2 Antarctic ice loss vaster, faster than thought: study
AFP
38 mins ago
| PARIS (AFP) - The East Antarctic icesheet, once seen as largely unaffected by global warming, has lost billions of tonnes of ice since 2006 and could boost sea levels in the future, according to a new study.
Published Sunday in Nature Geoscience, the same study shows that the smaller but less stable West Antarctic icesheet is also shedding significant mass.
Scientists worry that rising global temperatures could trigger a rapid disintegration of West Antarctica, which holds enough frozen water to push up the global ocean watermark by about five metres (16 feet). |
3 EU recession over, but sharp contrasts in east
by Michel Mrozinski, AFP
Sun Nov 22, 12:18 am ET
| WARSAW (AFP) - The European Union may have inched out of its sharpest recession since the global slump of the 1930s, but green shoots are not emerging uniformly across the 27-nation bloc's eastern member states.
Contrasts are sharp among the 10 ex-communist countries that have joined the EU since 2004.
The situation in Poland, the only EU nation to have enjoyed sustained growth this year, compares with the stark lot of countries such as Latvia or Hungary, where the economies have been in freefall. |
4 Romanians vote in tight presidential election
by Isabelle Wesselingh, AFP
Sun Nov 22, 9:05 am ET
| BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romanians voted on Sunday in a tight presidential election seen as a chance to resolve a political crisis that has hindered the recent EU member's bid to recover from a deep recession.
Twelve candidates are running, but polls have shown the incumbent centre-right President Traian Basescu and his Social Democrat rival Mircea Geoana are likely to face each other in a run-off set for December 6.
The winner will be pressed to name a new prime minister, with the country in the hands of a caretaker government for the last six weeks, a situation that has put reforms eagerly awaited by financial institutions on hold. |
5 Jacko 'moonwalk' glove sells for $350,000
by Sebastian Smith, AFP
Sun Nov 22, 4:32 am ET
| NEW YORK (AFP) - The rhinestone-encrusted glove worn by pop icon Michael Jackson for his first "moonwalk" dance in 1983 sold Saturday for 350,000 dollars at a frenzied auction in New York.
The sparkling piece of pop history, customized from a simple left-handed golf glove still marked "Made in Korea," was the climax of an auction featuring more than 70 items from the late singer's career.
Including commission, the glove's final, pre-tax price was 420,000 dollars. |
6 Ahmadinejad heads to nuclear-backers Brazil, Venezuela
by Hiedeh Farmani, AFP
Sun Nov 22, 3:37 am ET
| TEHRAN (AFP) - Faced with mounting pressure over his country's atomic ambitions, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad left on a five nation tour Sunday, including Brazil in a bid to boost ties with Latin America's biggest economy and a rare backer of Tehran's nuclear programme.
Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has sought to form bonds with leftist south American leaders, and enjoys "brotherly ties" with fiercely anti-US Hugo Chavez, president of Brazil's neighbour, Venezuela.
His five-day trip will also take in Venezuela as well as another left-leaning South American country, Bolivia and the West African countries of Senegal and Gambia, the presidential website said. |
7 Healthcare reform faces challenges in Senate
By Kevin Drawbaugh, Reuters
43 mins ago
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul plan has cleared an important Senate hurdle but lawmakers warned on Sunday of challenges ahead in winning support for passage, even among Obama's own Democrats.
On Saturday, Senate Democrats gathered the 60 votes needed to open floor debate on the plan, which would make the biggest changes in the $2.5 trillion healthcare system in 40 years. It is the Obama administration's top domestic policy initiative.
No Republicans backed the procedural motion and a handful of conservative Democrats, whose votes were crucial, supported the floor debate but remained uncommitted to the bill itself. |
8 Militants could be invited to Afghan "Jirga"
By Peter Graff, Reuters
Sun Nov 22, 7:52 am ET
| KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai could invite militants to attend a "Loya Jirga," or grand council meeting, aiming to seek peace and reconciliation with the Taliban, a spokesman said on Sunday.
The plans signal a more public effort to engage with militants during Karzai's second term as leader, measures that Washington has encouraged in its counter-insurgency strategy.
Afghanistan's constitution recognizes the Loya Jirga -- Pashtu for grand assembly -- as "the highest manifestation of the will of the people of Afghanistan." |
9 Senate Democrats at odds over health care bill
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
3 mins ago
| WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats on Sunday sparred with each other over how to fix the nation's troubled health care system, the moderates threatening to scuttle legislation if their demands weren't met and the more liberal members warning their party leaders not to bend.
The dispute among Democrats foretells of a rowdy floor debate next month on legislation that would extend health care coverage to roughly 31 million Americans. Republicans have already made clear they aren't supporting the bill.
Final passage is in jeopardy, even after the chamber's historic 60-39 vote Saturday night to begin debate. |
10 RI bishop asked Kennedy in 2007 to avoid Communion
By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 34 mins ago
| EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The Roman Catholic bishop of Rhode Island said Sunday that he asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy in a 2007 letter to stop receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, because of the congressman's public stance on moral issues.
Bishop Thomas Tobin divulged details of his confidential exchange with Kennedy after the Democratic lawmaker told The Providence Journal in a story published Sunday that Tobin had instructed him not to receive Communion. The two men have clashed repeatedly in the past few weeks over abortion.
Kennedy did not say where or how he received those instructions. He declined to say whether he has obeyed the bishop's request. |
11 Sizing up the Kennedy dynasty's next generation
By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 28 mins ago
| WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over.
There's talk the Kennedy political bloodlines are running thin. Some say the younger brood lacks the grit and zest for political combat that drove the liberal Democrat to become one of the leading politicians of the last 40 years.
Yet it's probably too early to write off one of America's most powerful and popular families. A new generation of Kennedys, many of whom are active in humanitarian and political causes, could emerge to extend the dynasty. |
12 Iraq PM ramps up attacks on Baathists before vote
By HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 25 mins ago
| BAGHDAD - A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.
In its latest anti-Baathist attack, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government put three men on state television Sunday to confess their alleged role in planning suicide attacks in Baghdad last month. The three, all in detention and dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, said the bombings were ordered by Saddam's Baath Party.
Al-Maliki's intensified rhetoric worsens one of Iraq's most dangerous sectarian fault lines - one which the United States has long struggled to calm. |
13 Study: Scavengers big and small dwell in deep sea
By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 10 mins ago
| NEW ORLEANS - Thousands of marine species eke out an existence in the ocean's pitch-black depths by feeding on the snowlike decaying matter that cascades down, and even sunken whale bones, according to a report released Sunday.
Oil and methane also are an energy source for the bottom-dwellers, the report says.
The findings on the deep sea were the latest special update on a 10-year census of marine life, an effort by more than 2,000 scientists from 80 countries to catalog the oceans' species. |
14 More Americans expected to travel for Thanksgiving
By NAFEESA SYEED, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 5 mins ago
| WASHINGTON - The number of Americans traveling away from home for Thanksgiving will be up only slightly this year from 2008, according to a report from the AAA auto club.
The group, which surveyed 1,350 households, said there will be about 33.2 million people traveling by car this year - a 2.1 percent increase from last year.
But there will be a 6.7 percent decrease in the number of air travelers, totaling 2.3 million this year, continuing a decade-long decline of Thanksgiving air travel. |
This is not at all as optimistic as the headline makes it seem.
15 Alleged Iraq bombers offer confessions
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 51 mins ago
| BAGHDAD - Three jailed suspects in Oct. 25 bombings that killed more than 150 people in Iraq said they filmed the targeted buildings before the attack and escorted the car bombs in a convoy into Baghdad, according to confessions shown on Iraqi television Sunday.
The men, who were seated and wearing orange jumpsuits while speaking in custody, introduced themselves as members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party. There was no way to independently verify their accounts of an attack that exposed wide security gaps in the heavily protected center of Baghdad.
The coordinated blasts appeared aimed at undermining Iraq's government ahead of 2010 national elections, a key step toward stability after years of war. The vote, scheduled for January, has been thrown into uncertainty by a vice president's veto of an election law that could force a delay in the polling. |
16 Astronaut's baby daughter born as he circles Earth
By MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
1 hr 9 mins ago
| CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronaut Randolph Bresnik jubilantly welcomed his new daughter into the world Sunday as he floated 220 miles above it.
Abigail Mae Bresnik was born as her father circled Earth on his first space shuttle mission, just hours after his first spacewalk.
It was only the second time in history that a NASA astronaut was in orbit instead of the delivery room. |
17 Arrest in 1981 tribal murders revives old mystery
By AMY TAXIN and GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writers
57 mins ago
| INDIO, Calif. - In the days before Fred Alvarez was shot execution-style with two friends on his verandah, the strapping Cabazon tribal leader feared he was a marked man: His motorcycle had been tampered with, his mailbox shot up and his house ransacked.
He visited the local newspaper several times to say that he'd uncovered something big enough to get him killed. He arranged to talk with a lawyer to divulge what he knew, but never made the meeting.
On that day, tribal member Joe Benitez swung by Alvarez's stucco house tucked among tamarisk trees in the wind-swept sand dunes of rural Rancho Mirage, about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles. There, he found the bloated bodies of Alvarez and his friends Patricia Castro and Ralph Boger, all fatally shot. |
18 Iraqi refugees move to Mich. despite poor economy
By JEFF KAROUB, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 38 mins ago
| DETROIT - The U.S. government resettled Mazen Alsaqa in Massachusetts in February. Within a month, the Iraqi refugee moved to Michigan.
It wasn't that Alsaqa disliked Worcester, Mass. But he never thought twice about staying. Even though the U.S. government tried to keep him away from the Detroit area and its soaring unemployment, that was the only place Alsaqa wanted to live.
Tens of thousands have fled Michigan's troubled economy in recent years, yet Iraqi refugees continue to move there despite a U.S. government policy trying to limit refugee resettlement in the Detroit area. Family ties and cultural support from the region's large Middle Eastern community appear no match for the U.S. effort, which tries to place refugees in cities where they stand a better chance of financial success. |
19 Va. Military Institute faces sexism accusations
By SUE LINDSEY, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 22, 11:36 am ET
| LEXINGTON, Va. - Virginia Military Institute is defending itself against a lengthy investigation into accusations that the school's policies are sexist and hostile toward female cadets, a dozen years after women won the right to enroll.
The federal Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has an ongoing investigation of a sex discrimination complaint at the small, state-supported school that so far has taken nearly a year and a half - three times longer than usual.
Defenders say VMI has worked hard to recruit women and make them comfortable since the U.S. Supreme Court ordered co-education in 1997, but women remain a small minority. Of the 1,500 cadets on the Shenandoah Valley campus this fall, 126 are women. |
20 Ukraine's 'hot air' bedevils global climate deal
By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 22, 1:15 am ET
| KONSTANTINOVKA, Ukraine - Vladimir Gapor is a plumber by trade, but now he's a scavenger, prying bits of scrap steel from the ruins of his old factory and selling them for a pittance.
For others beyond this manufacturing graveyard, however, Ukraine's economic collapse has produced a potential multibillion-dollar bonanza. In an era of climate change regulation and carbon trading, Ukraine, ironically, is profiting from the smokeless smokestacks of its industrial shutdown.
How well and how long it will profit is an under-the-radar issue complicating negotiations for a worldwide climate accord being sought at a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen next month. |
21 Egypt's media stoked soccer fan anger with Algeria
By JASON KEYSER, Associated Press Writer
48 mins ago
| CAIRO - Angry soccer fans rampaged through a posh diplomatic neighborhood in Cairo over the weekend, smashing shop windows and shouting obscenities in a frenzy fed by venomous headlines that portrayed Algerians as barbaric terrorists with a history of violence.
Egyptians were infuriated by media reports alleging their fans were brutalized by their Algerian rivals after Algeria won a playoff match Wednesday in Khartoum, Sudan, to qualify for the 2010 World Cup.
Egypt's government - often bemoaned by its people as repressive and indifferent to their suffering under searing poverty - appears to have seized on the furor to demonstrate some unity with its citizens. Instead of the usual crackdown on demonstrations, authorities allowed crowds to surge into the streets near the Algerian Embassy and vent their anger in riots overnight between Thursday and Friday. |
22 Mumbai still vulnerable 1 year after terror attack
By ERIKA KINETZ, Associated Press Writer
Sun Nov 22, 1:15 am ET
| MUMBAI, India - The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors.
One year after the terror attack that left 166 people dead, the Chabad House - a once-popular site with Jewish travelers where six foreigners were killed - remains scarred, still, and quiet.
In part, that silence is a symptom of how much remains unchanged since 10 militants with assault rifles fanned out across Mumbai last Nov. 26, attacking hotels, a train station and other targets, paralyzing India's financial capital and shocking the country. |
23 Report: Leaked UK documents detail Iraq war chaos
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 36 mins ago
| LONDON - Leaked British government documents call into question ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair's public statements on the buildup to the Iraq war and show plans for the U.S.-led 2003 invasion were being made more than a year earlier, a newspaper reported Sunday.
Britain's Sunday Telegraph published details of private statements made by senior British military figures claiming plans were in place months before the March 2003 invasion, but were so badly drafted they left troops poorly equipped and ill-prepared for the conflict.
The documents - transcripts of interviews from an internal defense ministry review of the conflict - disclose that some planning for the Iraq war had begun in February 2002. Maj. Gen. Graeme Lamb, then head of Britain's special forces, was quoted as saying he had been "working the war up since early 2002," according to the newspaper. |
24 Iran's Mousavi tells government to end intimidation
By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari
Sun Nov 22, 10:28 am ET
| TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said Sunday the reform movement would not be cowed by the hardline government's harsh methods as riot police prevented a demonstration by moderates taking place.
Mousavi's remarks preceded a scheduled gathering Sunday by moderates to commemorate the killing of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, who headed the illegal but tolerated Iran Nation Party. They were stabbed to death by "rogue" agents in 1998.
Iran's security forces have warned the opposition not to take part in "street riots," trying to avoid a revival of mass protests that erupted after Iran's June 12 presidential vote, the biggest unrest in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution. |
25 Romanian president, rival face run-off vote: exit polls
by Isabelle Wesselingh, AFP
25 mins ago
| BUCHAREST (AFP) - Romania's incumbent president and his Social-Democrat rival will face a run-off after Sunday's first round election, exit polls showed, as the recent EU member tries to recover from a political crisis and a deep recession.
Centre-right President Traian Basescu and his main rival Mircea Geoana were the two top vote-getters in Sunday's vote, two exit polls showed, putting them in line for a second round of the presidential election on December 6.
Basescu is in the lead with 33.72 percent of votes cast, according to an exit poll by the CURS Institute for public television, followed by Geoana with 31.44 percent. |
26 Thousands throng rival Nicaragua rallies, 12 hurt
by Blanca Morel and Julia Rios, AFP
Sat Nov 21, 9:09 pm ET
| MANAGUA (AFP) - Thousands of pro- and anti-government protesters took to the streets of Nicaragua's capital, protesting and backing President Daniel Ortega's bid to remain in power.
At least 12 people were injured -- three policemen and nine protesters -- and some vehicles were damaged, according to political leaders and media.
Chanting "Democracy yes, dictatorship no!" mainly peaceful Ortega opponents numbered at 50,000 by organizers marched in Managua against his controversial reelection plans, even as thousands of the president's supporters gathered for their own demonstration. |
| From Yahoo News U.S. News |
27 Desperate retailers seek holiday season rescue
by Rob Lever, AFP
Sat Nov 21, 11:32 pm ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US retailers are taking desperate measures to spark holiday sales in the face of what promises to be another troubled year-end shopping season.
Merchants are furiously working to ramp up consumer interest ahead of "Black Friday," on November 27, the day after the Thanksgiving Day holiday that marks the traditional kickoff of the holiday gift season.
Some are promising price cuts of 50 percent or more on some hot electronics, and planning for big events to bring out shoppers for big sales promotions. |
28 Pistols, Tasers, assault rifles sell fast at US show
by Virginie Montet, AFP
Sun Nov 22, 3:23 am ET
| CHANTILLY, Virginia (AFP) - Recession-stoked fears of rising crime and tougher gun laws under a Democratic government are sending US gun sales sky high, and big crowds at the Chantilly Gun Show this weekend proved it once again.
"Do you see the line all around the building and in the back," asked Annette Elliott, co-organizer of one of the top gun shows in Virginia, a conservative state with rather liberal gun laws.
Several hundred people thronged the gun show in the Washington suburb of Chantilly, where some 260 retailers have set up stalls hung with ready-to-fire Smith and Wessons, Glocks, Walthers, Colts and Berettas. |
29 Tuition Hikes: Protests in California and Elsewhere
By KEVIN O'LEARY / LOS ANGELES, Time Magazine
Sat Nov 21, 1:20 pm ET
| Facing reductions in state funding, public universities from Michigan to Arizona to North Carolina have slashed budgets and hiked tuition. The most extreme case is California where University of California regents voted this week to increase tuition a whopping 32% to more than $10,000 annually - a three-fold increase in a decade. The move was greeted by student demonstrations. |
30 Fat Fees And Smoker Surcharges.
By MELBA NEWSOME, Time Magazine
Sun Nov 22, 10:40 am ET
| Psychology Professor Anita Blanchard has a pretty sweet deal with her employer. Even if the 40-something mother of three leaves her job at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the state of North Carolina guarantees her premium-free health insurance that will cover 80% of her health care costs for life. But's there's a hitch: she can't gain too much weight or start smoking. If she does, she could be on the hook for an additional 10% of her health care tab. |
31 Church Insecurity.
By AMY SULLIVAN, Time Magazine
Sun Nov 22, 10:40 am ET
| Jesus may have taught his disciples to turn the other cheek, but these days some churches are hiring armed security teams--just in case that whole forgiveness thing doesn't work out. |
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March on Washington
