Nigeria Christians Concerned Amid New Deadly Clashes

February 18, 2011 Comments off

ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– Tensions remained high in Nigeria’s Plateau State Wednesday, February 16, where up to eight people were killed and more injured in sectarian clashes sparked by the stabbing of a police officer.

Witnesses said Tuesday’s violence in the city of Jos included a gang setting up a roadblock in one neighborhood, leading to up to four deaths. Others, including Christians, said up to four more people were murdered and their bodies set ablaze elsewhere, including in the Gada-Biu area.

There were also reports that tires, cars and motorcycles were burned as well.

Christians said the violence began after the police officer was stabbed to death when he Read more…

Soros team wants al-Qaida in government

February 18, 2011 Comments off

Told Algerian officials those supporting Islamic caliphate should be ’empowered’

By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WorldNetDaily

JERUSALEM – An international “crisis management” group led by billionaire George Soros long has petitioned for the Algerian government to cease “excessive” military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.

The organization, the International Crisis Group, also is tied strongly to the Egyptian opposition movement whose protests led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

Soros’ own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.

Following protests that led to the resignations of Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali – both key U.S. allies – Algeria similarly has been engulfed in anti-regime riots.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ruled the country with a tough hand. And he has been an Read more…

Farmers Deposit Seeds in Arctic Doomsday Vault, Patrolled by Polar Bears

February 18, 2011 Comments off

Matthew Hall

Farmers from Australia are the latest donors to a polar bear-patrolled Arctic doomsday vault that stores seeds as insurance against an international food emergency.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a converted mine, is located about 800 miles from the North Pole in Arctic Norway.

An Australian delegation of farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the vault, intending to protect the plant species from extinction by climatic or man-made events.

Snow blows off the Svalbard Global Seed Vault at sunrise, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008. 

John McConnico, AP
Australian farmers and scientists next week will deposit 301 samples of peas and 42 rare chickpeas in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, shown here in 2008.

“It’s a very robust structure, concrete, made into the Read more…

Britain’s coming crunch with Europe

February 18, 2011 Comments off

Fraser Nelson

It did not take David Cameron long to realize that there were three parties in his coalition. A few months into government, the Prime Minister worked out that only half of the policies he was enacting came from the shared agenda drawn up when the Tories and LibDems got together. The other half comes from the EU. Or, more specifically, the Civil Service machine, which is busy implementing various EU Directives, often passed many years ago. Cameron is trying to put the brakes on this process.

As I say in my News of the World column, this has led to much frustration in Whitehall. And dismay: the Civil Service remembers how easily Labour waved through EU regulation and the piles of fat that Whitehall likes to pile on top of the EU regulation. Labour would claim that the EU rules were actually its idea, so as not to lose face. Only in government is it clear how far power has slipped; Cameron wants to claw it back.

Oliver Letwin has been tasked with stopping Whitehall from being a breeding ground for new regulations. Cameron jokingly refers to Letwin as a ‘contraceptive’, because it’s his job to stop these regulations being conceived – usually after a little European foreplay. It’s a huge task. The problem is that Read more…

Police open fire in third day of South Africa protest

February 18, 2011 Comments off

By Joshua Howat Berger

starafrica.com

WESSELTON, South Africa — Police fired rubber bullets as protestors set alight tyres in a destitute South African township on Wednesday in a third day of demonstrations to demand jobs and improved services.

Riot police deployed into the streets of Wesselton, around 200 kilometres (124 miles) east of Johannesburg, to disperse protesters who also dragged the charred remains of Tuesday’s barricades back into the road.

However calm returned on the streets of the township after South African police commissioner Bheki Cele visited the area and warned residents that law enforcements officers will not tolerate any further violent protests.

“It is their constitutional right to participate in mass action without violence, if they do that then police can go home,” he told reporters.

“But it is not their right to burn tires, it is not their right to loot, it is not their right to injure and attack people. If they do that we (police) will respond accordingly. It looks for now we have agreed on that approach. I hope that approach stays that way.”

He said 160 police officers were deployed to Read more…

Underwater Volcanoes a Hotbed of Clues to Earth’s Movements

February 18, 2011 Comments off
joides-ship-110216-02.jpgNight view of the JOIDES Resolution, docked in Auckland, New Zealand, before its departure. Credit: D. Buchs, Australian National University. 

Nearly half a mile of rock retrieved from beneath the seafloor is yielding new clues about how underwater volcanoes are created and whether the underlying hot spots of molten rock that lead to their formation have moved over time.

Geoscientists have just completed an expedition, part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), to a string of underwater volcanoes, or seamounts, in the Pacific Ocean known as the Louisville Seamount Trail.

There they collected samples of ocean floor sediments, lava flows and other volcanic eruption materials to piece together the Read more…

In sharp reversal, U.S. agrees to rebuke Israel in Security Council

February 18, 2011 Comments off

Posted By Colum Lynch

The U.S. informed Arab governments Tuesday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body “does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity,” a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal.

But the Palestinians rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesday of Arab representatives and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution on Friday, according to officials familiar with the issue. The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospect that the Obama administration will cast its first ever veto in the U.N. Security Council.

Still, the U.S. offer signaled a renewed willingness to seek a way out of the current impasse, even if it requires breaking with Israel and joining others in the council in sending a strong message to its key ally to stop its construction of new settlements. U.S. officials were not available for comment, but two Security Council diplomats confirmed the proposal.

The Palestinian delegation, along with Lebanon, the Security Council’s only Arab member state, asked the council’s president late Wednesday to Read more…

Arkansas cities feel unexplained surge in earthquakes

February 18, 2011 Comments off

SARAH EDDINGTON

bloomberg.com

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Jim Sutterfield was briefly puzzled by a thumping sound that seemed to slam the back of his office chair. But when the small-town Arkansas fire chief turned and saw no one was around, he quickly realized it was just an earthquake — again.

“That was only my second time to feel one, but others here have felt them for three or four months now,” Greenbrier chief Jim Sutterfield said after feeling the latest tremor on Wednesday. “Now when it happens, people say, ‘Well, there’s another one.'”

Several small earthquakes ranging in magnitude from 1.8 to 3.8 have rattled the north-central Arkansas cities of Greenbrier and Guy this week, and the cause is unknown.

The U.S. Geological Survey has reported more than 30 earthquakes in the area since Sunday, including a magnitude 3.8 quake Thursday morning and at least 16 others occurring Wednesday, two of which were magnitude 3.2 and 3.5. More than 700 quakes have occurred in the region over the past six months.

Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey, said the quakes are Read more…

Washington proposes $5.50 fee for Canadians entering U.S. by air, sea

February 18, 2011 Comments off

The U.S. has been charging that fee to other international passengers, except Canadians, Mexicans and Caribbean nationals who have been exempt from paying it since 1997.

Washington has proposed a $5.50 fee for every Canadian who would visit the United States through air or sea. The levy is part of the $3.73 trillion 2012 budget proposal unveiled by U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this week. 

clearpxlObama said the fee would raise $110 million yearly to help reduce the country’s budget deficit. The fee would also apply to air and sea travelers from Mexico and the Caribbean.

An average of 16 million Canadians fly to their North American neighbor yearly. The $5.50 fee, if approved by the U.S. Congress, would raise about $110 million and help defray the cost of beefed up boundary security.

The fee would not apply to Read more…

Video purporting to show the first minute of the attack on protesters in Manama, Bahrain

February 17, 2011 Comments off
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