Category: News

From Cape Times: If rat-tailed maggots are getting into Cape Town’s tap water, it is a warning that the water system urgently needs checking to ensure no organisms harmful to humans can get into it, entomologists say. Eight people in Elsies River, Grassy Park, Goodwood, Sybrand Park and Ottery have reported finding the maggots in…

From the Mail & Guardian: Zimbabwe State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa said: “Anyone, particularly Tsvangirai, who threatens peace and stability in this country will get capital punishment … and we mean it. We maintain organs of national security such as the army to protect the stability and integrity of our country. They will be instructed…

From the New York Times: Mostly, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refused to answer any question that went beyond his maddeningly narrow talking points. But for anyone who has watched him in action, this was no surprise. Nor was it terribly surprising that he repeated his weak arguments for Mr. Bush to go outside the law…

From Wired: Fifteen minutes later, another reporter called, and at that moment the tooth phone transformed from conversation starter to probable product. Yes, they told the reporter, they were looking to build a prototype, and, yes, possibly have it available within a year. That phone call launched a tech hoax whose brew of misrepresentation, obfuscatory…

From the Los Angeles Times: I immediately shut her site down. I had to ask her to do it for me. This is how she responded: “I’m really mad because it feels like you’re saying I can’t talk to my friends anymore. On MySpace, I get to talk to my friends and see people I…

From the Washington Post: Shiite Muslim militias pose the greatest threat to security in many parts of Iraq, having killed more people in recent months than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, and will likely present the most daunting and critical challenge for Iraq’s new government, U.S. military and diplomatic officials say. Assassinations, many carried out by…

From The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?: Other European officials expressed similar skepticism about the value of an American bombing campaign. “The Iranian economy is in bad shape, and Ahmadinejad is in bad shape politically,” the European intelligence official told me. “He will…

From Wired: “Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA’s spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA,” Klein’s wrote. “And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of…

From the Moscow Times: A cult leader who promised to resurrect children killed in the Beslan school attack has been detained on suspicion of fraudulently obtaining money from parents of the victims, Moscow prosecutors said Thursday. Police detained Grigory Grabovoi during a seance Wednesday evening at the Kosmos Hotel in northeast Moscow. Around 30 followers…

From the Mail & Guardian: “I can personally say that $400 000 would be acceptable, a fine offer on both sides,” said the elder, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “This is not a ransom but a fine for illegally fishing in Somalia.” Here.

From the Washington Post: More than 200,000 Chinese filed through the remains of Japan’s notorious Unit 731 here last year, visiting the ghosts of World War II. In exhibits mounted throughout the bleak headquarters building, they saw wrenching descriptions of biological warfare experiments carried out on thousands of Chinese prisoners from 1939 to 1945. The…

From the Washington Post: During the years when he commanded 30 men and killed more enemy soldiers than he can recall, Tyrese Nyekar said he was known as “War Face.” But in the newly democratic and largely peaceful Liberia, he has traded his machine gun for a shovel. And for $2 a day, he is…