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The African rivals slide closer to war over their contested border. U.N. chief urges them to avoid a ruinous conflict. By Alsanosi Ahmed, David Lukan and Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles TimesApril 20, 2012

KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sudan and its southern rival slid toward a ruinous war Thursday, with fighting continuing along their contested border and Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir threatening to teach the world’s newest country “a final lesson by force.”

A protracted war between Sudan and South Sudan, which separated peacefully in July, would almost certainly have a devastating civilian toll and seriously damage the oil sector on which both economies depend.

But diplomacy has gotten nowhere, and civilians on both

Continue reading Sudan vows to teach South Sudan ‘a final lesson’

CBS News BEIRUT — Syria’s 4-day-old cease-fire appeared to be quickly eroding Sunday, with regime forces firing dozens of tank shells and mortar rounds at neighborhoods in the opposition stronghold of Homs, hours before the arrival of a first team of U.N. truce monitors.

Even though the overall level of violence has dropped, escalating regime attacks over the weekend raised new doubts about President Bashar Assad’s commitment to a plan by special envoy Kofi Annan to end 13 months of violence and launch talks on Syria’s political future.

Assad accepted the truce deal at the prodding of his main ally, Russia, but his compliance has been limited. He has halted shelling of rebel-held neighborhoods,

Continue reading Truce eroding as first UN monitors head to Syria

Tributes have been paid to Marie Colvin, a Sunday Times journalist, who was killed alongside a French photographer in the besieged Syrian city of Homs.

The Telegraph

Colvin, an American reporter for the British newspaper, and photographer Remi Ochlik both died in the attack.

Shells hit the house in which the two veteran war correspondents were staying, then they were killed by a rocket as they tried to make their escape.

John Witherow, Editor of The Sunday Times:

” Marie was an extraordinary figure in the life of The Sunday Times, driven by a passion to cover wars in the belief that what she did mattered. She believed profoundly that reporting could curtail the

Continue reading Marie Colvin killed in Homs: tributes to Sunday Times journalist

An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit off the east coast of Japan early today. The quake — one of the largest in recorded history — triggered a 23-foot tsunami that battered Japan’s coast, killing hundreds and sweeping away cars, homes, buildings, and boats. Editors note: we’ll post more as the story develops..

See photos at Boston.com

By Bill Roggio

December 26, 2010

Shabaab, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, has called for the global terror group to send more fighters to “expand the East Africa jihad.”

Shabaab’s top spokesman, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, who is also known as Ali Dheere, issued a call for al Qaeda fighters to come to Somalia. Rage made the statement during a joint press conference held in Mogadishu on Friday with Sheikh Abdifatah Mohamed Ali, Hizbul Islam’s spokesman.

“We call on our brothers [Al Qaeda] to come to Somalia and to help us expand the East Africa jihad,” Rage told reporters, according to Garowe Online.

Rage and Ali held the press conference to formally announce Hizbul

Continue reading Shabaab Calls on Al Qaeda to ‘Expand the East Africa Jihad’

By Bill Roggio

December 25, 2010

A female Taliban suicide bomber killed 42 Pakistani civilians in an attack today at a World Food Program ration distribution point in Pakistan’s tribal agency of Bajaur.

The female suicide bomber detonated her vest in the midst of a crowd of more than 300 people waiting at an outside checkpoint for handouts from the World Food Program in Khar, the main town in Bajaur. Those waiting for food were among the internally displaced people who had fled the fighting between the military and the Taliban over the past three years.

Pakistani officials said that 42 people were killed and 72 more were wounded, some critically.

Today’s attack takes

Continue reading Female Suicide Bomber Kills 42 People in Pakistan’s Northwest

By Bill Roggio

December 6, 2010

Taliban suicide bombers killed 50 people and wounded more than 100 in an attack today on a government official’s office in northwestern Pakistan.

A pair of suicide bombers dressed as tribal policemen detonated at the compound of the senior government representative in Ghalalnai, the administrative seat of the tribal agency of Mohmand in Pakistan’s northwest. The first bomber detonated his vest at the gate of the compound, and the second detonated his vest inside the building shortly afterward.

The Taliban bombers targeted a meeting of local administration officials and tribal leaders who have organized in an attempt to raise militias and oppose Taliban rule. Policemen, government officials, tribal

Continue reading Suicide bomber kills 50 in attack on tribal leaders in northwestern Pakistan

By Bill Roggio November 11, 2010

The Taliban took credit for a deadly suicide assault on a police headquarters in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi today. Eighteen people were killed in the attack and more than 100 were wounded.

A Taliban assault team attacked the Crime Investigation Department headquarters in a secured area of Karachi. Taliban fighters armed with assault rifles attacked the building and battled with police before a massive truck bomb was detonated inside the CID compound. The truck bomb, which is estimated to have carried more than 2,000 pounds of explosives, destroyed the building.

Police have confirmed that 18 people have been killed and 115 have been wounded. The death

Continue reading Taliban Kill 18 in Suicide Assault on Police Headquarters in Karachi

By Bill Roggio November 1, 2010

The Islamic State of Iraq, al Qaeda’s front organization, claimed credit for last night’s massacre at a Baghdad church that killed 52 Iraqis. Al Qaeda stated that the attack at the church was launched to avenge the treatment of Muslim women in Egypt.

Al Qaeda fighters armed with suicide vests, assault rifles, and hand grenades, and wearing uniforms of a local security company, attacked the nearby stock exchange, wounding two security guards. The attack on the exchange appeared to be a feint designed to lure security forces to the area while a squad estimated at between five to eight terrorists stormed the Our Lady of Deliverance church

Continue reading Al Qaeda in Iraq Claims Massacre at Christian Church in Baghdad

(AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A gunman who fired shots at a Washington-area Marine Corps museum and is believed to be responsible for three similar incidents may have a grievance against the U.S. Marine Corps, the FBI said Friday.

John Perren, the acting assistant director for the FBI’s Washington field office, said during a press conference that investigators believe the person takes issue with the institution of the Marines, but not those serving in uniform. Perren said the person has made sure no one has been hurt, and authorities don’t believe he wants to harm citizens or Marines.

“We’d like to know what this grievance is and what we can do

Continue reading DC-Area Gunman May Have Grievance Against Marines

NBC News and news services updated 10/29/2010 6:46:31 AM ET

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea exchanged gunfire across their heavily armed border on Friday, the South’s military said.

The North Korean frontline guard post fired two shots at around 5:26 p.m. local time toward a South Korean guard post which returned fire, a joint chiefs of staff official told Reuters.

It was not immediately clear why North Korea fired first, the official said.

There were no South Korean injuries and it was unclear whether it was an accident or an intentional provocation, a military official in Seoul told The Associated Press. He asked not to be identified because he was not authorized

Continue reading North Korea Exchanges Fire with South at Border

By Bill RoggioOctober 8, 2010

The Taliban have murdered the head of Kunduz province, along with 14 other people, in a bombing today at a mosque in the neighboring province of Tahkar. The governor had been outspoken in his opposition to the Taliban and allied terror groups operating in the north.

Governor Muhammad Omar was killed while worshiping during Friday prayers at the Spinghar mosque in Taluqan, the provincial capital of Takhar province, Pajwhok Afghan News reported. Omar regularly attended Friday prayers at the Spinghar mosque. The Taliban are thought to have planted the bomb in the mosque prior to the service, and detonated it during prayers. Among those also killed in the

Continue reading Taliban Assassinate Kunduz Governor in Attack at Mosque

By Bill Roggio

September 3, 2010

The Taliban again struck at religious minorities inside Pakistan, killing 54 people in a car bombing at a protest in Quetta and one more person outside a mosque in Mardan.

In Quetta, a suicide car bomb was detonated in the midst of a Qods Day protest held by Shia Muslims who oppose Israel’s control of Jerusalem. Gunmen then opened fire after the blast. Fifty-four people were killed and nearly 200 were wounded, according to reports from Geo News and Dawn.

In the district of Mardan in Pakistan’s northwest, a suicide bomber detonated outside a Ahmadi mosque in the town of Muslimabad Canal. The suicide bomber was armed with

Continue reading Taliban kill 55 in suicide attacks against religious minorities in Quetta and Mardan

Twenty-nine people were reported killed and more than 200 people were wounded in bombings during religious processions in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore earlier today.

The first blast appears to have been caused by a car bomb, then two suicide bombers detonated among Shia worshipers who were holding a religious procession in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al Almi, another name for the so-called Punjabi Taliban, claimed it carried out the attack, Geo News reported. The Punjabi Taliban includes members and factions of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami. The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in particular is well known for carrying out sectarian terror attacks against minority Shia, Ahmadis, Sufis, and Christians in

Continue reading Punjabi Taliban kill 29 in attacks on religious processions in Lahore

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2010) — A University of Delaware researcher reports that an “ice island” four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962.

“In the early morning hours of August 5, 2010, an ice island four times the size of Manhattan was born in northern Greenland,” said Andreas Muenchow, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering at the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. Muenchow’s research in Nares Strait, between Greenland and Canada, is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Satellite imagery of this remote area at 81 degrees N

Continue reading Greenland Glacier Calves Island Four Times the Size of Manhattan

As Germany’s wild boar population has skyrocketed in recent years, so too has the number of animals contaminated by radioactivity left over from the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown. Government payments compensating hunters for lost income due to radioactive boar have quadrupled since 2007.

It’s no secret that Germany has a wild boar problem. Stories of marauding pigs hit the headlines with startling regularity: Ten days ago, a wild boar attacked a wheelchair-bound man in a park in Berlin; in early July, a pack of almost two dozen of the animals repeatedly marched into the eastern German town of Eisenach, frightening residents and keeping police busy; and on Friday morning, a German highway was closed

Continue reading Radioactive Boar on the Rise in Germany

Key components in the USA Patriot Act are set to expire at the end of the year, but President Barack Obama is seeking to extend them, reversing his stark opposition in the past to the same provisions. "The president's reversal on Patriot Act reform is a major travesty," said Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel for the leading civil rights group ACLU, in an interview with Raw Story. "There have been many, many abuses of power in the last four years."

Continue reading ACLU: Obama’s reversal on Patriot Act reform ‘a major travesty’

Documents long classified but scheduled to be released at the end of 2009 will not see the light of day just yet thanks to the Obama administration, according to a published report.

Continue reading Obama maintains secrecy for ‘millions of pages’ of intel documents

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) — To produce the maximum amount of energy, solar cells are designed to absorb as much light from the Sun as possible. Now researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have suggested — and demonstrated — a counterintuitive concept: solar cells should be designed to be more like LEDs, able to emit light as well as absorb it.

The Berkeley team will present its findings at the Conference on Lasers and Electro Optics (CLEO: 2012), to be held May 6-11 in San Jose, Calif.

“What we demonstrated is that the better a solar cell is at emitting photons, the higher its voltage and the greater the efficiency it can produce,”

Continue reading Solar Cell That Also Shines: Luminescent ‘LED-Type’ Design Breaks Efficiency Record

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2012) — Like special-forces troops laser-tagging targets for a bomber pilot, tiny particles that can be imaged three different ways at once have enabled Stanford University School of Medicine scientists to remove brain tumors from mice with unprecedented accuracy.

In a study published online April 15 in Nature Medicine, a team led by Sam Gambhir, MD, PhD, professor and chair of radiology, showed that the minuscule nanoparticles engineered in his lab homed in on and highlighted brain tumors, precisely delineating their boundaries and greatly easing their complete removal. The new technique could someday help improve the prognosis of patients with deadly brain cancers.

About 14,000 people are diagnosed annually with brain

Continue reading Nanoparticles Home in On Brain Tumors, Boost Accuracy of Surgical Removal

ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2012) — Researchers from the Department of Chemistry at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden, have managed to construct a molecular catalyzer that can oxidize water to oxygen very rapidly. In fact, these KTH scientists are the first to reach speeds approximating those is nature’s own photosynthesis. The research findings play a critical role for the future use of solar energy and other renewable energy sources. Researchers all over the world, including the US, Japan, and the EU, have been working for more than 30 years on refining an artificial form of photosynthesis. The results have varied, but researchers had not yet succeeded in creating a sufficiently rapid

Continue reading Artificial Photosynthesis Breakthrough: Fast Molecular Catalyzer

The council also authorized all necessary measures to protect civilians from attacks by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s forces.

The US, UK, France, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Colombia, South Africa and Portugal voted to approve the resolution, while China, Russia, Brazil, Germany and India abstained.

Celebratory gunfire and horns were heard in Benghazi and Tobruk immediately after the vote.

Sky News correspondent Emma Hurd, in Tobruk, said: “Clearly everybody in this town and further to the west in Benghazi have been watching their televisions waiting for the news from the UN in New York and this is exactly what they wanted to hear.

“They now have that no-fly zone resolution and also the pledge

Continue reading Libya: UN Security Council Approves No-Fly Zone

By Bill Roggio

December 9, 2010

Coalition and Afghan special operations teams have hit hard at the Taliban and allied groups’ leadership and rank and file during more than 7,000 raids throughout Afghanistan over the past six months.

Approximately 7,100 special operations counterterrorism missions have been conducted between May 30 and Dec. 2 of this year, the International Security Assistance Force told The Long War Journal. More than 600 insurgent leaders were killed or captured. In addition, more than 2,000 enemy fighters have been killed, and over 4,100 fighters have been captured.

The enemy commanders and fighters killed or captured are from various jihadist groups battling Coalition and Afghan forces, including the Taliban, the

Continue reading Special Operations Forces Deal blows to Taliban Ranks

By STEPHEN SINGER, AP Business Writer Stephen Singer, Ap Business Writer – Sat Nov 13, 11:15 am ET

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – On land poisoned by toxins from a long-gone manufacturing era, more than 6,500 solar panels face the south sky, capturing the sunlight of a late autumn day in the Berkshire Mountains.

They’re ready to deliver power to New England.

The Western Massachusetts Electric Co. site in Pittsfield, New England’s largest solar project, promises to produce enough electricity for about 300 homes starting later this month. That’s a tiny fraction of what the region needs to run computers, lights, TVs and everything else utility customers take for granted.

But the $9.4 million solar plant and an even

Continue reading Largest Solar Power Plant in Mass. About to Start

Associated Press YANGON, Myanmar – Pro-democracy hero Aung San Suu Kyi walked free Saturday after more than seven years under house arrest, welcomed by thousands of cheering supporters outside the decaying lakefront villa that has been her prison.

Her guards effectively announced the end of her detention, pulling back the barbed-wire barriers that sealed off her potholed street and suddenly allowing thousands of expectant supporters to surge toward the house. Many chanted her name as they ran. Some wept.

A few minutes later, with the soldiers and police having evaporated into the Yangon twilight, she climbed atop a stepladder behind the gate as the crowd began singing the national anthem.

“I haven’t seen you

Continue reading Myanmar Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi Released

By Bill Roggio November 2, 2010

Afghan and Coalition forces captured the leader of “a cell of approximately 50 foreign fighters” during a raid in central Afghanistan yesterday.

The commander, who was not identified, was detained during a raid in the Maidan Shahr district in Wardak province, which borders Kabul.

“The target [of the raid] was wanted for leading a cell of approximately 50 foreign fighters, serving as a suicide-attack facilitator and leading small-arms and improvised explosive device attacks against ANSF and ISAF,” the International Security Assistance force stated in a press release. He was wanted by the Afghan government and is currently being interrogated by the National Directorate of Security.

ISAF would not

Continue reading ‘Foreign Fighter’ Cell Leader Captured in Central Afghanistan

DETROIT (Oct. 28) — A new book by an urban agriculture visionary aims to change the way people think about farming, offering a look into a future where city skyscrapers — not rural fields — produce the world’s food. In “The Vertical Farm,” Dickson Despommier challenges the notion that plants should be grown in soil, advocating for developing and investing in big projects using hydroponic greenhouses and other indoor growing technology in cities. The goal is to provide safe, fresh food around the globe in a way Despommier says is impossible with modern farming. He acknowledges that getting to that future might be expensive, but he considers it a challenge akin to the space

Continue reading ‘Vertical Farming’ Envisions Tech Future for Food DAVID RUNK , AP

By David Edwards Friday, October 29th, 2010 — 8:57 am

A district school board member in Arkansas will resign after making comments on Facebook saying that gays should commit suicide.

“I am going to resign from the school board,” Clint McCance told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Thursday.

McCance is vice-president of the Midland School District in Pleasant Plains, Arkansas.

The Advocate first reported Tuesday that McCance had posted a screed on Facebook wishing that gays would “commit suicide” and “give each other AIDS and die.” He also used words like “queer” and “fag.”

Thursday McCance said he was quitting “to help my community, to help my school.”

“I don’t want them to receive bad press

Continue reading Arkansas School Board VP to Resign After Saying Gays Should ‘Give each other AIDS’

Liberals, 18- to 29-year-olds express the highest levels of support by Elizabeth Mendes

WASHINGTON, D.C. — While California’s marijuana ballot initiative is garnering a lot of attention this election cycle, Gallup finds that nationally, a new high of 46% of Americans are in favor of legalizing use of the drug, and a new low of 50% are opposed. The increase in support this year from 44% in 2009 is not statistically significant, but is a continuation of the upward trend seen since 2000.

1969-2010 Trend: Support for Making Use of Marijuana Legal

These results are from Gallup’s annual Crime poll, conducted Oct. 7-10. Approximately 8 in 10 Americans were opposed to legalizing marijuana

Continue reading New High of 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana

While ceasefires and non-violence between nations are hallmarks of the United Nation’s annual International Day of Peace (Sept. 21) it’s also about bringing peace into our homes, communities and schools. Rotary clubs always have embraced this call for peace at the grass-roots level by addressing the underlying causes of conflict and violence through thousands of community-based service projects around the world. “Since 1905, Rotary clubs have worked locally and internationally to make the world a better and more peaceful place one person, one family, one community at a time,” said Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar, chair of The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International. Rotary also takes a direct approach to world understanding by providing future leaders with

Continue reading Rotary Helps Foster Peace Through Education

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

Published: September 9, 2010

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday.

Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day. The policy was signed into law in 1993 as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military.

The rule limits the military’s ability to ask about the sexual orientation of service members, and allows homosexuals to serve, as long as they do not disclose their orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.

The plaintiffs challenged the law under the

Continue reading Judge Rules That Military Policy Violates Rights of Gays

The winner of Mitchum’s Hardest Working Man in America contest was awarded $100,000 last month for his labor of love: hauling tires, trash – and even rusty cars – out of the nation’s rivers on behalf of his non-profit conservation group. Chad Pregracke has worked for twelve years to… Read more at Good News Network

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ScienceDaily (Aug. 6, 2010) — Tissue regeneration a la salamanders and newts seems like it should be the stuff of science fiction. But it happens routinely. Why can’t we mammals just re-grow a limb or churn out a few new heart muscle cells as needed? New research suggests there might be a very good reason: Restricting our cells’ ability to pop in and out of the cell cycle at will — a prerequisite for the cell division necessary to make new tissue — reduces the chances that they’ll run amok and form potentially deadly cancers.

Now scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have taken a big step toward being able to confer

Continue reading Newts’ Ability to Regenerate Tissue Replicated in Mouse Cells

29 July 2010, UNITED NATIONS — The UN General Assembly on Wednesday recognized access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. After more than 15 years of debate on the issue, 122 countries voted in favor of a compromise Bolivian resolution enshrining the right, while 41 abstained. The text “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life.” The resolution laments the fact that 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and that more 2.6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation. It notes that roughly two million people die every

Continue reading UN Declares Access to Clean Water a Human Right

Rwanda has been declared free of landmines – the first country to achieve this status. The announcement was made at the Cartagena Summit on a Mine-Free World in Colombia. Hundreds of people have been killed and horrifically injured by landmines in Rwanda. Landmines were laid between 1990 and 1994 in Rwanda and over the past three years more than over 9,000 have been destroyed by Rwandan soldiers.

Continue reading Rwanda: First Landmine Free Country

The Chinese government is opening an official bar for gay men as part of local authorities’ efforts to fight HIV and AIDS. The bar is based in Dali, a town in the south western Yunnan province. Yunnan has the country’s highest rates of HIV and AIDS, according to official data. The government said it funded the 120,000 yuan (17,500 US dollar) project to reach out to the gay community in China and break social stigma against gay men.

Continue reading China Opens First Official Gay Bar