time – Page 64 – 4VF News – Daily News Channel

The Maldives’ Struggle to Stay Afloat

On a plane to the Maldives, tourists sigh about the luxury resorts and sun-dappled beaches to which they are bound. From above, the country’s coral-fringed lagoons in the Indian Ocean look computer-generated: arrayed in turquoise pods, they stretch over an azure expanse that would span from Rome to Budapest. Ibn Battuta, the 14th century Arab explorer, hailed the archipelago as “one of the wonders of the world.” Ever since, the Maldives has enchanted shipwrecked sailors, Hollywood celebrities and Russian oligarchs fortunate enough to wash up by its shores.

South Africa’s Roadmap: Zuma’s First Moves

We know a fair amount about South Africa’s new President as a man. Jacob Zuma has six wives and 19 children, and he has been tried for rape and corruption

Land mine hits Indian security patrol, four feared dead

At least four security officers were feared dead after a land mine blew up their cars in central India Monday, police said.

China confirms mainland swine flu case

A 30-year-old male student enrolled in the United States has been confirmed as China’s second H1N1, or swine flu, case, and its first on the mainland, according to the information office of the Chinese Health Ministry. “Bao” began his journey at St.

Box Office Weekend: Star Trek Conquers the Universe

“Get a life!” the old Commander Kirk, William Shatner, angrily told die-hard Trekkies in a famous Saturday Night Live skit. Over the past four days the venerable TV and movie franchise got new life by winning the box-office weekend.

King: Bad economy puts more families on the streets

The tears begin and her voice trembles as Ruth Martinez remembers the first few days of her new world. She would leave work, pick up her son Jacob at school and drive aimlessly, sometimes sneaking back to the office, “to watch TV there without my boss knowing.” Her husband had lost his job, and the stress drove them apart

Disgraced Chambers has Bolt in his sights

Controversial British sprinter Dwain Chambers has set his sights on a world championships showdown against Usain Bolt in Berlin later this summer. Chambers tested positive for the anabolic steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in 2003 as part of the BALCO scandal in the United States, but has re-launched his track and field career after serving a two-year ban. By winning the European 60 meters indoor title earlier this year in the second fastest time in history, Chambers showed he is in prime form before heading for a warm weather training camp in California

Whatever Happened to Muqtada al-Sadr?

Sunni parliamentarian Salim al-Jubouri took Muqtada al-Sadr’s recent appearance in Turkey as a good sign. Sadr surfaced in Ankara ostensibly to discuss the situation in Iraq with top Turkish leaders, including President President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkey is a predominantly Sunni country, Jubouri noted, and maybe the militant Shi’ite warlord was making a show of nascent sectarian reconciliation.

Scientists discover winter home of world’s second-biggest fish

The migration patterns of basking sharks have long mystified marine biologists, but new research has finally revealed where the world’s second-biggest fish hide out for half of every year. “While commonly sighted in surface waters during summer and autumn months, the disappearance of basking sharks during winter has been a great source of debate ever since an article in 1954 suggested that they hibernate on the ocean floor during this time,” said Gregory Skomal of Massachusetts Marine Fisheries, one of the authors of a report recently published in “Current Biology”. “Some 50 years later, we have helped to solve the mystery while completely re-defining the known distribution of this species.” Using new satellite-tagging and a new geo-location technique, the researchers found that basking sharks make long migrations through tropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean during the winter, traveling at depths of 200 to 1,000 meters.

CIA says Pelosi knew about waterboarding; she says no

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is disputing a CIA account sent to Congress that raises questions about her insistence she was never told explicitly that waterboarding had been used on terrorist suspects. The CIA-prepared memo, provided to CNN by Republican sources, lists 40 briefings for members of Congress from September 2002 to March 2009. The first briefing on the list — on September 4, 2002 — was for then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss and Pelosi, then the ranking Democrat on the committee