Philippine Muslim rebels oppose Islamic State 'virus'
Manila (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group has condemned extremist jihadists in Iraq and Syria, and vowed to stop the spread of their "virus" into the Southeast Asian nation.
After decades of armed rebellion that claimed tens of thousands of lives, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) signed a peace agreement in March that commits it and the national government to share power in the are ...
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A mother's appeal as fears mount for Syria hostages
Washington (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
The mother of a US hostage who has been threatened with death by jihadist militants pleaded for his life on Wednesday amid mounting fears for Americans captured in Syria.
Last week's murder of journalist James Foley by the so-called Islamic State has focused attention on other American hostages, including 31-year-old freelancer Steven Sotloff.
Another journalist, Peter Theo Curtis, retur ...
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Taiwan honours 56,000 WWII soldiers killed in Myanmar
Taipei (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
Taiwan on Wednesday honoured tens of thousands of Chinese Nationalist soldiers killed in World War II in Myanmar, many of whom came to the rescue of British troops.
A wooden plaque inscribed with Chinese characters reading "The spirits of the Republic of China officers and soldiers killed" was brought to the Martyrs' Shrine in Taipei as a military band played solemn music.
It symbolises ...
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New deal struck for 84mm recoilless rifles
Washington (UPI) Aug 27, 2014 -
A new framework deal for acquisition of Saab's Carl-Gustaf man-portable recoilless rifle has been signed by the company and the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Under the agreement - a follow-on to an earlier contract - USSOCOM is able to place orders for the 84mm weapon over a five-year period up to a total value of $187 million.
An initial order worth $14.3 million dollars wa ...
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Slain Iraqis 'of no threat' to Blackwater guards
Washington (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
The 14 Iraqi civilians mowed down by four guards with the Blackwater private security firm were of no threat and "were not legitimate targets," a prosecutor said Wednesday, as their high-profile trial reached its climax.
The four, who were guarding a US diplomatic convoy when they opened fire, are accused of shooting dead the unarmed Iraqis, including women and children, who were desperately ...
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Magal supports Israeli, international security projects
Yahud, Israel (UPI) Aug 27, 2014 -
Magal Security Systems Ltd., an Israeli company, reports receipt of more than $4 million in domestic and international contracts for its technologies.
The biggest award, worth nearly $2 million, is for the company's smart fence security solution that combines taut wire and vibration sensor products and is from an unidentified customer in Israel.
Smart fence will be used for a hom ...
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Hacking Gmail with 92 Percent Success
Riverside CA (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
A team of researchers, including an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, have identified a weakness believed to exist in Android, Windows and iOS mobile operating systems that could be used to obtain personal information from unsuspecting users. They demonstrated the hack in an Android phone.
The researchers tested the method and fou ...
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Jihadists anti-Islamic: exiled Brotherhood spiritual guide
Doha (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
The organisation of exiled Muslim Brotherhood spiritual guide Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said Wednesday that the actions of "deviant groups" like the jihadist Islamic State were in violation of Islamic law.
Qaradawi's International Union of Muslim Scholars described as "criminal and unlawful" an offensive led by the group's fighters against non-Muslims in northern Iraq earlier this month.
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Uighur entrepreneur confronts prejudice in China
Beijing (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Ambitious and apolitical, self-described "good Uighur" entrepreneur Abdulhabir Muhammad initially conceals his proud ethnic identity from his Chinese clients.
"After I solve everything I will tell them, 'Hey, I'm a Uighur, I'm from Xinjiang,'" he says, revelling in their astonishment even while poignantly aware of the prejudice it implies.
Violence is escalating in and beyond Xinjiang, t ...
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U.S. military destroys experimental hypersonic weapon
Anchorage, Alaska (UPI) Aug 26, 2014 -
Four seconds into the test launch of an experimental hypersonic weapon, on Monday, U.S. military officials were forced to abandon the mission and cue the weapon to self-destruct.
The so-called Advanced Hypersonic Weapon is part of the Defense Department's Conventional Prompt Global Strike technology development program. The program's objective is to construct a missile that can wipe out ...
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In Aleppo, Syria rebels back US strikes against jihadists
Aleppo, Syria (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
In Syria's Aleppo, devastated by two years of fighting and regime attacks, rebels and activists are eager for US strikes against jihadists they say have stolen their anti-government uprising.
The United States has yet to decide on whether it will carry out air strikes in Syria against jihadists from the Islamic State group, though it is already doing so in neighbouring Iraq.
The Islamic ...
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China's Xi meets Vietnam envoy amid strained ties
Beijing (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday held talks with a top Vietnamese envoy and said the two countries should repair strained relations, state media reported.
Xi met Le Hong Anh, a member of Vietnam's Communist Party politburo, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. It described him as being sent by the head of the country's Communist Party.
China and Vietnam, once close ideological ...
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Israel closes Golan area as Syria rebels seize crossing
Jerusalem (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
Israel closed off the area around Quneitra on the occupied Golan Heights on Wednesday after an officer was wounded by stray fire as Syrian rebels seized control of the crossing.
The UN peacekeeping force which monitors the armistice line said several mortar rounds struck near its positions as rebel fighters, including some from Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front, stormed the crossing in deadl ...
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Iraq forces ready bid to break jihadist siege of Shiite town
Kirkuk, Iraq (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
Iraq was massing forces Wednesday for an operation to break a two-month jihadist siege of a Shiite Turkmen town north of Baghdad, amid growing fears for residents short of supplies.
The planned counter-offensive around the Salaheddin province town of Amerli comes amid reports that US President Barack Obama is weighing a decision to authorise air strikes and aid drops in the area to help thou ...
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US weighs mission to help besieged Turkmen in Iraq
Washington (AFP) Aug 27, 2014 -
The United States is weighing a possible humanitarian mission as well as air strikes to help Shiite Turkmen encircled by Islamic State jihadists in northern Iraq, US officials said Wednesday.
If approved, the operation in Amerli could resemble US military action taken earlier this month to aid thousands of vulnerable Yazidis at Mount Sinjar, also in Iraq's north, officials said.
In that ...
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Japan seeks to double budget for disputed islands patrol
Tokyo, Japan (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Japan's coastguard is to ask for a doubling of its budget to boost patrols around islands that are the focus of a dispute with China, officials said Thursday.
The agency will submit a request to the government for 50.4 billion yen ($485 million) for the financial year starting in April 2015, they said.
The move will come after two years of relentless tensions with Beijing over the Tokyo- ...
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Obama's executive order: computer chip implants to heal injured troops
Washington (UPI) Aug 27, 2014 -
President Obama is backing a unique program aimed at developing computer chip implants that monitor and augment an injured soldier's nervous system - mitigating all sorts of maladies, ranging from arthritis to post-traumatic stress.
The computer chips are the purview of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), an agency specializing in the development of high-tech militar ...
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Rebels seize ground as West claims Russia army is in Ukraine
Starobesheve, Ukraine (AFP) Aug 28, 2014 -
Rebels in east Ukraine appear to have seized swathes of territory from retreating government forces, while Western intelligence says Russian army units are operating inside the country.
After weeks of government offensives that have seen troops push deep into the last rebel bastions, the tide appeared to be turning once again in the four-month conflict, prompting a nervous government in Kiev ...
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Space Command team wins national award
Peterson AFB CO (SPX) Aug 28, 2014 -
The United States Department of Energy and the Federal Interagency Energy Management Task Force announced Headquarters Air Force Space Command and the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron Energy Team as the recipients of the 2013 Federal Energy and Water Management Award for outstanding achievements in energy, water and fleet management during the 2013 fiscal year.
The Energy Team consists of Todd ...
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BAE Systems ships carrier hull section to Scotland
London (UPI) Aug 27, 2014 -
A more than 6,000-ton hull section of a new Royal Navy aircraft carrier is on its way to Scotland from England for the ship's final assembly process.
BAE System said the Lower Block 02 hull section of the HMS Prince of Wales is being sailed from Portsmouth to its shipyard in Rosyth, Scotland, where it would be maneuvered into drydock.
"This is a significant milestone for the Quee ...
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Shaping the Future of Nanocrystals
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 22, 2014 -
The first direct observations of how facets form and develop on platinum nanocubes point the way towards more sophisticated and effective nanocrystal design and reveal that a nearly 150 year-old scientific law describing crystal growth breaks down at the nanoscale.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used highly sophis ...
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Electron microscopy enables imaging of gold nanoparticles
Helsinki, Finland (SPX) Aug 25, 2014 -
Nanometre-scale gold particles are intensively investigated for application as catalysts, sensors, drug delivery devices, biological contrast agents and components in photonics and molecular electronics. Gaining knowledge of their atomic-scale structures, fundamental for understanding physical and chemical properties, has been challenging.
Now, researchers at Stanford University, USA, have ...
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New Properties of Rotating Superfluids Discovered in Helium Nanodroplets
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 22, 2014 -
Liquid helium, when cooled down nearly to absolute zero, exhibits unusual properties that scientists have struggled to understand: it creeps up walls and flows freely through impossibly small channels, completely lacking viscosity. It becomes a new state of matter - a "superfluid."
Now a large, international team of researchers led by scientists at USC, Stanford and Berkeley has used X-ray ...
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Removing the outcome unpredictability of ultracold atomic reactions
Manhattan KS (SPX) Aug 26, 2014 -
Findings from a physics study by a Kansas State University researcher are helping scientists accurately predict the once unpredictable.
Yujun Wang, research associate with the James R. Macdonald Laboratory at Kansas State University, and Paul Julienne at the University of Maryland, looked at theoretically predicting and understanding chemical reactions that involve three atoms at ultracold ...
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Scientists observe quantum vortices in cold helium droplets
Helmholtz, Germany (SPX) Aug 27, 2014 -
An international research team including DESY scientists has observed tiny quantum vortices in cold droplets of liquid helium. The team reports in the journal Science that the exotic vortices arrange themselves as densely packed lattices inside the nanodroplets.
It is the first time that the quantum vortices, which have already been observed in larger samples of what is known as superfluid ...
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