China's powerful Xi defies expectations two years on
Beijing (AFP) March 13, 2015 -
Two years into his presidency China's Xi Jinping has overturned his image as a consensus-builder, with some analysts questioning whether the Communist Party would have chosen him as leader if the full scope of his ambitions and his signature anti-corruption drive had been known.
Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party, was widely viewed as a compromise candidate between riva ...
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China building second aircraft carrier: PLA colonel
Beijing (AFP) March 13, 2015 -
China is building its second aircraft carrier, a senior naval officer has told media, the most explicit confirmation yet of a widely expected move that will boost Beijing's maritime power.
China's first aircraft carrier was a 300-metre (1,000-foot) Soviet-era vessel bought from Ukraine and commissioned in September 2012 - at the time a milestone for the country's growing military might.
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Former Tibetan nun recalls 'jail torture' at Paris march
Paris (AFP) March 14, 2015 -
Gyaltsen Drolkar spent 12 years in a Chinese jail where she says she was relentlessly tortured, escaping after her release in an arduous trek across the Himalayas to Nepal and then onto Belgium where she now lives.
The former Tibetan nun was one of several thousand protesters who rallied in Paris on Saturday to mark the failed 1959 uprising against China that forced the Dalai Lama to flee in ...
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New preschool lesson teaches programming theories
Boston (UPI) Mar 12, 2015 -
A new activity designed for preschoolers allows participants to program a robot named Dragonbot to respond to series of stimuli. What appears to be little more than having little ones put stickers on a piece of paper turns out to be world's first computer programming class for preschoolers.
Designed by researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory, the activity works as follows: children, age ...
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Ultrasound technology shows promise as Alzheimer's treatment
Brisbane, Australia (UPI) Mar 12, 2015 -
Researchers at the University of Queensland say they've developed a non-invasive Alzheimer's treatment technique using ultrasound technology. Scientists claim a blast of sonic waves is able to break up the brain plaques implicated in Alzheimer's disease and reverse memory loss.
The technique has yet to be tested on humans - and probably won't be for some time - but in a series of expe ...
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Early humans took to the rainforests sooner than previously thought
Ceylon, Sri Lanka (UPI) Mar 13, 2015 -
A new study suggests early humans began populating the rainforest as early as 20,000 years ago on the island of Sri Lanka. Previously, the earliest evidence of consistent rainforest inhabitancy was thought to be around 8,000 years ago.
Really old teeth are the evidence of this early affinity for the rainforest. Researchers analyzed 26 sets of ancient human teeth fossils for carbon and o ...
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Maldives defends controversial jailing of ex-leader
Malé, Maldives (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
The Maldives government Sunday told its critics to respect a controversial decision to jail the honeymoon islands' first-ever democratically-elected president for 13 years amid a growing global backlash over the verdict.
The US, European Union and regional power India have expressed concern over the jailing of Mohamed Nasheed on anti-terror charges for ordering the detention of a judge in 20 ...
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Eruption of Hunga Tonga volcano forms new island
Nuku'Alofa, Tonga (UPI) Mar 13, 2015 -
An underwater volcano off the coast of Tonga, a small Polynesian island nation in the South Pacific, has been erupting since December. Recently, the accumulating lava formed a new island.
As the volcano, named Hunga Tonga - short for Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai - erupted in recent weeks, dark smokey plumes could be seen bubbling out of the sea. Meanwhile, lava has slowly been hardening ...
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Angola storm death toll rises to 69, half children
Luanda (AFP) March 14, 2015 -
The death toll from torrential rains that pounded the Angolan town of Lobito has risen to 69, including 36 children, officials said Saturday as search efforts for bodies continued.
Heavy storms hit Lobito late Wednesday, sending torrents of water rushing from surrounding hillsides into the town that sits on the coast of the south Atlantic ocean, some 500 kilometres (300 miles) south of the c ...
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SA mercenaries in Nigeria: apartheid-era veterans still finding work
Johannesburg (AFP) March 13, 2015 -
South Africa was one of the first countries in the world to ban mercenaries but remains a major supplier of military instructors, some of them from the time of the brutal apartheid regime.
Former Koevoet officer Leon Lotz, who was relatively well-known in South Africa, was one of them.
On Wednesday, he was killed in a friendly fire incident in northeast Nigeria, where a regional force h ...
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Chinese descend on remote Palau as wanderlust deepens
Koror, Palau (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
Chinese tourists are flocking to the remote Palau islands as China's growing number of rich seek new frontiers abroad, but not everyone in the Micronesian paradise is happy about it.
Strapped into life-jackets and screaming with excitement, groups of boisterous Chinese thrill-seekers tear around Palau's "Milky Way" lagoon on a flotilla of speedboats - a spectacle unfamiliar to locals just a ...
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China 'falling short' on fighting pollution: premier
Beijing (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
China is falling short of its people's expectations in battling smog, Premier Li Keqiang said Sunday, one week after authorities blocked a scathing documentary on the country's air pollution problem.
Li, who is second only to President Xi Jinping in the Communist hierarchy, made the comments at his once-a-year meeting with journalists at Beijing's Great Hall of the People.
Reporters atte ...
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US strike targets Shebab militant in Somalia
Washington (AFP) March 13, 2015 -
The US military has carried out an air strike against an al-Shebab militant in Somalia and is checking whether the senior figure was killed in the operation, the Pentagon said Friday.
US officials declined to comment on reports from Kenya that the mission targeted Adan Garaar, who is alleged to have helped orchestrate the 2013 attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi, which left 67 people dead ...
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Hungry sea lion pups reaching Calif. beaches, experts say
Capistrano Beach, Calif. (UPI) Mar 13, 2015 -
Some scientists believe climate change is having a major impact on the planet. Others believe the effects are more moderate. But one thing seems certain - it's creating serious life-or-death consequences for young sea lions off the California coast, animal experts say.
So far this year, about 1,500 sea lion pups have come ashore in the Golden State - from San Francisco to San Diego -- ...
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14 million children pay price for Syria, Iraq conflicts: UNICEF
Amman (AFP) March 12, 2015 -
The United Nations children's fund said Thursday that 14 million children are paying the price for warfare in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, with violence and hardship shaping their future.
"With the conflict in Syria now entering its fifth year, the situation of more than 5.6 million children inside the country remains the most desperate," UNICEF said in a statement.
The agency said up to ...
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Residents return after fleeing Chile port city inferno
ValparaÃso, Chile (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
Thousands of residents began returning to their Valparaiso homes Saturday, hours after fleeing a still-smoldering forest fire that threatened the treasured Chilean seaport city, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The fire claimed one life, and led to thousands of evacuations in the historic city known as the "pearl of the Pacific."
But while it kept raging Saturday and was responsible for num ...
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MMS: Studying Magnetic Reconnection Near Earth
Huntsville AL (SPX) Mar 13, 2015 -
The Magnetospheric Multiscale, or MMS, mission is scheduled to launch into space on March 12, 2015. The mission consists of four spacecraft to observe a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection - which doesn't happen naturally on Earth all that often, but is a regular occurrence in space. At the heart of magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physics process in which magnetic field lines come tog ...
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NASA's Soil Moisture Mapper Takes First 'SMAPshots'
Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 13, 2015 -
Fresh off the recent successful deployment of its 20-foot (6-meter) reflector antenna and associated boom arm, NASA's new Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) observatory has successfully completed a two-day test of its science instruments.
The observatory's radar and radiometer instruments were successfully operated for the first time with SMAP's antenna in a non-spinning mode on Feb. 27 a ...
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UN disaster meeting opens in tsunami-hit Japan
Sendai, Japan (AFP) March 14, 2015 -
Policymakers gathered for a ten-yearly meeting on disaster risk reduction Saturday, with hopes high that the conference in tsunami-hit Japan might provide a springboard for efforts to tackle natural disasters and costly climate change.
The meeting came as a huge tropical cyclone smashed into Vanuatu in the South Pacific, terrifying residents and causing fears Saturday that dozens of people m ...
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Airport shut as Costa Rica volcano spews more ash
San Jose, Costa Rica (AFP) March 13, 2015 -
San Jose's international airport was forced to close Thursday and several villages were evacuated after clouds of ash from the newly active Turrialba volcano reached the Costa Rican capital, authorities said.
Flights were suspended because of poor visibility at the airport, which is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the volcano, while pedestrians in the capital shielded their eyes to preve ...
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Tuvalu among other Pacific nations also battered by cyclone
Sydney (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
Nearly half the population of Tuvalu have been severely affected by the devastation wrought by Cyclone Pam, Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga said Sunday, with other Pacific island nations also taking a hit.
While the focus has been on devastation in neighbouring Vanuatu, Tuvalu - a grouping of nine coral atolls with a population of less than 11,000 - is also struggling to cope, he told Radio N ...
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Aid effort stepped up after monster Vanuatu cyclone
Suva, Fiji (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
Cyclone-devastated Vanuatu declared a state of emergency Sunday as relief agencies scrambled to get help to the remote Pacific nation amid reports entire villages were "blown away" when a monster storm swept through.
The official death toll in the capital Port Vila stood at six on Sunday, although aid workers said this was likely just a fraction of the fatalities nationwide, with communicati ...
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Merkel to open IT fair with China showcasing tech's shift east
Hanover, Germany (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday opens a major IT business fair where official partner China will showcase its rise as a high-tech power.
Merkel - who has visited China seven times in a decade - will meet Vice Premier Ma Kai as more than 600 Chinese companies exhibit their tech marvels at the CeBIT fair in the western city of Hanover.
Jack Ma, head of Alibaba - the online com ...
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China's Alibaba drives into 'Internet car' industry
Shanghai (AFP) March 12, 2015 -
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba on Thursday joined the country's biggest auto maker with a plan to develop an Internet-connected car, following other non-traditional players such as Google making inroads into the industry.
Search engine Google has made headlines with its plans for a self-driving car and Apple - maker of iPhones and iPads - is reportedly planning to develop an electric c ...
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Venezuela gears up military machine amid economic crunch
Caracas (AFP) March 15, 2015 -
Rolling out tanks, missiles and 100,000 men, Venezuela launched 10 days of military exercises Saturday, amid sky-high tensions over US sanctions slapped on officials accused of an opposition crackdown.
President Nicolas Maduro's socialist, Cuban-allied government - struggling with sliding oil prices, the region's highest inflation, desperate shortages and rising discontent - threw the spot ...
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