A quieter drug war in Mexico, but no less deadly
By ,
MEXICO CITY — As a tactical matter, the gangsters and government security forces fighting Mexico’s drug war have typically opted for the spectacular over the subtle.
Massacres, beheadings and other unspeakable cruelties became cartels’ preferred form of violence. In response, the government sent masked troops with machine guns to patrol Mexico’s streets and paraded its captured drug suspects on television like hunting trophies.
But in the past few months, that has changed. Mexico’s drug war has gone quiet.
Not less lethal. Just less loud.
The country’s drug-related homicide numbers remain essentially undiminished. More than 12,000 people were murdered last year in gangland violence, according to the latest Mexican media tallies, roughly the same number that were slain in 2010 and 2011.
Auto Revolution: A Promising Future for Self-Driving Cars
The technology needed for driverless cars is here and could be ready for the market in less than a decade. Automation holds the promise of revolutionizing the automobile industry and making our streets safer, but will it spell the end of Fahrvergnügen?
A Lexus drives down the eight-lane highway outside Palo Alto, California, in heavy rush-hour traffic. Except for the rotating cylinder perched on its roof like an oversized tin can and the word "Google" on its doors, it looks like any other car. In reality, though, it's a search engine on wheels.
Dolgov explains what the car can do, which turns out to be quite a lot. It can steer, accelerate and brake automatically; it surveys its surroundings with cameras and uses radar to measure the distance to the car in front of it; and its laser scanner -- the cylinder affixed to the roof -- monitors objects in all directions.
Currency machine counting the cost of bribery
February 2, 2013
Amrit Dhillon
DELHI: For corrupt Indians, the sacks and suitcases of cash they get as bribes can present a real housekeeping problem when they get their lucre home. Who is to count all the darned notes? Their households teem with servants and flunkeys, of course, but it looks unseemly to have the staff counting wads of notes.
The more enterprising and time conscious among them have opted for an elegant solution: a currency-counting machine, the kind you see in banks.
The government should ban the sale of these machines except to legitimate buyers.
Last month, income-tax officials in the southern state of Karnataka raided the Bangalore house of the politician K.S. Eshwarappa and were taken aback to find not just the regulation gold, silver and cash stashed everywhere. They found a currency-counting machine.
Schools reopen, a sign of end of war in Timbuktu
Schoolteacher Ahmed Mohamed Coulibaly wipes the blackboard with a flourish, erasing the last date children came to school in the fabled Malian city of Timbuktu: March 22, 2012.
That was the day a group of soldiers ousted Mali's government, paving the way for armed Tuareg and Islamists to capture Timbuktu 10 days later, and marking the beginning of 10 months of brutal rule under their version of Islamic law.
Now life in the fabled desert city on the edge of the Sahara is slowly getting back to normal after it was freed on Monday by a French-led offensive.
"Our school in Timbuktu has reopened. The war is over for us," says Coulibaly.
Girls and boys mill around a fountain in the sandy courtyard of the Mahamane Fondogoumo primary and high school, waiting for class to begin.
Legal piracy? Antigua gets OK to start selling copies of US hit movies, songs
The World Trade Organization ruled that the tiny island nation is entitled to suspend American intellectual property rights due to an ongoing trade dispute with the US.
By Ezra Fieser, Correspondent / February 1, 2013
Antigua and Barbuda doesn’t normally rank among threats to United States interests. The twin-island nation’s population of 100,000 rivals that of Flint, Mich., and its $1 billion economy is about as much as New York City is spending to make infrastructure fixes like repairing bridges and filling potholes.
In what would be a first, the Antiguan government is threatening to suspend the intellectual property rights that protect the US music and film industries. It could then establish a website and sell hit songs and Hollywood blockbusters without paying royalties – legally.
2 February 2013 Last updated at 00:38 GMT
Been and Gone: Smoke on Water legend and civil rights campaigner
The name of Claude Nobs will be forever enshrined in Deep Purple's Smoke on the Water, the song with perhaps the most famous riff in rock history. Nobs was a co-founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, which by the early 1970s had grown to embrace rock artists such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. In 1971, the Montreux casino caught fire during a performance by Frank Zappa after an audience member fired a flare gun at the ceiling. Nobs dragged a number of concert goers to safety earning himself the title Funky Claude in Deep Purple's song. Born the son of a baker, Nobs developed an early love of jazz. He got a job in the local tourist office and began organising concerts to promote his home town. He became friends with many of the artists, and delighted in entertaining them in his chalet after their performance.
During the 1960s and 70s, aspiring home cooks would turn for inspiration to the cookery writer Katie Stewart.
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