assertions by academics and domestic media that polluted areas experience higher rates of the disease. “Poisonous and harmful chemical materials have brought about many water and atmosphere emergencies… certain places are even seeing ‘cancer villages’,” said a five-year [...]
Sunday Times 2
Pakistani Shiites demand trial of extremist leader
QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 23 (AFP) -Pakistani Shiites demanded that the head of a banned Sunni militant group be put on trial, a day after he was arrested following deadly sectarian attacks in the city of Quetta. Malik Ishaq, the leader of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), was held on Friday after two recent bombings in the southwestern city targeting [...]
Sunday Times 2
UN gave cholera to Haiti but won’t compensate
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2013 (IPS) – The United Nations has come under heavy political fire for its decision to deny compensation for thousands of victims of cholera in Haiti – a deadly disease spread by UN peacekeepers in the troubled Caribbean nation. “The decision is really outrageous,” Michael Ratner of the Centre [...]
Sunday Times 2
Food threat to human civilisation
By Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich PALO ALTO – Humanity faces a growing complex of serious, highly interconnected environmental problems, including much-discussed challenges like climate change, as well as the equally or more serious threat to the survival of organisms that support our lives by providing critical ecosystem services such as crop pollination [...]
Sunday Times 2
India to launch mission to Mars this year, says president
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India will launch its first mission to Mars this year, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Thursday, as the emerging Asian nation looks to play catch up in the global space race alongside the United States, Russia and its giant neighbour China. “Several space missions are planned for 2013, including India’s first mission [...]
Sunday Times 2
The real end of the world
Higgs Boson calculations suggest that a ‘bubble’ of an alternative universe will destroy us BOSTON (Reuters) – Scientists are still sorting out the details of last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson particle, but add up the numbers and it’s not looking good for the future of the universe, scientists said Monday. “If you use all [...]
Sunday Times 2
Facebook and Google create ‘new Nobel prize’
By Emily Davies Google and Facebook founders and their spouses have set aside their rivalries to create the most lucrative prize in science history – more than double the value of the Nobel prize. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki have joined forces [...]
Sunday Times 2
Have hired guns finally scuppered Somali pirates?
Merchant vessels hire private contractors who carry M-16-type assault rifles often picked up from ships acting as offshore armouries near Sri Lanka and Djibouti ABOARD RMS QUEEN MARY (Reuters) – Posted between septuagenarian passengers in deck chairs, lookouts stand watch over the Gulf of Aden, scanning the horizon for pirates. After more than half a decade [...]
Sunday Times 2
US town linked to Scottish village hopes ‘Boring and Dull Day’ will lure visitors
It is perhaps not the most enticing of prospects. But the town of Boring, in the US state of Oregon, ‘twinned’ with a Scottish village called Dull, is hoping an official Boring and Dull Day will lure visitors. Based on their mundane names, the two communities formed an international partnership last year in a bid to [...]
