Supacat providing vehicles for Australian military
Port Melbourne, Australia (UPI) Aug 21, 2014 -
Australia's military has ordered high mobility vehicles from the Supacat Group, a British company with a presence in the country.
The vehicle ordered by the Defense Material Organization is the Special Operations Vehicle - Commando, which is based on the latest MK2 version of Supacat's HMT Extenda, and which can be converted to either a 4x4 or 6x6 configuration.
The vehicle feat ...
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Yemen armed forces on alert as rebel deadline nears
Sanaa Aug 21, 2014 -
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi urged Yemen's armed forces Thursday to "raise their level of vigilance" on the eve of the expiry of a rebel deadline for the government to quit.
However, Hadi also sent a delegation to Shiite Zaidi rebel commander Abdulmalik al-Huthi in his Saada stronghold north of Sanaa to invite his group to talk and urge them to join a national unity government.
In a sp ...
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Apologise for Spain civil war role, Germany told
Madrid (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Spanish campaigners said on Thursday they have written to German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanding she apologise for her country helping the ex-dictator Franco in Spain's civil war.
Merkel is due to land in Spain on Sunday for a two-day visit for meetings with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in the northwestern pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela.
The visit drew the attention ...
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British arbitration tribunal backs up Raytheon
Waltham, Mass. (UPI) Aug 21, 2014 -
An arbitration tribunal in Britain has denied a Home Office claim for damages and a return of money from Raytheon in a dispute resulting from a contract termination.
Raytheon in the United States also reported that the tribunal found that the Home Office had unlawfully terminated Raytheon U.K.'s contract for border security program and must pay it $309 million in damages and other relie ...
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Iran denies linking Iraq role to Western sanctions
Tehran (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Iran on Thursday denied linking any future cooperation with the international community against jihadists in Iraq to the lifting of crippling Western sanctions.
Earlier, the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif as suggesting that Tehran could help the international community if it lifted the sanctions.
"If we agree to do something in Iraq, the other side ...
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Justice elusive for Syria chemical attack victims: HRW
Beirut (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Human Rights Watch Thursday said that hundreds of victims of a chemical weapons attack in Syria remained without justice one year on, days after Damascus's stockpile was completely destroyed.
The report came as a monitor said Syria's three-year war has now killed more than 180,000 people, and as France announced it delivered weapons to rebels battling to topple the regime months ago.
Thu ...
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Military Sealift command contracts logistics services
Arlington, Va. (UPI) Aug 21, 2014 -
CACI International Inc. reports it has been selected by the U.S. Navy to provide logistics support services to the Navy's Military Sealift Command.
Services to be rendered worldwide include fleet logistics operations, acquisition logistics, sustainment logistics, logistics systems and data management, ordnance management, and supply chain management.
The Worldwide Logistics Servi ...
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Lebanon army arrests Arab-Israeli infiltrator: security
Hasbaya, Lebanon (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
The Lebanese army has arrested an Arab-Israeli civilian who cut through barbed wire to cross the border into Lebanon, a security official said on Thursday.
"Ibrahim Zaydat entered Lebanon on Wednesday afternoon after cutting through a small section of barbed wire at the southeastern border, and was arrested by the army," the official told AFP.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sour ...
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Israeli strikes kill senior Hamas commanders in Gaza
Rafah, Palestinian Territories (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Israeli warplanes assassinated three top Hamas commanders in southern Gaza on Thursday, inflicting a heavy blow on the movement's armed wing after failing to kill its top military chief.
As the six-week war between Israel and Hamas raged on leaving truce talks in tatters, a pre-dawn air strike killed three members of the Islamist movement's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
T ...
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US must 'destroy' jihadists in Iraq, Syria: ex-general
Washington (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
The US military must take decisive action to "destroy" Islamic extremists in both Iraq and Syria before the threat from the jihadists expands, a former American general said on Thursday.
Only the United States has the power and weaponry to lead a coalition - including local Iraqi, Kurdish and tribal forces - to confront the so-called Islamic State (IS), said retired four-star general John ...
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Toothless 'dragon' pterosaurs dominated the Late Cretaceous skies
Moscow, Russia (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
A new study provides an exciting insight into the Late Cretaceous and the diversity and distribution of the toothless 'dragon' pterosaurs from the Azhdarchidae family. The research was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.
The Azhdarchidan pterosaurs derive their name from the Persian word for dragon - Azdarha. Interestingly, this derived and rather successful group of pterosaurs i ...
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Increase in reported flooding a result of higher exposure
Southampton, UK (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
A rise in the number of reported floods in the UK over the past 129 years can mainly be explained by increased exposure, resulting from urban expansion and population growth, according to new research by the University of Southampton.
In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, scientists have discovered that although the number of reported floods has gone up during the 20th and ...
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Study measures steep coastal costs of China's GDP growth
Providence RI (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
A new study by a team of Chinese and American conservation biologists quantifies the serious consequences of China's recent economic growth on its coastal ecosystems. By several measures, 1978 was the beginning of a hugely successful surge in the nation's ability to produce economic value, but that surge brought accelerated degradation in the vitality of its coastal ecosystems.
The combine ...
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Canada to push Arctic claim in Europe
Ottawa (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Canada's top diplomat will discuss the Arctic with his Scandinavian counterparts in Denmark and Norway next week, it was announced Thursday, a trip that will raise suspicions in Russia.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird will specifically bring up "the challenges and opportunities facing the Arctic," said a statement.
He is scheduled to visit Norway, Denmark and Austria from August 22 t ...
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Earliest evidence of snail-eating found in Spain
Tarragona, Spain (UPI) Aug 21, 2014 -
Apparently, humans have been eating snails for some 30,000 years. The Paleolithic humans on the east coast of Spain may not have been dousing their escargot in butter and garlic, but they were collecting, cooking and eating snails roughly 10,000 years before any of their Mediterranean neighbors.
Archaeologists digging at an ancient artifact-rich site on Spain's Apparently, humans have b ...
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Five Tibetans die after China police shooting: group
Beijing (AFP) Aug 20, 2014 -
Five Tibetans have died in China after police opened fire on unarmed protesters, a rights group said on Wednesday, the latest report of unrest linked to ethnic minority rights.
Police last week opened fire on locals in Kardze, a Tibetan-majority area of China's southwestern Sichuan province, rights groups and US-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, citing local sources.
Three p ...
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Study shows emergency room nurses share special traits
Sydney (UPI) Aug 21, 2014 -
Being a nurse in a hospital's emergency room or emergency department is quite a bit different than being a nurse in just about any other capacity. So it would follow that ER nurses have special characteristics that help them thrive in their distinct environment - and new research has confirmed as much.
According to a new study by researchers at the University of Sydney, nurses in emerg ...
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China 'cult' members on trial for McDonald's killing: court
Beijing (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Five members of a fringe religious group in China went on trial Thursday for beating a woman to death at a McDonald's restaurant, reportedly after she rebuffed their attempts to recruit her.
The five are all members of a cult called Quannengshen, the official news agency Xinhua said, adding that they attacked the woman, surnamed Wu, after she refused to give them her phone number.
The gr ...
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China 'cult' members on trial for McDonald's killing: court
Beijing (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Five people accused by Chinese authorities of being members of a religious cult went on trial Thursday for beating a woman to death at a McDonald's restaurant, the court said.
The woman, surnamed Wu, was attacked in May at the restaurant in Zhaoyuan, in Shandong province, after refusing to give the suspects her telephone number, the official news agency Xinhua said.
They were seeking to ...
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Water crisis threatens thirsty Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
Sao Paulo is thirsty.
A severe drought is hitting Brazil's largest city and thriving economic capital with no end in sight, threatening the municipal water supply to millions of people.
The water at the Cantareira reservoirs, which supply about nine million of the 20 million people in the metropolitan area, is at its lowest level ever amid the region's worst drought in 45 years.
Othe ...
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Governor stands down National Guard in US riot town
Ferguson, United States (AFP) Aug 21, 2014 -
The governor of the US state of Missouri on Thursday ordered National Guard troops to withdraw from a town gripped by nearly two weeks of protests over a police shooting.
Governor Jay Nixon said the soldiers were no longer needed and that state police would handle security in Ferguson, a St Louis suburb where on August 9 a local officer killed an unarmed black teenager.
The deployment of ...
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Cities help spiders grow bigger, multiply faster
Sydney (UPI) Aug 20, 2014 -
Arachnophobic urbanites, you might want to pack it up and head for the suburbs - safer yet, the countryside. New research suggests many spiders prefer the glitz and glam of the city life. In a recent study, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists reveal that certain spider species get bigger and multiply faster in urban environs.
It's no secret that urbanization is on t ...
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Power plant in Vermont serving host to 200 endangered bats
Middlebury, Vt. (UPI) Aug 20, 2014 -
Some 200 little brown bats have made their home in Green Mountain Power's hydro power facility in Middlebury, Vermont. Officials with the state's Fish & Wildlife Department alerted the company to the bats' presence after a local resident called in to say he'd seen bats flying out of the building every night.
"I think it's fun that we have bats in our hydro," Green Mountain Power spokesw ...
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Freeways as fences, trapping the mountain lions of Los Angeles
Washington DC (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
That mountain lions have managed to survive at all in the Santa Monica Mountains of California-in the vicinity of the megacity of Los Angeles-is a testament to the resilience of wildlife, but researchers studying these large carnivorous cats now show in the Cell Press journal Current Biology that the lions are also completely isolated, cut off from other populations by the freeway.
Accordi ...
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Microbes can create dripstones
Odense, Denmark (SPX) Aug 21, 2014 -
According to new research humble, microscopic organisms can create dripstones in caves. This illustrates how biological life can influence the formation of Earth's geology - and the same may be happening right now on other planets in space.
According to traditional textbooks dripstones are created by geological or geochemical processes with no influence from living organisms. But now scien ...
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