World News

The Most Isolated Man on the Planet
The Most Isolated Man on the Planet (Aug 26) Rondônia, Brazil-The most isolated man on the planet will spend tonight inside a leafy palm-thatch hut in the Brazilian Amazon. As always, insects will darn the air. Spider monkeys will patrol the treetops. Wild pigs will root in the undergrowth. And the man will remain a quietly anonymous fixture of the landscape, camouflaged to the point of near invisibility.

That description relies on a few unknowable assumptions, obviously, but they're relatively safe

read more »
Pentagon wants removal of leaked documents
(Aug 11) WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon demanded Thursday that WikiLeaks "do the right thing" and remove from its website tens of thousands of classified documents about the war in Afghanistan, and return to the military thousands of others that it has not yet made public.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the website's disclosure last week of a six-year archive of some 77,000 documents gave the Taliban and other militant groups insights into American military tactics and techniques, showed how the United States protects its troops in war zones and revealed the names of Afghan informants and how the military cultivates them.

Most of Morrell's briefing focused on the information ...

read more »
BlackBerry gets reprieve as Saudi praises progress
BlackBerry gets reprieve as Saudi praises progress (Aug 10) BlackBerry maker Research In Motion on Tuesday won a reprieve from a threatened ban on its Messenger texting service as Saudi Arabia said progress was being made on addressing its concerns.

The company's biggest Gulf market with 700,000 users, Saudi Arabia had threatened to ban the service last Friday before giving RIM until Monday as it worked with local firms testing servers.

read more »
Officials search for 3 boaters
(Aug 9) The US Coast Guard is searching for three South Florida boaters who are overdue, according to Associated Press. Authorities on Friday say they are searching from Fort Pierce to Fort Lauderdale and east to The Bahamas.

The boaters were supposed to return from a fishing trip on Thursday. A family member contacted the Coast Guard early Friday saying the boaters did not return at sunset as planned. They had left Riviera Beach aboard Shademaker, a 32-foot blue-and-white centre-console SeaVee.

The Bahamian Air and Sea Rescue Association also sent an aircraft to help find the boaters, and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force has b

read more »
National Geographic’s Amazing! show/book
National Geographic’s Amazing! show/book (Aug 6) National Geographic is often associated with the word amazing. Now, a show and book bring attention to some of the world’s more awesome moments.

Although subjective, it’s hard to argue that the clips and facts described by Nat Geo as “Amazing!” are anything but. Check out the video for a few samples and check the links for the Amazing! website and link to the book.

read more »
Naomi Campbell, exiled African president, dirty stones
Naomi Campbell, exiled African president, dirty stones (Aug 5) Model Naomi Campbell has testified that she was given some "dirty-looking stones" after a 1997 dinner attended by ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor.

Speaking at Mr Taylor's war crimes trial in The Hague, she said late that night, two unidentified men appeared at her room and gave her the stones.

However, she had no proof that the stones were diamonds or came from Mr Taylor, as a fellow guest suggested.

read more »
Mexico: 28,000 killed in drug violence since 2006
Mexico: 28,000 killed in drug violence since 2006 (Aug 4) MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon said he would consider a debate on legalizing drugs Tuesday as his government announced that more than 28,000 people have been killed in drug violence since he launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006.

Intelligence agency director Guillermo Valdes also said authorities have confiscated about 84,000 weapons and made total cash seizures of $411 million in U.S. currency and $26 million worth in pesos (330 million pesos).

Valdes released the statistics during a meeting with Calderon and representatives of business and civic groups, where attendees exploring ways to improve Mexico's anti-drug strategy called o ...

read more »
Experts: Photos found at garage sale worth $200 million
Experts: Photos found at garage sale worth 200 million (Jul 28) Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Rick Norsigian kept two boxes he bought at a garage sale under his pool table for four years before realizing they may be too valuable to store at home.

The Fresno, California, commercial painter learned this week that what was in those boxes he paid $45 dollars for a decade ago could be worth more than $200 million.

read more »
Boat made from plastic bottles completes Pacific voyage
Boat made from plastic bottles completes Pacific voyage (Jul 27) A boat made from thousands of plastic bottles has sailed into Sydney Harbour, completing a four-month voyage that began in San Francisco.

The boat, called the Plastiki, was built using 12,500 plastic bottles.

read more »
Street Fighter vs Tekken . . . FIGHT!
Street Fighter vs Tekken . . . FIGHT! (Jul 26) It seems since the dawn of arcade fighting games, there have been two people in this world: those who played Tekken and those who played Street Fighter. For the first time ever, these two worlds will collide with brand new video games.

read more »
Full face transplant man reveals his new look on TV
Full face transplant man reveals his new look on TV (Jul 26) Oscar continues to need therapy for his speech The Spanish man who underwent the world's first full face transplant has revealed his new look before TV cameras.

The 31-year-old thanked his donor's family and the medics that gave him a new face in March at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona.

read more »
Parasailing donkey and owner disappear
Parasailing donkey and owner disappear (Jul 23) Investigators on Wednesday were looking for a donkey that parasailed over the Sea of Azov for 30 terrifying minutes last week.

The donkey’s owner faces charges of animal abuse, which are punishable by up to two years in prison, but a veterinarian needs to examine the animal to confirm that it was hurt before the charges can be filed, RIA-Novosti reported, citing police.

read more »
AIDS report: Treat drug users, don’t arrest them
AIDS report: Treat drug users, don’t arrest them (Jul 23) VIENNA — Some of the world’s top AIDS experts issued a radical manifesto this week at the 18th International AIDS Conference: They declared the war on drugs a 50-year-old failure and called for it to be abandoned.

Officially, the theme of the AIDS meeting, the world’s largest public health gathering, is the need to attack the rapidly growing epidemic among addicts in Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. It was held in Vienna because this city is the doorway to the East and, in this German-speaking country, all the conference signs are in English and Russian.

read more »
BP admits altering oil spill photo
BP admits altering oil spill photo (Jul 22) BP has faced fresh embarrassment in the wake of its Gulf of Mexico oil spill after it admitted to altering a photo on its website that appeared to exaggerate the activity at its command centre in Houston.

The original picture, which was posted over the weekend, shows workers monitoring a bank of 10 giant video screens displaying underwater images.

read more »
Oil giants form joint oil-spill-fighting venture without BP
Oil giants form joint oil-spill-fighting venture without BP (Jul 22) NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Four of the big five Western oil majors have formed a $1 billion nonprofit joint venture aimed at combating future oil spills, possibly to head off stricter offshore-drilling rules

Exxon Mobil Corp. , Royal Dutch Shell PLC , Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips plan to build a rapid-response system to help contain future blown-out oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.

read more »
Handset world: Don't speak for us, Steve Jobs
Handset world: Don't speak for us, Steve Jobs (Jul 20) It may be true that no cell phone is perfect, but the handset world isn't taking too kindly to Apple CEO Steve Jobs' public assertion that other smartphones suffer from the same antenna and signal problems that have been widely reported regarding the iPhone 4.

And, in what's turned into an ugly back-and-forth PR mud fight, Apple is firing back by making its internal signal test results public to insist that it's not just pulling rivals' flaws out of thin air.

read more »
New Gel Sharply Reduces HIV Infections in Women
New Gel Sharply Reduces HIV Infections in Women (Jul 20) South African researchers have made a scientific breakthrough in the fight against AIDS, with a vaginal gel that significantly reduces a woman's risk of being infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Since the epidemic began nearly 30 years ago, scientists have been searching for a vaginal microbicide that women could use to protect them from contracting HIV.

read more »
Could feds keep Barefoot Bandit, mom from profit?
(Jul 20) The tale of the Barefoot Bandit is Hollywood-ready, with its barely schooled, shoeless scamp dodging police as he allegedly stole planes and cars in a cross-country dash before he was nabbed in a high-speed boat chase in the Bahamas.

A well-known entertainment lawyer hired by Colton Harris-Moore's mother says he is being swamped by unsolicited offers for book and movie deals, and no law would prohibit the 19-year-old or his mom from getting rich off his tale.

read more »
LeBron James thinks it's better in The Bahamas
LeBron James thinks it's better in The Bahamas (Jul 20) Seems like LeBron prefers The Bahamas to Miami.

You'd think LeBron James wouldn't need more turquoise water and white sand but this weekend the famous basketball player left his new home of Miami Beach for the warm waves of The Bahamas.

read more »
Uganda Ready to Host African Union Summit
Uganda Ready to Host African Union Summit (Jul 19) A cabinet minister in President Yoweri Museveni’s government said Uganda is adequately prepared to host the African Union summit scheduled to begin Monday in the capital, Kampala.

Hope Mwesigye, Minister for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, told VOA Uganda will host a successful summit saying the government is unwavering, despite the recent al-Shabab-inspired twin suicide bombings that killed more than 70 people.

read more »