US issues global travel alert, cites al Qaeda threat
WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, Aug 3, (AFP) -Fears of an Al-Qaeda terror strike prompted the United States to issue a worldwide travel alert and order its embassies across the Islamic world temporarily closed. Germany and Britain meanwhile announced that their embassies in the Arab and Muslim country of Yemen would be closed on Sunday and [...]
Bollywood’s Priyanka Chopra targets stereotypes in Hollywood
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra has a higher mission than just making it in Hollywood: she wants to break down stereotypes of Indians in Tinseltown’s eyes and maybe make things easier for her compatriots who live in the United States.Here’s her first lesson: “We don’t travel on elephants, there aren’t any snake [...]
Diplomatic push to resolve Egypt crisis
CAIRO, Aug 03, (AFP) – A senior US envoy held talks in Egypt Saturday amid efforts to find a peaceful solution to the stand-off between supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi and the army-installed interim government.Deputy Secretary of State William Burns met Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy hours after seeing members of Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood [...]
India condemns suicide raid on mission in Afghanistan
NEW DELHI, Delhi province, Aug 3 (AFP) -India strongly condemned a deadly suicide bomb assault on its consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad on today,, vowing the raid would not stop it from helping rebuild the war-torn nation.Suicide bombers detonated an explosives-packed car, killing nine civilians, including seven children, in a nearby mosque. The [...]
Rowhani officially takes office as Iran president
TEHRAN, Aug 3 (AFP) – Moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani assumed Iran’s presidency at a ceremony today after receiving a formal endorsement from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “There is a clear message in electing a competent individual with more than three decades of service to the (Islamic republic’s) establishment,” Khamenei said in a statement. “He hails [...]
Mugabe wins poll landslide, opposition cries foul
HARARE, Aug 03, (AFP) – Zimbabwe’s 89-year-old Robert Mugabe romped to victory in presidential and parliamentary polls today, but his longtime foe Morgan Tsvangirai vowed to boycott the government formed by the “fraudulent” vote. The veteran leader scored another five years in office, extending his 33-year rule with a landslide 61 percent of the vote, against [...]
China swelters in the worst heatwave in 140 years
Now here’s a novel way of putting scorching temperatures to good use, while having the added benefit of cutting down on spiralling energy bills. It has been so hot in China that eggs are hatching without incubators, people are grilling shrimp on manhole covers and a highway billboard has mysteriously caught fire by itself. The [...]
Gitmo prisoners clamour for ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’
(Reuters) – The “Fifty Shades of Grey” series of erotic novels are the favorite reading material among “high-value” prisoners at the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba, a U.S. congressman said. Representative Jim Moran of Virginia was among congressional delegates who last week toured Camp 7, the top-security facility that holds more than a dozen “high-value” [...]
Hong Kong billionaire plans US$ 3.7 billion”man-made wonder of the world”
SYDNEY, New South Wales (AFP) – A Chinese billionaire has revealed plans for a Aus$4.2 billion (US$3.7 billion) tropical resort and casino in Australia which he says will be a “man-made wonder of the world”. The Queensland state government confirmed Friday it has streamlined the approval process for Tony Fung’s Aquis project near Cairns, plans [...]
Have we found the ‘holy grail’ in cutting emissions?
Scientists believe they have achieved the ‘holy grail’ of the green economy by designing a hydrogen production plant that can split water with sunlight. The University of Colorado at Boulder envisages an array of mirrors that would focus sunlight onto a central tower several hundred feet tall. The tower would heat up to around 1,350 °C [...]
Broccoli’s a wonder vegetable
Scientists who made people eat broccoli every day for three months discovered that a chemical found solely in the vegetable helps maintain the health of the tiny ‘batteries’ which power the body’s cells. This, it is thought, helps ward off health problems including cancer and heart disease. Scientists from the Institute of Food Research in [...]
Many teens have permanent ringing in the ears
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – One in five high schoolers has permanent ringing in the ears, and few take measures to protect their ears from loud music, according to a new study. Those numbers are surprisingly similar to results of a study of college-aged adults, said lead author Annick Gilles, a clinical audiologist at Antwerp [...]
Climate change is ‘strongly linked’ to conflict and violence
Climate change is strongly linked to human conflict and violence worldwide, according to a new study. Researchers found even relatively minor departures from normal temperature or rainfall substantially increased the risk of conflict in ancient times as well as today. The results cover all major regions of the world and show similar patterns whether looking [...]
‘Comet of the Century’ already may have fizzled out
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Astronomers slated to meet this week to discuss observing plans for Comet ISON may not have much to talk about. The so-called “Comet of the Century” may already have fizzled out. “The future of comet ISON does not look bright,” astronomer Ignacio Ferrin, with the University of Antioquia in Colombia, [...]
Paradise lost
France, Spain and Belgium might not be the obvious places to look for human rights infringements but according to Amnesty International, many popular holiday spots aren’t quite the paradise they appear to be. The countries all appear on a list of destinations described by the charity as concealing a “darker world of tragedy and human [...]
Dark tourism brings light to disaster zones
RIKUZENTAKATA, Japan (AFP) – Before the huge tsunami virtually wiped it off the map in 2011, Rikuzentakata’s pristine beach and luxuriant pine forests were a well-worn stop on Japan’s tourist trail. Now the visitors are coming back, but this time they want to see the devastation and the monuments to those who died, the latest [...]
US politicians and the death of shame
Sex scandals used to doom a politician. Now, they refuse to back down from evidence of dirty deeds. Have we reached a new age of American politics? With the volume turned down, the latest campaign advertisement from Anthony Weiner feels more like a hostage video. He looks tired and haggard, as if he has not [...]
Russians smell something fishy in Putin’s latest stunt
MOSCOW (Reuters) – There was a time when Vladimir Putin’s macho antics inspired pride among Russians, but many are finding it hard to believe the president’s latest stunt – catching a huge pike in Siberia. Video footage released by the Kremlin last week showed Putin dressed in camouflage fatigues and sunglasses, fishing, driving a motorboat [...]
Australia’s election campaign is driven by barbarism that dare not speak its name
July 30, 2013 “Information Clearing House – The election campaign in Australia is being fought with the lives of men, women and children. Some drown, others are banished without hope to malarial camps. Children are incarcerated behind razor wire in conditions described as “a huge generator of mental illness”. This barbarism is considered a vote-winner [...]
What America wants in Egypt: A liberal democracy
Both the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s liberal opposition are roundly criticising the United States. That is hard on Ambassador Anne Patterson, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, who just visited Cairo. But it is also evidence that the US is trying to pursue the right policy. The US is [...]
Women in workplace: Through the lookism glass
NEW YORK – Do women suffer from a double standard in the workplace in relation to how they look? Have we gotten past the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) shade of sexism in hiring and promotion — disproportionately affecting women — that I identified in 1991 as “the professional beauty quotient”? It is hard to believe [...]
Religion and phobia: A case of interdependency
No one is born with a religion. The luckier among us are not even born into a religion; some of us are given the very necessary but hardly given choice of believing what we want to believe. It is for a person to choose what he or she wants to believe and being born into [...]
