Six In The Morning

Thousands protest at US Afghan base after Quran desecration



By NBC News, msnbc.com and news services
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A crowd of Afghans protesting outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan swelled to more than 2,000 Tuesday over a report that foreign troops had improperly disposed of copies of the Quran, Afghan officials said. General John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), earlier offered his "sincere apologies" for the actions in an apparent bid to prevent anti-Western anger from spreading across Afghanistan. "When we learned of these actions, we immediately intervened and stopped them. The materials recovered will be properly handled by appropriate religious authorities," he wrote in a statement.

Climate change increased likelihood of Russian 2010 heatwave – study
Although the heatwave was made three times more likely, the size of the event was within natural limits, say scientists

Alok Jha, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 21 February 2012 07.00 GMT
The extreme Russian heatwave of 2010 was made three times more likely because of man-made climate change, according to a study led by climate scientists and number-crunched by home PC users. But the size of the event was mostly within natural limits, said the scientists, laying to rest a controversy last year over whether the extreme weather was natural or human-induced. The 2010 heatwave broke all records for Russia – temperatures in the central region of the country, including Moscow, were around 10C above what they should have been for the time of year.

Fukushima: Return to the disaster zone
A year since the Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed, the fight to prevent disaster goes on. In an exclusive dispatch from the reactors, David McNeill becomes the first European journalist to revisit Japan's ground zero

Tuesday 21 February 2012
The journey to Fukushima Daiichi begins at the border of the 12-mile exclusion zone that surrounds the ruined nuclear complex, beyond which life has frozen in time. Weeds reclaim the gardens of empty homes along a route that emptied on a bitterly cold night almost a year ago. Shop signs hang unrepaired from the huge quake that rattled this area on 11 March, triggering the meltdown of three reactors and a series of explosions that showered the area with contamination. Cars wait outside supermarkets where their owners left them in Tomioka, Okuma and Futaba – once neat, bustling towns. Even birds have deserted this area, if recent research is to be believed.

Greece secures second bailout after tortuous talks
irishtimes.com

Last Updated: Tuesday, February 21, 2012, 09:14
Euro zone finance ministers sealed a second bailout for debt-laden Greece in the early hours of this morning that will resolve its immediate financing needs but seems unlikely to revive the nation's shattered economy. After 13 hours of talks, euro zone officials said ministers had finalised measures to cut Greece's debt to 120.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2020, a fraction above their original target of 120, after negotiators for private bondholders accepted bigger losses to help plug the funding gap.

Senegal opposition calls fresh protest after deadly riots


By AFP
Senegal's opposition called for a new protest Monday, prompting fears of fresh violence days before polls in which President Abdoulaye Wade's bid for a third term has upset the normally stable nation. The president's spokesman Serigne Mbacke Ndiaye on Monday said the violence was regrettable and accused opposition candidates of paying youths and retired soldiers to "install chaos" in the country. Tensions are running high just six days before elections in the west African nation, a former French colony known for being one of the continent's pioneer democracies which has never suffered a coup or conflict.

Spies shouldn't police us


Opinion » Editorial
In September, 1970, J. Edgar Hoover wrote a secret memo which pithily explained the difference between criminal investigators and spies: the “purpose of counter-intelligence action,” it stated, “is to disrupt, and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge.” Four decades on, as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram prepares to give teeth to India's new National Counter-Terrorism Centre, the words of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's legendary — and paranoiac — founding director should help Indians understand why the idea is profoundly misguided.