Daily News Channel
Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors
No one has contributed to Pakistan’s slide into chaos over recent years more than Baitullah Mehsud From his base in the wilds of South Waziristan, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban has overseen the killing of over 1,200 civilians and several hundred soldiers through brutal means including suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. He has been accused of masterminding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late December 2007. In late March, Washington announced a $5m reward for information leading to his capture, describing Mehsud as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator.” And over the past week alone, he claimed responsibility for five separate terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a luxury hotel in Peshawar and the killing of a vocal anti-Taliban cleric in Lahore
Searching through the rubble of demolition sites across the 800-year-old capital of China, Li Songtang has unearthed a treasure trove of ancient relics. They include gate piers depicting Mongolians and the Han Chinese during the Yuan dynasty, a Buddhist carving that is more than 1,000 years old, and a Ming dynasty marble fish water tank. Li Songtang is neither museum curator nor antiques expert, but an ordinary man who did not want to see China’s rich history lost to modernization during the late 1970s.
Anger is growing in Mexico over a fire at a government-run day care center that claimed its 46th child this weekend. Parents of the dead children and their supporters have held two noisy rallies in Hermosillo, the city in northwestern Mexico where the fire broke out June 5. They blame the government for laxity in enforcing safety regulations, for conducting a weak investigation and for failing to punish anyone in the 10 days since the fatal blaze
President Obama said Monday that limits on medical malpractice lawsuits could be a necessary part of overhauling the nation’s ailing health care system. In a speech to the 158th annual meeting of the American Medical Association, Obama cited the need for doctors to cut health care costs by reducing the number of unnecessary tests and procedures that are performed to reduce the risk of malpractice claims.
A person with swine flu died in Scotland on Sunday, the government announced, marking the first known death of a swine flu patient outside of the Americas, according to the latest World Health Organization information. The patient who died in Scotland had “underlying health conditions,” the Scottish government statement said. No information was released about the patient.
Media rights group Reporters Without Borders is urging nations to not recognize the results of Iran’s presidential election, citing censorship and a crackdown on journalists. The nongovernmental group, which advocates freedom of the press, said it has confirmed the arrest of four reporters by Iranian authorities, including one who won the organization’s press freedom prize in 2001. In addition, the France-based group said, it has no information on 10 other reporters who have either gone into hiding or have been arrested.
Iran’s supreme leader gave his blessing to the outcome of the country’s presidential election Sunday despite widespread allegations of fraud, calling the results "a divine miracle," the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the record voter turnout in Friday’s election showed Iranians value “resistance against oppressors,” the agency reported. “Pointing to enemies’ massive propaganda campaign to discourage people from taking part in the elections, Ayatollah Khamenei also said there was really a divine miracle behind this elections, given its results that was 10 million higher than any of the previous ones in the 30-year history of elections in Iran,” IRNA reported
Demonstrators on Monday defied a government decree that had declared their rallies illegal and began to gather at Tehran University for a third day of protests.
He was surrounded and pleading for them to stop but six men with clubs, batons and metal rods kept battering a young Iranian man with ruthless force. The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear. Seconds earlier the man had dared to stand up to the baton wielding men because they had shoved a 14-year-old girl.