Mekong River dolphins at risk of extinction, WWF says

Pollution in the Mekong River in Southeast Asia has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction, the World Wildlife Fund warned Wednesday. The small freshwater dolphins, distinguished by their round heads and short dorsal fins, are already listed as a threatened species, the WWF said in a report

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Romanians flee ‘racist’ N. Ireland attacks

More than 100 Romanians fled their homes Tuesday night in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following what politicians called "racist attacks and intimidation." “On Tuesday evening, when the Romanians saw their windows starting to be smashed, they felt the threats were very real and contacted the police,” said Trish Morgan, the media relations manager at the Belfast City Church, which took them in. A church member was advised by the police that “the situation was getting too tense,” and that the group — 113 people in all — needed to find a safe place that could accommodate them quickly.

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Layman-turned-relics hunter rescues China’s antiquities

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.

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Kashmir unrest claims 2 Indian soldiers, 3 militants

Two soldiers, including an officer, and three militants have been killed in a fierce gunfight in the Kupwara district on the north Kashmir frontier, the Indian army said Monday. An army spokesman said the gunfight erupted Saturday during a search operation in the forested area of Hatmulla, near the Line of Control that marks the border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

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Reshuffling the Deck Chairs on Gordon Brown’s Listing Ship

Say you were Prime Minister of Britain, waking every day to your national media proclaiming your political death, fending off challenges to your authority from a fractured and fractious Labour Party and bracing against disastrous results in municipal and European elections. You might think a government reshuffle would be the best way to reassert your authority

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Twitter’s Biggest Egos, Exposed

Jean-Paul Sartre only had it half right when he wrote that “hell is other people.” Real hell is other people on Twitter. Maybe the trendy messaging web site coaxes contributors into feeling anonymous and uninhibited. Perhaps its short-burst format encourages streams of consciousness that go tragically unedited.

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