Six more countries have been added to the list of nations that have eliminated the scourge of landmines
.
Congo, Denmark, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Jordan and Uganda have declared all mined areas in their territories cleared of the deadly weapons.
The news was announced at a five-day meeting in Geneva, aimed at evaluating progress since the signing of the 1997 Ottawa Convention — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A Royal Australian Regiment (RAR) soldier who exposed himself to enemy fire to save his comrades during a deadly ambush in Afghanistan has been awarded the Victoria Cross at a ceremony in Canberra.
Corporal Daniel Keighran, who was serving with the 6th Battalion RAR, was recognised for his extreme bravery during the three-and-a-half hour battle which claimed the life of his mate Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney in August 2010.
The medal — Australia’s highest military honour — was presented to Corporal Keighran by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at Government House in Canberra this morning — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Rainbow in the Morning, originally uploaded by Red Wolf.
Victoria Police has launched a scathing attack on the Catholic Church, accusing it of deliberately impeding its investigations into child abuse.
In a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by churches, signed by Chief Commissioner Ken Lay, police recommend that some of the church’s actions to hinder investigations be criminalised.
The submission lists a number of ways in which the church has hindered the criminal justice process, including dissuading victims of sexual crimes from reporting them to police, failing to engage with police and alerting suspects of allegations against them, which may have resulted in loss of evidence
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
A spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley took responsibility for the shooting on Tuesday of a 14-year-old activist who is an outspoken advocate of education for girls. The attack on Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head on her way home from school in Mingora, the region’s main city, outraged many Pakistanis, but a Taliban spokesman told a newspaper that the group would target the girl again if she survived.
Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, told Reuters in a telephone interview that Malala was pro-West, she was speaking against the Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol
. He acknowledged that she was young but said that she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas
, referring to the ethnic group in northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan whose conservative values the Taliban claims to defend.
Another girl, one of two others wounded in the attack, said in a television interview with Pakistan’s Express News that a man had stopped the school bus and asked which girl was Malala before opening fire — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Italians bought more bicycles than cars in 2011 for the first time in decades, according to local media reports.
Last year some 1.75 million bicycles were sold, about 2,000 more than the number of new cars registered, La Repubblica newspaper reported.
It attributed the change to a slump in car sales during the economic crisis and the rising price of petrol, as well as bikes coming back into fashion — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Three brazen
masked raiders stole designer watches worth £1m from a Manchester department store while the shop was busy with customers.
They used an axe and crowbar to smash into cabinets at Selfridges and removed about 100 watches.
The men, who wore high-visibility jackets and trousers, escaped in a black car driven by a fourth man on Wednesday evening.
The haul included brands like Audemars Piguet, Hublot and Cartier.
The raid took place in Exchange Square and the car was found abandoned just over a mile (1.6km) away in Robert Street, in the Strangeways area of the city — via redwolf.newsvine.com
American influence on the world stage is being sapped by widespread distrust of US intentions, not just in the Middle East and south Asia but also among traditional European allies, according to a survey of global opinions.
Suspicion of America outweighed faith in its good intentions by large margins in the Arab world and Pakistan, and even its heavyweight European ally Germany was more sceptical than trusting, a YouGov survey found. British and French opinion was more positive but still deeply divided.
Negative Arab and Pakistani perceptions of America as overweening and untrustworthy clearly pose a daunting foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration. The fact that 78% of Pakistanis questioned by YouGov said they did not trust America to act responsibly underlines Washington’s serious lack of soft power in the region as it attempts to extricate itself from Afghanistan.
Attitudes towards the US in the Arab world were nearly as negative. Those respondents in the Middle East and north Africa who said they trusted America were outnumbered by more than two to one by those who said they did not, and 39% said they did not trust America at all — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A group of American soldiers formed an anarchist militia and spent $US87,000 ($83,922) on weapons in an elaborate plot to overthrow the government and ultimately assassinate the president, a court heard.
The soldiers allegedly made themselves into a group called FEAR, standing for Forever Enduring Always Ready, and bought land in Washington state from which to launch attacks.
They were said to have planned to blow up a dam and poison apple crops in Washington state, bomb a park in Savannah, Georgia, attack vehicles belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees, and take over an ammunition control point at the sprawling Fort Stewart army base in Georgia.
Prosecutors said its long-term goal was revolution; bringing down the US government and killing President Barack Obama. It is not known over what period of time this alleged plot would have taken place — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Angola has extradited 37 Chinese nationals, accused of extortion, kidnappings, armed robberies and running prostitution rings.
They allegedly targeted other Chinese, kidnapping businessmen for ransom and sometimes burying victims alive.
They lured women to Angola, promising well-paid jobs, but then forced them into prostitution, Chinese police said — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Police in Peru say they have seized $2.3m (£1.5m) in counterfeit notes.
They say the notorious Quispe Rodriguez family clan is behind the production of fake currency.
Peruvian police chief, Raul Salazar, said the gang was planning to smuggle the counterfeit $50 bills into the United States, hidden inside Peruvian souvenirs.
The US says Peru is the largest foreign producer of counterfeit dollars — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Prosecutors in Chile are investigating about 60 schools in the capital, Santiago, over allegations that pupils were sexually abused.
The investigations come after reports of child sex abuse in schools and day care centres increased markedly this year.
Most of the schools are in Santiago’s affluent eastern areas — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Gunmen have attacked a UN vehicle, critically injuring a doctor who was administering polio vaccines in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.
The foreign doctor was in the run-down Sohrab Goth area of the city, officials say. His driver was also hurt.
No group has said it carried out the shooting, but the Taliban have issued threats against the polio drive and are thought to be active in Sohrab Goth — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A vast building in McAllen, Texas, was once home to a Wal-Mart — but no longer. When the discount superstore moved to a larger location, it left behind a vast empty building. The community took advantage of the space and converted the warehouse-like building into a public library.
The size of more than two football fields, the McAllen Public Library is the largest single-story library in the country, the website PSFK writes. Its conversion from vast warehouse space to functioning library has recently made it the winner of the 2012 Library Interior Design Competition by the International Interior Design Assn — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The United States Attorney’s office has intervened in a dispute over a dinosaur that went up for auction at the end of May with a demand that the skeleton be turned over to the US government, so that it can be returned to Mongolia.
Palaeontologists and Mongolian officials have maintained that the skeleton, which belongs to a type of tyrannosaur called a Tarbosaurus bataar, was taken illegally from their country.
The skeletal remains of this dinosaur are of tremendous cultural and historic significance to the people of Mongolia, and provide a connection to the country’s prehistoric past. When the skeleton was allegedly looted, a piece of the country’s natural history was stolen with it, and we look forward to returning it to its rightful place,
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In many Latin American countries, traditional names like Jose or Isabel remain popular, but in Cuba anything goes. Parents just love to experiment.
As a journalist in Cuba, posing certain questions can be tricky, but I never thought asking a person’s name would be one of them. My problem is, I hardly ever understand the response. And it is not just because I am English. My Cuban colleagues are often just as baffled.
It turns out it is rare to encounter a simple Maria or a Miguel these days — instead, parents choosing a baby’s name like to let their imagination run wild — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Two Sydney sisters accused of forcing girls to prostitute themselves have been refused bail, with a magistrate describing the case as appalling and distressing.
Adrienne Garner, 22, and her 19-year-old sister Thalia waved at their mother from the dock, where they faced more than 40 charges.
The pair are accused of taking in girls as young as 12 and running a child prostitution racket from their Warwick Farm home in Sydney’s south-west.
The court heard the girls were repeatedly raped — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A wealthy jeweller’s son who murdered his 17-year-old girlfriend in a jealous rage has been jailed for at least 16 years.
Elliot Turner, 20, part of a gang of rich young men who called themselves The Firm, strangled Emily Longley in his bed after becoming suspicious that she was seeing other men and wanted to end their relationship.
Jailing Turner for life, Mrs Justice Dobbs said: Emily was a lovely, kind, fun-loving girl who brought a ray of sunshine to those she touched. That light has been extinguished suddenly and needlessly by you
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
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