World News

Assange wins latest round in extradition fight
CNN - Sun Dec 4, 2011
London - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be allowed to appeal against extradition to Sweden on sex allegations, the British High Court announced Monday. More»

Irish Church reports reveal horrific child abuse
AFP - Tue Nov 29, 2011
A new series of reports into Irish Catholic dioceses on Wednesday revealed horrific child sex abuse by priests and mistakes by Roman Catholic Church authorities in dealing with them. More»

English earthquakes blamed on shale 'fracking'
Associated Press - Tue Nov 1, 2011
LONDON - The only company in Britain using hydraulic fracturing to release natural gas from shale rock said Wednesday that the controversial technique probably did trigger earth tremors in April and May. More»

WikiLeaks site comes under attack
Associated Press - Mon Aug 29, 2011
LONDON - The WikiLeaks website crashed Tuesday in an apparent cyberattack after the accelerated publication of tens of thousands of once-secret State Department cables by the anti-secrecy organization raised new concerns about the exposure of confidential US embassy sources. More»

Workers find ultra-high radiation levels at Fukushima Daiichi plant
CNN - Mon Aug 1, 2011
Tokyo - The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has detected the highest radiation levels at the facility since the initial earthquake and tsunami five months ago, a company spokesman said Tuesday. More»

Oslo bomb kills 7; shootings at nearby youth camp
Associated Press - Thu Jul 21, 2011
OSLO, Norway - Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has urged Norwegians to not cave in to fear caused by a bombing in downtown Oslo that killed seven people and a shooting at a youth camp outside the capital. More»

Mystery of the helicopter that landed at scene of Dr Kelly's death after his body was found
The Daily Mail - Fri May 13, 2011
A helicopter mysteriously landed at the scene of Dr David Kelly's death shortly after the body was found. More»

Magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits South Pacific
Associated Press - Mon May 9, 2011
PARIS - Geological monitoring services say a magnitude 7.1 earthquake has hit in the South Pacific off the French territory of New Caledonia. More»

More radioactive water spills at Japan nuke plant
Associated Press - Sun Mar 27, 2011
TOKYO - Workers discovered new pools of radioactive water leaking from Japan's crippled nuclear complex, officials said Monday, as emergency crews struggled to pump out hundreds of tons of contaminated water and bring the plant back under control. More»

Breach suspected at troubled Japanese power plant
Associated Press - Thu Mar 24, 2011
TOKYO - Two weeks after an earthquake and tsunami triggered a crisis at a nuclear plant, the facility is still not under control, and the government said Friday there is a suspected breach at a reactor. More»

New reactor fire as Japan works to contain threat
Associated Press - Mon Mar 14, 2011
SOMA, Japan - A new fire broke out at a nuclear reactor early Wednesday, a day after the power plant emitted a burst of radiation that panicked an already edgy Japan and left the government struggling to contain a spiraling crisis caused by last week's earthquake and tsunami. More»

Meltdown alert at Japan reactor
BBC - Sun Mar 13, 2011
Technicians are battling to stabilise a third reactor at a quake-stricken Japanese nuclear plant that has been rocked by a second blast in three days. More»

Hydrogen explosion at stricken Japanese nuke plant
Associated Press - Sat Mar 12, 2011
TOKYO - Japan's chief cabinet secretary says a hydrogen explosion has occurred at Unit 3 of Japan's stricken Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. More»

Partial Meltdowns Presumed at Crippled Reactors
New York Times - Sat Mar 12, 2011
TOKYO - Three days after a massive earthquake and tsunami, the Japanese authorities were still struggling Sunday to avoid full meltdowns at a plant with two stricken reactors on Japan's coast. More»

Japan warns of second nuclear plant explosion
AFP - Sat Mar 12, 2011
Japan's top government spokesman has warned of the risk of a second explosion at the quake-hit Fukushima nuclear plant, but said that reactor three could withstand it as reactor one did a day earlier. More»

Japan quake causes emergencies at 5 nuke reactors
Associated Press - Thu Mar 10, 2011
TOKYO - Japan declared states of emergency for five nuclear reactors at two power plants after the units lost cooling ability in the aftermath of Friday's powerful earthquake. More»

Police sex files on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange are leaked online
The Daily Mail - Sat Feb 5, 2011
Swedish police documents on the Julian Assange sex cases have been leaked online. More»

Global Spate of Mysterious Animal Deaths
Associated Press - Tue Jan 4, 2011
More and more animals are being found dead as the mysterious spate of mass bird and fish deaths has turned into a global phenomenon. More»

Interpol puts WikiLeaks founder on most-wanted list
CNN - Mon Nov 29, 2010
Interpol, at the request of a Swedish court looking into alleged sex crimes from earlier this year, has put WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on its most-wanted listed. More»

First of 33 trapped Chilean miners rescued
Associated Press - Mon Oct 11, 2010
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile - Florencio Avalos, the first of 33 miners to be rescued, has surfaced after 69 days underground. More»

EU clears six types of GM maize for animal feed
AFP - Thu Jul 29, 2010
BRUSSELS - European regulators authorised on Wednesday the import of six types of genetically-modified maize for use in animal feed after governments were deadlocked over whether to ban or approve them. More»

Blast hits Russia's largest coal mine, 12 dead
Associated Press - Sat May 8, 2010
MOSCOW - Rescue workers scrambled Sunday to save 83 people trapped in Russia's largest underground coal mine after two explosions killed at least 12 people and injured dozens more, officials said. More»

Iceland's volcanic ash halts flights across Europe
Associated Press - Wed Apr 14, 2010
LONDON - An ash cloud from Iceland's spewing volcano halted air traffic across a wide swath of Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 2001 terror attacks as authorities stopped all flights over Britain, Ireland and the Nordic countries. More»

Belgian Doctors leave Haitian hospital, abandon quake victims
CNN - Sat Jan 16, 2010
Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Earthquake victims, writhing in pain and grasping at life, watched doctors and nurses walk away from a field hospital Friday night after a Belgian medical team evacuated the area, saying it was concerned about security. More»

85 elderly quake survivors await death in Haiti
Associated Press - Sat Jan 16, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The old lady crawls in the dirt, wailing for her pills. More»

7.0 quake hits Haiti; many casualties expected
Associated Press - Tue Jan 12, 2010
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - A powerful earthquake struck Haiti's capital on Tuesday with withering force, toppling everything from simple shacks to the ornate National Palace. More»

Big freeze kills at least 80 across Europe
AFP - Sun Dec 20, 2009
PARIS - The death toll from winter storms across Europe rose to at least 80 on Monday as transport chaos spread amid mounting anger over the three-day failure of Eurostar high-speed trains. More»

British UN scientist's death was 'not suicide', Gordon Brown is told
Daily Mail, UK - Sat Nov 14, 2009
Gordon Brown is being urged to intervene in an investigation into the mysterious death of British scientist Timothy Hampton. More»

Three policemen injured and BBC in lockdown as hundreds protest over BNP leader's Question Time showdown
Daily Mail, UK - Wed Oct 21, 2009
Brandishing banners and holding scarlet flares, an angry mob of more than 1,000 protesters laid siege to the BBC last night. More»

Corazon Aquino, Philippines president, dead at 76
Associated Press - Thu Jul 30, 2009
MANILA, Philippines - Former President Corazon Aquino, who swept away a dictator with a "people power" revolt and then sustained democracy by fighting off seven coup attempts in six years, died on Saturday, her son said. More»

84 Afghan girls hospitalized in apparent poisoning
Associated Press - Mon May 11, 2009
MUHMUD RAQI, Afghanistan - At least 84 Afghan schoolgirls were admitted to a hospital Tuesday for headaches and vomiting in the third apparent poison attack on a girls school in as many weeks, officials and doctors said. More»

Iceland's government topples amid financial mess
Associated Press - Sun Jan 25, 2009
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's coalition government collapsed on Monday after an unprecedented wave of public dissent, plunging the island nation into political turmoil as it seeks to rebuild an economy shattered by the global financial crisis. More»

Russia's Gazprom cuts all gas supplies to Ukraine
Associated Press - Wed Dec 31, 2008
MOSCOW - Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom cut all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning after talks broke down over payments for past shipments and a new energy price contract for 2009. More»

Church of Scientology to be tried in France for fraud
AFP - Sun Sep 7, 2008
PARIS - The controversial Church of Scientology will be tried in a French court for "organised fraud" and seven of its members for illegally prescribing drugs, legal sources said Monday. More»

ExxonMobil profit hits record on oil surge
AFP - Wed Jul 30, 2008
NEW YORK - Surging oil prices helped US energy giant ExxonMobil to a 14 percent jump in quarterly net profit to 11.68 billion dollars in results Thursday short of most forecasts on Wall Street. More»

Vatican: Excommunication for female priests
Associated Press - Thu May 29, 2008
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican insisted Friday that it is properly following Christian tradition by excluding females from the priesthood as it issued a new warning that women taking part in ordinations will be excommunicated. More»

Rescuers at China quake epicenter, digging by hand
Associated Press - Tue May 13, 2008
HANWANG, China - Soldiers rushed to shore up a dam cracked by this week's powerful earthquake, and rescuers came by helicopter and ship Wednesday into the isolated epicenter but still were forced to dig for survivors with their bare hands. More»

Red Cross: Up to 128,000 may have died in Myanmar
Associated Press - Tue May 13, 2008
YANGON, Myanmar - The Red Cross estimated Wednesday that the cyclone death toll in Myanmar could be as high as 128,000 - a much higher figure than the government tally. More»

Earthquake death toll in China may be 5,000
Associated Press - Sun May 11, 2008
CHONGQING, China - Chinese state media say 3,000 to 5,000 people have died in one county in Sichuan province alone from a massive earthquake. More»

Nearly 900 students trapped by China earthquake
Associated Press - Sun May 11, 2008
BEIJING - A powerful earthquake struck central China on Monday, trapping nearly 900 students after their school collapsed and leaving at least 107 people dead across several provinces, state media reported. More»