320 people have been arrested by Italian police in dawn raids across Italy.
“This was a huge operation involving some 3,000 carabinieri [police],” reports the BBC’s Duncan Kennedy. People were arrested “on suspicion of crimes including murder, money laundering and belonging to a criminal organisation.”
There have also been associated arrests in the US.
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(0)Egyptian Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei is challenging Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for nearly three decades.
“The decisive moment was my return to Cairo in February. I really only wanted to visit my country again and spend a few weeks at my house here near the pyramids. But then, 1,500 people were standing there at the airport,” says ElBaradei in an interview with Speigel Online. “It was a cross-section of our society: students, business people, workers and surprisingly many women, including Egyptian women with head scarves and veiled faces. Some called out: “This country must be changed, please help us make that happen!” Others held signs reading: “ElBaradei for President!” It electrified me.”
(0)Dislikes(0)If we are indeed completely in thrall to the selfish gene, why not throw all constraint to the winds and just be selfish – individually and collectively, in our politics, social arrangements, financial and economic dealings? writes Karen Armstrong in her review of Absence of Mind by Marilynne Robinson.
We saw during the 20th century (not to mention the first decade of the 21st) what can happen when the “me-first” mentality is given free rein. But this was also the century of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, who revealed the potential for altruism in humanity.
(0)Dislikes(0)There are “important clues in the sediments [that reveal] why the 2004 Sumatran earthquake generated a deadly tsunami and the adjacent 2005 earthquake did not,” says seismologist Arthur Frankel in a report on the Science website.
Those clues could indeed help to predict “whether great earthquakes in other subduction zones will produce large tsunamis,” he says.
The paper provides “strong evidence” that sedimentary layers can “have a major influence on the behavior of [earthquakes] tsunamis,” agrees marine geophysicist Jian Lin.
(0)Dislikes(0)Parliament has amended the Local Council Elections bill to allow Maldivians to vote in elections from anywhere in the country, rather than just their own islands.
The bill was originally returned to parliament by President Mohamed Nasheed, who commented that the bill would deny many citizens the right to vote.
The bill formerly required citizens to vote from their home islands, making voting a logistical challenge for the over 100,000 residents in the capital Male’. Workers at resorts far from their home islands would also have been disadvantaged by the previous bill.
The new system approved by parliament will nonetheless present a considerable logistical challenge for the Elections Commission.
(0)Dislikes(0)A water hub near Mumbai will distribute drinking water to the Middle East, and West and South Asia, according to the Texan company S2C Global Systems.
The water will be shipped from Sitka Blue Lake Reservoir on Baranof island off the coast of Alaska, to a port south of Mumbai.
From the hub, smaller ships will transport water to shallower ports, such as Umm Qasr in Iraq, according to S2C’s press release.
(0)Dislikes(0)“I don’t believe in it personally,” said Dr Mark Norman, Museum Victoria’s head of science, when asked to comment on Octopus Paul’s psychic powers.
“But having said that I don’t want to underestimate how amazing these animals are and how clever they are… they’re doing pretty well for a super snail relative.” he said.
“They can recognise individual people in a crowd, they can do really clever things like learn to unscrew the lids off jars to get prawns out of the inside, they can collect up half coconut shells and carry them around like portable armour and jump inside if something comes along.”
Octopuses can also mimic other sea creatures, according to Dr Norman. “And because they’ve got no hard shell, an animal that’s a metre across could squeeze through a hole the size of about a 20 cent piece, they can squeeze their eyes out of shape and pull their soft brains through the middle of these holes.”
(0)Dislikes(0)Spain has won the World Cup for the first time in it’s history, scoring only a single goal in the final against the Netherlands, four minutes from the end of extra-time.
Moments before the World Cup was to be decided by a penalty shootout, Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta slipped the ball past Dutch goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenburg.
“It’s incredible,” Iniesta told AFP. “What a joy especially when you see how we won it.
“There aren’t the words to describe what I am feeling. After my goal, I thought about my family and all the people who I love. But the victory is the fruit of a lot of work.”
Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk added: “The best team won. I am disappointed. It is a world championship and we have just lost a final.”
Uruguay striker Diego Forlan was awarded the Golden Ball as the best player of the 2010 World Cup.
Rising star Thomas Mueller finished the tournament as the top-scorer after golden boot rivals David Villa and Wesley Sneijder both failed to score in Sunday’s final. FIFA also named him as the best young player of the tournament.
(0)Dislikes(0)Australia’s longest bridge, 2.7 kilometres long and linking Brisbane to Redcliffe, was opened on Sunday. The bridge cost $315 million and was completed on time and on budget, according to Main Roads minister Craig Wallace.
Built using 120,000 tonnes of concrete and 10,000 tonnes of steel, it has three lanes for vehicles, a pedestrian path, a bikeway and fishing platforms.
The duplicated bridge is constructed to last 100 years and withstand a one-in-2,000 year storm, says Queensland state premier Anna Bligh.
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