Nasa has released startling images of a swirling storm at Saturn’s north pole which is 20 times larger than an average hurricane on earth and has winds four times as powerful.
The eye of the storm is estimated to measure 1,250 miles across and looks like a rose due to its thin, bright clouds which are moving on the outer edge of the hurricane.
The images were captured by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft and shows the hurricane moving inside a mysterious, larger six-sided weather pattern known as The Hexagon.
Medical reinforcements have arrived at Guantanamo Bay to deal with a growing hunger strike by prisoners at the US detention centre in Cuba.
Roughly 40 US Navy nurses and other specialists arrived over the weekend to deal with the growing number of strikers, which stands at 100 out of the 166 total inmates, according to Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House.
Twenty one prisoners are being force-fed through a tube to prevent dangerous weight loss and five are being observed in the base hospital.
New Italian PM tells country ‘we all win or lose together’
Letta calls for seriousness and stability in face of financial crisis
Earlier, in a wideranging speech, Mr Letta had appealed to sceptics on both sides of the house, arguing that his government merited respect because it would be one of “service”, based on the principles of “national cohesion” and adding: “[With this government], we all win or we all lose together.”
Mr Letta, whose administration was formed after seven weeks of deadlock in the wake of an inconclusive general election in February, acknowledged that one of his first priorities would be to establish the “seriousness and credibility” of his executive.
Europe's Moral Quandary: The High Human Price of Cheap T-Shirts
More than 3,000 people worked producing cheap t-shirts for European clothing chains in the highrise sweatshop that collapsed in Bangladesh last week. Hundreds died because the facility was lacking even the most basic safety standards.
Jamil can't stop thinking about the voices that came from the building: a mixture of pleading, praying, screaming and whimpering that rose from the mountain of ruins. "We heard people calling for help. We heard them begging for water and reciting prayers," the fireman recalls. "But we couldn't do anything for them. So many of were simply beyond our reach." They helped those they could, bringing food and water to people trapped in accessible cavities within the giant mound of rubble that days before was still a functioning factory building.
Hamas 'modesty' crackdown stokes fears of Islamic militancy
April 30, 2013 - 11:29AM
Phoebe Greenwood
Gaza residents are being beaten by police for wearing the wrong clothes, or sporting the wrong hairstyle.
GAZA CITY: It is three weeks since his arrest, but Ismail Halou still has streaks of purple bruising on the soles of his feet. The 22-year-old was filling cars at his family's petrol station in Gaza City at 5pm on April 4 when a black jeep pulled into the forecourt and police stepped out to order him into the car. He was blindfolded and driven to the nearest police station.
"I could hear the screams of people being beaten in the rooms next to me," he recalled. "Two men held my legs down and tied them together on a wooden board then they beat the soles of my feet with a plastic rod. They beat me for at least five minutes. I was crying and screaming with agony. It was the worst pain I've ever felt."
Young people should be concerned with their education and what Israel is doing to us, rather than concentrating on the outside world and pop star haircuts.
Ihab al-Ghusain, Hamas spokesman
After the beating, officers set to work shaving off the one-inch fin of gelled hair that was the cause of his arrest.
Africa's future leaders benefit from Beijing's aid programme
China's African aid programme aims to offer 18 000 government scholarships and train 30 000 Africans by 2015.
China has been courting Robert Ocholla with the awkward intensity of a high-school romance. First it granted the 36-year-old Kenyan agricultural official a full scholarship for a three-year master's degree in Beijing. Then came the comfortable dorm room, the snazzy banquets and the complimentary Peking opera tickets. "Sometimes it's a bit too much," Ocholla said, smiling and slowly shaking his head.
Last summer, the then Chinese president Hu Jintao announced an expansive aid programme that will offer 18 000 government scholarships and train 30 000 Africans "in various sectors" by 2015. Ocholla is one of 63 government officials from Kenya to benefit directly from these promises. Chinese training programmes vary in type and duration, from three-week political tours for ministerial officials to advanced degree programmes for university administrators.
30 April 2013Last updated at 03:05 GMT
Egypt's challenge: Free to speak
Under the Mubarak regime, the state closely monitored all forms of political and religious expression in Egypt. Now all that has changed and millions are watching a proliferation of satellite TV channels. Shaimaa Khalil reports on the new voices in the second part of her series Egypt's Challenge.
Talat Harb street is in the heart of central Cairo. It is just three minutes away from Tahrir Square where the Egyptian revolution erupted two years ago and it is where you will find one of Cairo's historic landmarks, the Cinema Radio building.
Abandoned for years, the classic building has been refurbished and is the venue for the TV show of Egypt's most famous political satirist, Bassem Youssef.
Following the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. the U.S. sought out those responsible. After Al Qaida took credit the American government demanded that the Taliban government turn over those accused of the crime to the U.S. so that they could face justice. The Taliban refused. Setting in motion the American war in Afghanistan which is on going to this day. Casting about for a leader they could work with: an acceptable allie that would follow American political doctrine Hamid Karzai was their choice. Having a western education they assumed that he would aqueous to policies seen as preferable to American interests. All for a little incentive, good old American green backs.
Just a few problems have arisen seen all of these wonderful events have taken place. The Afghani government is one of the most corrupt in the world with ties to drug dealing and embezzlement aid funds ment for the rebuilding of the country.
So, why should come as any surprise that the C.I.A has been delivering large sums of money to the office of the president all in cash. After all the C.I.A has done this before all in the name of American interests just ask the people of Iran how well it has all worked out.
Today's New York Times has a front page story about? The C.I.A. handing over large amounts of cash to office of the President of Afghanistan: How surprising!
For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency. All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of PresidentHamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”
Ghost money. What a wonderful euphemism "Ghost Money" as elusive as a real ghost perhaps the Ghost Busters should be envolved?
Moreover, there is little evidence that the payments bought the influence the C.I.A. sought. Instead, some American officials said, the cash has fueled corruption and empowered warlords, undermining Washington’s exit strategy from Afghanistan. “The biggest source of corruption in Afghanistan,” one American official said, “was the United States.”
Imagine that the money helped foster corruption in an overtly corrupt nation how surprising.
More than 6.5 million people were newly displaced within their own countries in 2012, almost twice as many as the year before, IDMC said in its annual report. Since these people have not crossed borders, they are not refugees and do not benefit from international protection.
Emergency Greek Bill allows 15,500 public sector layoffs
Move to permit massive redundancy plan by end of 2014 a condition for €8.8bn in rescue loans
Greece’s parliament has approved an emergency Bill to pave the way for thousands of public sector layoffs and clear the way for €8.8 billion in international rescue loans.
The Bill, which passed in a 168-123 vote, will allow for the first civil service layoffs in more than a century.
About 2,000 civil servants will be laid off by the end of May, with another 2,000 following by the end of the year and a further 11,500 by the end of 2014, for a total of 15,500.
Kalashnikov classes for Palestinian students
April 29, 2013 - 1:44PM
Phoebe Greenwood
Gaza City: Palestinian schoolboys are learning how to fire Kalashnikovs, throw grenades and plant improvised explosive devices as part of a program run by Hamas's education ministry.
The scheme has been criticised by Palestinian human rights groups, who point out that Hamas has previously banned sport from the school curriculum on the grounds that there is not enough time for it.
Hamas authorities introduced the "Futuwwa", or youth program into the state curriculum last September for 37,000 Palestinian boys aged between 15 and 17, conceiving it as a scheme intended to initiate a new generation of Palestinian men in the struggle against Israel.
Izzadine Mohamed, 17, was among the students who attended the weekly school classes, which covered first aid, basic fire fighting skills and how to fire a Kalashnikov rifle.
Nigeria's elite make country toast of champagne sellers
AFP Relaxnews | 29 April, 2013 09:32
The party was just getting started at a plush club in this teeming Nigerian city, hip-hop blaring, the bar bathed in blue light -- and champagne bottles on ice already adorning tables.
"Too much oil money," said a 40-year-old man at Rhapsody's in the high-end Victoria Island district of Lagos, when asked about Nigerian spending on champagne.
Two bottles of Laurent-Perrier chilled in ice buckets on the table in front of him. His company was picking up the tab, like others here, he said, declining to give his name or say what he did for a living.
Recent data puts Nigeria among the fastest-growing countries in the world for champagne consumption, spending an estimated $59 million in 2012 on bubbly, according to Euromonitor International research firm.
Mexico: Border schools adjust to influx of English-speaking students
Thousands of children have arrived in Mexican schools from the US amid record deportations. One school in Northern Mexico is becoming a model for integrating this new student population.
Elementary students at Lamberto Hernández School in this northern Mexican city were long gone by the time teachers sat down recently to learn about the growing population of English-speaking students in their classrooms.
At the teacher training workshop, facilitator Laura Guadalupe Zatarain asked the educators in English to fill out a simple form written in German. The teachers looked at her, puzzled.
"This gives you an idea how these children feel when we start speaking too fast and they have trouble understanding," Ms. Zatarain says, switching to Spanish. "Especially about a subject like math, or history, or President Benito Juárez, someone they have never heard about."
Panel seeks to fine tech companies for noncompliance with wiretap orders
A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort.
Driven by FBI concerns that it is unable to tap the Internet communications of terrorists and other criminals, the task force’s proposal would penalize companies that failed to heed wiretap orders — court authorizations for the government to intercept suspects’ communications.
The United States' military expenditures today account for about 40 percent of the world total. In 2012, the US spent some $682bn on its military - an amount more than what was spent by the next 13 countries combined.
Now that the war in Iraq is over and the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan will be complete in 2014, the stage might therefore appear to be set for a decrease in US defence spending. Even in Washington DC, many have argued that the defence budget can be cut substantially and the resulting "peace dividend" could be diverted to more pressing domestic concerns, such as dealing with the nation's continuing economic problems.
Chuck Spinney, who worked as an analyst in the US secretary of defence's office for 26 years, believes it is difficult for the United States to reap the benefits of a peace dividend because of the workings of the military-industrial complex that President Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his final 1961 address.
"It's what in Washington we call an iron triangle," Spinney says, " you have an alliance between the private sector, the defence contractors, the executive branch, in this case the Pentagon, and the legislative branch."
The government of Iraq has suspended the licenses of 10 satellite TV channels operating in the country accusing them of in sighting violence and reporting misinformation. All the channels whose licenses have been suspended are considered by the Shia led government to be pro Sunni. The action follows nearly a week of unrest in which more than 100 have been killed following an Iraqi army raid on a protest camp in the northern city of Kirkuk.
'Misinformation'
More than 20 people died at the camp, in the northern town of Hawija, near Kirkuk, prompting two Sunni ministers to announce their resignation. Demonstrations spread to Ramadi and Falluja in western Iraq as well as towns and cities elsewhere in the north.
The protesters accused the Shia-led government of discriminating against Sunnis and demanded the resignation of Mr Maliki, himself a Shia.
The Iraqi Communication and Media Commission said in a statement that the satellite channels had "exaggerated things, given misinformation and called for breaking the law and attacking Iraqi security forces".
BBC Baghdad correspondent Rafid Jaboori says most of the 10 channels are Sunni-owned while Qatar-based al-Jazeera is perceived as more pro-Sunni in its Arabic-language reporting in Iraq.
Dhaka building collapse: Frantic effort to reach survivors
28 April 2013 Last updated at 07:42 GMT Rescuers are frantically trying to save about nine people located in the wreckage of a collapsed factory complex in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan at the scene says it is a race against time before officials bring in heavy machinery.
He says the smell of decomposing bodies is making some rescuers ill.
More than 350 people have died since Wednesday's disaster and hundreds more are missing.
On Sunday, two more people were pulled alive from the rubble of the eight-storey building in the suburb of Savar as the rescue operation entered its fifth day.
Election favourite's daughter takes to the streets to win the heart of Punjab Maryam Sharif feels the love as she canvasses for her father, who is likely to become Pakistan's PM for a third time
Jason Burke in Lahore
The Observer, Sunday 28 April 2013 The convoy slows. In front of the candidate's vehicle, men dance. Rose petals are hurled from the rooftops. Motorbikes swarm. "Look, look who is coming," supporters shout. A white tiger on top of a van yawns and stretches a paw. A small child and a 90-year-old party worker are hauled through the crowd to offer garlands.
"It's a beautiful feeling to be loved," says Maryam Sharif, leaning back in the seat of her luxury SUV three days into her first election campaign. "My shoulders hurt from waving six hours a day. I need to learn to wave wisely."
Syria and sarin gas: US claims have a very familiar ring Reports of the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons are part of a retold drama riddled with plot-holes
ROBERT FISK SUNDAY 28 APRIL 2013 Is there any way of escaping the theatre of chemical weapons? First, Israeli "military intelligence" says that Bashar al-Assad's forces have used/have probably used/might have used/could use chemical weapons. Then Chuck Hagel, the US Defence Secretary, pops up in Israel to promise even more firepower for Israel's over-armed military – avoiding any mention of Israel's more than 200 nuclear warheads – and then imbibing all the Israeli "intelligence" on Syria's use/probable use/possible use of chemical weapons.
N Korea set to stage major military drill
April 28, 2013 - 2:59PM North Korea appears to be gearing up for a major military exercise, a report says, amid tensions over an expected missile test and South Korea's pullout from a joint industrial complex.
Preparations are under way near the North's western port of Nampo for a combined live-fire drill involving artillery units and air force jets, the South's Yonhap news agency said on Sunday, citing a Seoul government source.
"It appears that the scale of the drill will be quite big," the unnamed official was quoted as saying, voicing fears of military provocations against the South or a missile test by Pyongyang during the exercise.
We are heading to Khartoum: Sudan rebels Sudanese rebels said they attacked five areas in North and South Kordofan states on Saturday, widening an anti-government offensive in one of their most audacious acts in years.
Sapa-AFP | 28 April, 2013 08:49 "This is a significant shift in the war in Sudan," Abdel Wahid Mohammed al-Nur, who heads a faction of Darfur's Sudan Liberation Army, told AFP.
"We are heading to Khartoum," he said. "This is not a joke."
A regional political expert said the attacks were timed to the "failure" of peace talks this week between South Kordofan rebels and the government.
U.S. role at a crossroads in Mexico’s intelligence war on the cartels
By Dana Priest, Sunday, April 28, 9:22 AM MEXICO CITY — For the past seven years, Mexico and the United States have put aside their tension-filled history on security matters to forge an unparalleled alliance against Mexico’s drug cartels, one based on sharing sensitive intelligence, U.S. training and joint operational planning.
But now, much of that hard-earned cooperation may be in jeopardy.
The December inauguration of President Enrique Peña Nieto brought the nationalistic Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) back to power after 13 years, and with it a whiff of resentment over the deep U.S. involvement in Mexico’s fight against narco-traffickers.
One guy who owns a tour business with magical powers along the lines of a Jedi Knight or perhaps Harry Potter is going to overthrow the must paranoid government on earth you bet. I know he's an army of one impersonating a tour guide.
Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on November 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia.
"The preliminary inquiry into crimes committed by American citizen Pae Jun Ho closed," the official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief report.
"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it. His crimes were proved by evidence."
DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Under North Korea's criminal code, terrorist acts include murdering, kidnapping and injuring the country's citizens can lead to a death sentence or life in jail.
Two owners of garment factories in the building that collapsed on the outskirts of the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have surrendered to police.
Mahbubur Rahman Tapas and Balzul Samad Adnan are suspected of forcing staff to work in the eight-storey building, ignoring warnings about cracks.
At least 336 people are known to have died after the Rana Plaza in the suburb of Savar collapsed on Wednesday.
On Saturday morning, at least 24 more people were rescued from the rubble.
Rescuers and volunteers, who worked through the night, cheered as they were brought to safety.
One giant leap for mankind: £13bn Iter project makes breakthrough in quest for nuclear fusion, a solution to climate change and an age of clean, unlimited energy
It may be the most ambitious scientific venture ever: a global collaboration to create an unlimited supply of clean, cheap energy. And this week it took a crucial step forward. Steve Connor reports
An idyllic hilltop setting in the Cadarache forest of Provence in the south of France has become the site of an ambitious attempt to harness the nuclear power of the sun and stars.
It is the place where 34 nations representing more than half the world’s population have joined forces in the biggest scientific collaboration on the planet – only the International Space Station is bigger.
The international nuclear fusion project – known as Iter, meaning “the way” in Latin – is designed to demonstrate a new kind of nuclear reactor capable of producing unlimited supplies of cheap, clean, safe and sustainable electricity from atomic fusion.
KOSOVO
Serbian parliament approves normalizing ties with Kosovo
Serbia's parliament has overwhelmingly approved normalizing ties with its former breakaway province Kosovo. The historic accord will allow Belgrade to begin negotiating its eventual admission to the European Union.
Both the nationalist incumbents and the center-left opposition approved the deal on Friday, which recognizes Kosovo's authority over ethnic Serbs in the north, while also granting them a degree of autonomy from the ethnic-Albanian-dominated government in Pristina.
The legendary hero of Kenya's Mau Mau uprising, Muthoni wa Kirima continues to fight injustice in her country.
In her small home in the verdant hills that surround Nyeri, in central Kenya, wa Kirima seems like just another grandmother.
Visitors are welcomed with elaborately prepared tea and seated on the threadbare sofa or armchairs. The few pieces of modest furniture are strewn with sepia photographs and assorted keepsakes from her 83 years. It's only when she removes her headscarf and a cascade of matted dreadlocks falls to the sitting room floor that there is a hint of her extraordinary life.
The hair, which she calls her "history", is snow-white at the roots, darkening to black at the tips, and has remained with her since the 1950s, when she took to the forests of Kenya's Aberdare mountains to fight the British.
Venezuela's opposition asks election audit to include fingerprint verification
For years, Venezuela's opposition criticized the fingerprint scanners as intimidation but now hope it will prove incidents of voter fraud.
Wednesday, [opposition leader]Henrique Caprileswent on television to demand the [National Election Council] CNE offer his data as part of the [election] audit. The government of Nicolás Maduro quickly insisted that all television stations go to cadena, [where all channels must broadcast the same message from the government] in order to broadcast a prerecorded infomercial accusing Mr. Capriles of instigating violence. This had the added effect of blocking the Capriles press conference from the few stations that were broadcasting it.
Miguel has the specifics of Capriles campaign's audit request from Venezuela's CNE. Capriles wants the audit to look at who voted and how the fingerprint scanners that are supposed to prevent double voting functioned.
Japan Japan stirs Campbell's US 'pivot' soup By Peter Lee
Oscar Wilde wrote, "When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." Perhaps this is how Kurt Campbell feels today.
Campbell, after all, as assistant secretary for East Asia in Hillary Clinton's State Department, was a key architect and proponent of the "pivot to Asia", which was meant to elicit satisfactory behavior from China - and, in the process, demonstrate US leadership and relevance - by confronting the PRC with a phalanx of Pacific democracies (plus Vietnam of course) determined to impose liberal security, economic, and human rights norms on the rogue superpower.
The inevitable result of US backing has been an increased
willingness of the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan to stand up to China, which has contributed a virtuous cycle of Chinese hostility and a further defensive cleaving of the smaller nations to the United States.
South Korea has decided to withdraw the roughly 175 of its nationals stationed at Kaesong joint industrial zone after North Korea rejected Seoul’s offer to open formal talks on restarting operations at the complex, according to a senior official.
Seoul said on Friday it was worried about its workers not having access to food and medicine at the factory park that has been closed for nearly a month.
The statement by the country's Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae raises a major question about the future of the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation as tensions remain high in the region.
The jointly run industrial zone located inside North Korea on the border with the South provides jobs to more than 50,000 North Koreans, who withdrew after their government decided to shut operations there.
It's hard to believe that someone who is considered a progressive in American can be so cavalier about the lives lost when the factory in Bangladesh collapsed killing at least 200 people yet Matt Yglesias writing for Slate did just that.
It's very plausible that one reason American workplaces have gotten safer over the decades is that we now tend to outsource a lot of factory-explosion-risk to places like Bangladesh where87 people just died in a building collapse.* This kind of consideration leads Erik Loomis to the conclusion that we need a unified global standard for safety, by which he does not mean that Bangladeshi levels of workplace safety should be implemented in the United States.
I think that's wrong. Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it's entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, indeed, lower—workplace safety standards than the United States.
He thinks that's wrong because obviously the lives of the economically disadvantaged workers in Bangladesh are worth less than American workers in simular employment situations. Additionally because America has over time developed higher work place safety standards than Bangladesh those same standards should not be applied to a poor country and its workers because they are desperate for the needed income these types of jobs provide.
Bangladesh is a lot poorer than the United States, and there are very good reasons for Bangladeshi people to make different choices in this regard than Americans. That's true whether you're talking about an individual calculus or a collective calculus. Safety rules that are appropriate for the United States would be unnecessarily immiserating in much poorer Bangladesh. Rules that are appropriate in Bangladesh would be far too flimsy for the richer and more risk-averse United States. Split the difference and you'll get rules that are appropriate for nobody. The current system of letting different countries have different rules is working fine.American jobs have gotten much safer over the past 20 years, and Bangladesh has gotten a lot richer.
So, remember even though Bangladesh doesn't have particularly good work place safety rules that's all right because Bangladesh has become a richer country on the backs of its dead workers. Its really nice to know that Matt doesn't give a shit about the worlds poor.
'Growing evidence' of chemical weapons use in Syria - UK
There is "limited but growing" evidence that Syrian government troops have used chemical weapons, UK Prime Minister David Cameron says.
"It is extremely serious, this is a war crime," Mr Cameron told the BBC.
On Thursday, the White House said that US intelligence agencies believed "with varying degrees of confidence" that Syria had used the nerve agent sarin.
It said the gas had been deployed on a "small scale", but did not give details of where or when it had been used.
Mr Cameron said he agreed with the White House's warning that chemical weapons use would be a "red line" for possible intervention
North Korea rejects South's call for Kaesong talks
Pyongyang says similar demands in future would 'only speed up final destruction' of South Korea
A day earlier Seoul had used the same language in setting a Friday deadline for Pyongyang to answer its call for working-level discussions of the fate of the Kaesong industrial park.
While neither capital is providing specifics about what the grave measures might be, the war of words calls into question the future of the last major symbol of inter-Korean co-operation.
Unemployment hits new high in Spain
Over six million people out of work in first quarter of 2013
Spanish unemployment has hit a new high, with over six million people out of work as the country remains mired in recession.
The jobless rate hit 27.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year – the highest figure on record – according to the National Statistics Institute’s active population survey.
Young Spaniards were among the hardest hit as the jobless rate among the under-25s rose to 57.2 per cent.
Recent data highlighted the exodus of young Spaniards abroad as the active population fell by 85,000 in the first quarter. That drop in the population was also attributed to the return of unemployed immigrants to their home countries.
PEACEKEEPING
Kurdish PKK rebels announce withdrawal date from Turkey
A Kurdish rebel commander has announced that the group will begin withdrawing guerilla fighters from Turkey and into northern Iraq in May. The announcement comes amid a peace drive between Ankara and the rebel movement.
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Murat Karayilan told a news conference Thursday in the group's mountainous stronghold of Qandil in northern Iraq that the withdrawal would begin on May 8.
"As part of ongoing preparations, the withdrawal will begin on May 8, 2013," PKK leader Karayilan was quoted as saying by the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency.
Brazil's Heart of Darkness: Notorious Rebel-Killer May Finally Face Justice
Like a character out of the film "Apocalypse Now," Colonel Sebastião de Moura allegedly hunted, tortured and killed rebels without remorse during Brazil's military dictatorship. Now, almost 40 years later, he is likely to face charges.
The Curió is at home where the Amazon rainforest begins to thin out and becomes slightly less impenetrable. It has a black back, its feathers are the color of hazelnuts and its call varies from light and bell-like to somber and plaintive. Rainforest residents like to catch the bird because, in captivity, the Curió reacts aggressively when confronted with one of its own kind in a cage. The bird is known for fighting until it drops, which makes it the perfect candidate for betting operations. Its name means "friend of mankind" in the local language. It's certainly an odd bird.
The West's demand for "bargain-basement" clothes is causing factory disasters such as this week's Bangladeshi building collapse, labour activists say.
At least 273 Bangladeshi garment industry workers are dead following the collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight-storey factory near Dhaka making clothes for a host of Western brands, including Britain's Primark and the Spanish label Mango, which recently announced a deal to set up shops within David Jones in Australia.
The deaths of these workers could have been avoided if multinational corporations, governments and factory owners took workers' protection seriously.
Up to 3000 people were in the building when it collapsed on Wednesday morning, and rescuers have spent three days pulling survivors, and the bodies of those killed, from the rubble. It's still unknown how many people, alive or dead, remain trapped inside.
