19 August 2013 Last updated at 08:48 GMT
19 August 2013 Last updated at 00:02 GMT
Egyptian police killed in Sinai ambush at Rafah
At least 24 Egyptian policemen have been killed in an ambush attack in the Sinai peninsula.
Medical sources and officials said the police were in two buses which came under attack from armed men close to the town of Rafah on the Gaza border.
Three policemen were also reported to have been injured in the blast.
The military recently intensified a crackdown against militants in Sinai, where attacks have surged since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
Egyptian deployments in the peninsula are subject to the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
There were conflicting reports about how Monday's attack unfolded.
TERRORISM
Al Qaeda 'targeting European high-speed rail'
Al Qaeda has been plotting attacks on high-speed rail networks in Europe, according to a German media report. The information reportedly came from the US National Security Agency (NSA) listening in on top operatives.
A report by the German daily newspaper Bild on Monday said that al Qaeda leaders have been plotting attacks on high-speed rail networks across Europe.
The group was possibly targeting trains and tunnels or planning to sabotage railway tracks themselves and the electric cabling serving them.
The terrorist attacks were reported to have been a "central topic" of a conference call intercepted by the NSA, involving high-ranking al Qaeda operatives.
Ethiopia signs $800 mln mobile network deal with China's ZTE
* Deal half of $1.6 bln project with Huawei Technologies
* Both firms will provide low interest loans to Ethiopia
* Telecoms industry symbolises Africa's economic growth
ADDIS ABABA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Ethiopia signed an $800 million deal with China's ZTE on Sunday to expand mobile phone infrastructure and introduce a high-speed 4G broadband network in the capital Addis Ababa and a 3G service throughout the rest of the country.
The agreement with ZTE, China's second-largest telecoms equipment maker, is half of a $1.6 billion project split with Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's second largest telecom equipment maker. Huawei signed the agreement last month.
Both firms will provide low interest loans to Ethiopia through an arrangement known as vendor financing, Ethiopian officials and both firms said.
Norway's weird waves traced to Japan quake
On a calm winter's day in Norway two years ago, the sea suddenly started to boil and rise, sending freak waves rolling onto nearby shores and mystifying residents. Turns out, the massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake that shook Japan in 2011 also triggered these surprise seiche waves, a new study shows.
Seiche (pronounced saysh) waves are standing waves that form in closed or semi-enclosed water basins, such as Norway's narrow, steep-walled fjords. Smaller examples of standing waves include water sloshing in a bathtub from a wriggly child, or in a swimming pool after an earthquake.
The roiling seas surprised and shocked Norwegians when the waves rolled in after 7 a.m. local time on March 11, said lead study author Stein Bondevik, a geologist at Sogn og Fjordane University College in Sogndal, Norway. The waves measured nearly 5 feet (1.5 meters) from trough to crest (their lowest to highest point). No damage was reported, however. "Luckily, they happened at low tide," Bondevik said.
NATIONAL / CRIME & LEGAL
Steel maker to pay if Korean ruling upheld
NSSMC fears asset seizure if it fails to comply in war labor case
KYODO
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. will comply if the South Korean Supreme Court upholds a ruling ordering it to pay 400 million won (about ¥35 million) to compensate four Koreans who were for forced to work for its predecessors during the war, company sources said Sunday.
The Seoul High Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on July 10, marking in the first judgment by a South Korean court ordering a Japanese firm to pay in a case involving postwar reparations.
After appealing the ruling, however, NSSMC has apparently changed its mind.
19 August 2013 Last updated at 00:02 GMT
Exploring Los Angeles' forgotten stairways to the stars
From the air, the hills of Silver Lake, peppered with bungalows, must look like a leafy game of Snakes and Ladders. Roads insinuate their way up and around the mountain slopes and connecting them all from the lowest to the highest are dozens of vertiginous stone staircases. These are the historic Los Angeles Stairs, hidden and unknown to most of the city's residents and visitors.
I was about to take a hike between them with Charles Fleming, an LA Times editor who has spent years researching and mapping the stairways, originally as a form of convenient local exercise.
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