CAIRO: It can fit on top of a match. Biologists announced they had discovered on Wednesday offshore a Madagascan island the world’s smallest chameleon. The lizard, which was given the name Brookesia micra, is monochrome, unlike its full-size cousins which can change their color. “It’s brown, the perfect camouflage,” said Joern Koehler of Germany’s Darmstadt [...]
Read More
Kampala (dpa) – Leading Ugandan rights activist Kasha Jacqueline Nabagasera has gone into hiding, after the government raided a workshop that she organized for the gay community and tried to arrest her. “I am worried about my safety because of the attempt to arrest me yesterday. Now, I am taking precautions about my movements,” Nabagasera [...]
Read More
Oslo (dpa) – A Kurdish Islamic cleric went on trial in Norway on Wednesday charged with making threatening statements against the leader of the opposition Conservatives, among others. The trial centers on remarks Mullah Krekar, who uses the name of Najmuddin Faraj Ahmand, made during a news conference in June 2010 where he said that [...]
Read More
CAIRO: The Swiss city of Zurich was named the world’s most expensive city to live in, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s worldwide cost of living report. The Swiss financial capital threw off Tokyo as the most expensive city at the top of the list and experts say it is due to the security of [...]
Read More
Reports from Central America’s Honduras on Wednesday are saying around 270 prisoners have been killed in a prison fire in the country. Officials are still investigating the situation nad have given only limited details surrounding the incident. The fire started at a prison in the city of Comayagua, around 100 kilometers away from the capital [...]
Read More
Kabul (dpa) – In a Kabul university, a student recently refused to answer roll call when his number was called. He had been allocated the dreaded number 39, which is associated with pimps in the minds of superstitious Afghans, and shunned as a bad omen. “I am stuck with this number and I am quite [...]
Read More
CAIRO: Sudanese telecom company Canar announced it had reached an agreement on Tuesday with Dublin-based technology company i-conX. The deal revolved around improving routing technology in Canar’s telecommunication infrastructure. Canar, which was established in 2005, was already an i-conX partner and had made several agreements improving quality of service and surveillance of it’s vast network. [...]
Read More
Berlin (dpa) – Asian cinema returned to the Berlin Film Festival’s center stage Wednesday with the world premieres of films by two of the region’s rising stars. While Indonesian director Edwin explores human concerns about loneliness and isolation in his movie Kebun Binatang (Postcards From the Zoo), Chinese director Wang Quan’an returns to the festival [...]
Read More
Some 54 rhinos have been slaughtered this year in South Africa, according to government numbers published on Wednesday by police. It comes as the country continues to push for greater regulation and crackdowns on poachers in the country. Police also announced that five suspected poachers had been arrested, after what was believed to be a [...]
Read More
Bogota (dpa) – The case of two Colombian Roman Catholic priests who were murdered last year took a twist Tuesday, when it became known that investigators believe they planned their own deaths and hired hitmen to kill them. The Bogota daily El Tiempo reported that the priests hired the killers for about 8,400 dollars. Public [...]
Read More
Bangkok (dpa) – Thai officials on Wednesday said it was too early to link three blasts in Bangkok to international terrorist groups. “At the moment, there is no evidence linking this incident to terrorism,” Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said. On Tuesday, an explosion in a rented house in Bangkok prompted the four foreign residents to [...]
Read More
Hanoi (dpa) – A rare animal known as the Asian unicorn is under threat from loss of forest habitat, and wildlife officials are trying to protect it in Vietnam’s central forests. One of the world’s rarest mammals, the saola is a large bovine with long, straight horns that is thought to live only in the [...]
Read More
DUBAI: Health officials in Malaysia have confirmed that two children have been killed and another 3,000 ill as a result of a rotavirus outbreak in the northern part of the country. More and more people from the region are looking for treatment, health officials told Bikyamasr.com on Wednesday. The outbreak occurred in late January and [...]
Read More
Bangkok (dpa) – Police arrested an Iranian national at Bangkok’s airport after linking him with three explosions in the Thai capital and were searching for a third suspect Wednesday. The defense minister, Air Chief Marshal Sukhumpol Suwannathat, insisted Wednesday that the explosions were not acts of terrorism but failed to provide an explanation for Tuesday’s [...]
Read More
Moscow (dpa) – Planned sales of Russia’s top-of-the-line T-90S tanks to Algeria and Turkmenistan will earn Moscow a half billion dollars, Vedemosti newspaper reported on Tuesday. Algeria has agreed to buy 120 of the combat vehicles from Russia’s national arms exporter Rosoboronexport, while Turkmenistan will acquire 30 tanks, the article said. India and Russia each [...]
Read More
Mexico City (dpa) – Three young men were burned alive in a rural area close to Mexico City after one of them got involved in a relationship with a girl despite being married to another woman, the Mexican daily Reforma reported Tuesday. The three men, two of them aged 16 and the other one 26, [...]
Read More
Nairobi (dpa) – Sebastian needed some time yet to get used to the moist kisses of his new female friend. At first, the nine-year-old was a bit shy about looking up at his much older partner – a 21-year-old Rothschild giraffe. He asked if he should feed her. But then an encouraging smile from his [...]
Read More
Berlin (dpa) – A member of Germany’s foreign service is to go on trial on charges of corruption for allegedly taking bribes worth thousands of euros in return for providing visas to Afghans heading for Germany, prosecutors in Berlin said Tuesday. The 41-year-old man acted as vice-consul at the Germany embassy in Dubai and was [...]
Read More
London (dpa) – A senior British government official flew to Jordan on Tuesday for talks on the deportation of a radical Muslim cleric freed from a British jail after almost 10 years of detention without trial. The government in London confirmed that senior Home Office official James Brokenshire would seek further assurances from the Jordanian [...]
Read More
Nairobi (dpa) – The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab has accused Britain of trying to colonize Somalia, ahead of a major international conference in London on the chaotic Horn of Africa nation. Leaders from Somalia and 40 other nations are expected to gather on February 23 for the British government-hosted conference, in the latest diplomatic attempt [...]
Read More