Two US sailors died after waves swept them from the deck of a nuclear submarine off the coast of southwestern England on Friday, British coast guards said. The USS Minneapolis-St. Paul was leaving Plymouth harbor in rough weather around midday, said Sean Brooks, a coast guard spokesman. Four sailors were tied to the vessel with ropes a routine precaution but two fell into the surging water. British rescue boats picked up all four, Brooks said. Lt. Chris Servello, a spokesman for the US 6th Fleet in Naples, southern Italy, said the four men were taken to hospital in Plymouth, where two were pronounced dead. The two survivors were treated for minor injuries and discharged, he said. No one else was injured. Coast guard spokesman Brooks said authorities received a request for assistance from the USS Minneapolis-St. Paul at 12.50 p.m. and sent a search and rescue helicopter and a lifeboat to the scene. Brooks said that rescuers initially saw two sailors tied to the vessel's hull with ropes...
http://www.usatoday.com
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Editor - 10:12:00 12-29-06
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 Howard backs nuclear power shift |
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has backed a controversial report which calls on the country to start building nuclear power stations. Mr Howard said the report, released last month, showed that nuclear power was "part of the solution" to Australia's growing energy needs. It said Australia could have a nuclear power industry in 10 to 15 years. Critics say Mr Howard is using the nuclear issue to build his green credentials ahead of 2007 elections. Mr Howard said nuclear energy was not a "silver bullet" to solve global warming or energy security. But a nation like Australia - which has the world's largest known uranium deposits - would be "crazy in the extreme if we didn't allow for the development of nuclear power", he said. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6216111.stm
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Editor - 09:49:00 12-29-06
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| Trekker claims South Pole record |
An adventurer from Berkshire has claimed to have made the fastest solo, unsupported trek to the South Pole. Hannah McKeand, 33, from Newbury, set off on the 690-mile (1,110km) trip from the edge of Antarctica to the Geographic South Pole on 19 November. She completed the challenge on Thursday after 39 days and nine and a half hours - beating the record by two days. Ms McKeand said she hopes the expedition will raise more than £10,000 for charity. With the end in sight Ms McKeand said: "For the first time in the journey I think, there is a tiny part of me that doesn't want it to end. "The little crazy part that got my into this in the first place, the part that could just go on and on, skiing into the white and into the blue." Ms McKeand, who runs a sailing company with partner David Pryce, faced temperatures of -35C (-31F) while dragging a sledge weighing 100 kilos (220lbs) across the snow and ice. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/6216087.stm
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Editor - 09:46:00 12-29-06
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| U.S. Embassy Says Marine Convicted of Rape Moved From Manila Jail to American Custody |
A U.S. Marine convicted of raping a Filipino woman was whisked away from a Manila jail to the U.S. Embassy Friday, a spokesman said, almost a month after the U.S. and Philippine governments urged a local court to transfer him to American custody during his appeal. Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, 21, had been in a Manila jail since he was convicted and sentenced to 40 years on Dec. 4. His lawyers, the U.S. Embassy and the Philippine departments of justice and foreign affairs have agreed that his detention violates the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, which governs the conduct of U.S. troops in the Philippines. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2759379
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Editor - 09:43:00 12-29-06
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| N Korea 'serious threat' to South |
South Korea has described its northern neighbour as a "serious threat", in the wake of its nuclear test in October. A defence white paper said North Korea's nuclear capability along with its land army and conventional weapons had raised the threat to the South. The assessment uses the strongest wording since Seoul began a policy of engaging with Pyongyang in 2000. Talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme ended in deadlock in Beijing earlier this month. In its biennial white paper, South Korea's ministry of defence said the threat from the North had risen, although the country was not yet a full-fledged nuclear power. "North Korea's conventional forces, its nuclear test, weapons of mass destruction and the forward deployment of troops are a serious threat to our security," the report said. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6216385.stm
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Editor - 09:41:00 12-29-06
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| Chinese portal loses suit over movie downloads Film industry has 35 lawsuits over film piracy pending in Chinese courts |
A court has ordered the popular Chinese Web portal Sohu.com to pay damages for distributing Hollywood movies online without permission, a U.S. film industry group said Friday.The Beijing court ordered a subsidiary of Nasdaq-listed Sohu.com Inc. to pay $140,000 in damages and publish an acknowledgment of its wrongdoing, the Motion Picture Association said.A Sohu spokeswoman, Zhang Xin, said the company was aware of the ruling but had no comment on it. China is regarded as the world's leading source of illegally copied movies, software and other goods, despite repeated government promises to stamp out the underground industry....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16392917/
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Editor - 09:37:00 12-29-06
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