Six In The Morning

Protests go global, rampage, tear gas in Rome

Minority of violent demonstrators stretch into evening, hours after tens of thousands of people join global ‘day of rage’ against bankers, politicians

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

 Hundreds of hooded, masked protesters rampaged through Rome in some of the worst violence in the Italian capital for years Saturday, torching cars and breaking windows during a larger peaceful protest against elites blamed for economic downturn.

Police repeatedly fired tear gas and water cannon in attempts to disperse them but the clashes with a minority of violent demonstrators stretched into the evening, hours after tens of thousands of people in Rome joined a global “day of rage” against bankers and politicians.

Israel names prisoners to be freed in swap deal

Israel publishes the names of 450 Palestinian prisoners who are to be released in the first phase of an exchange for the captured Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit

Reuters

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 16 October 2011

Israel has made public the names of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners it will free in exchange for soldier Gilad Shalit as part of a deal it reached with Hamas.

Israelis who oppose the freeing of the prisoners, some serving life sentences for deadly attacks, now have 48 hours to appeal to the country’s highest court to prevent the release.

Trees ‘boost African crop yields and food security’



By Mark Kinver

Environment reporter, BBC News

Planting trees that improve soil quality can help boost crop yields for African farmers, an assessment shows.

Fertiliser tree systems (FTS) also help boost food security and play a role in “climate proofing” the region’s arable land, the paper adds.

Researchers from the World Agroforestry Centre say poor soil fertility is one of the main obstacles to improving food production in Africa

The world can feed itself without ruining the planet, study says

Author Jon Foley says feeding a growing world presents a huge challenge. But employing many strategies simultaneously can meet the problem.

 By Darci Palmquist, Cool Green Science

Recent global population growth estimates (10 billion by 2100, anyone?) plus slowing annual increases in agricultural yields have a lot of analysts worried that many of those new people will suffer from chronic hunger – and that much of the land that hasn’t been converted to agriculture will be plowed under to grow crops.

But a new study in the journal Nature argues that we can feed the world’s growing population without destroying the planet… if we make major adjustments now in agricultural and consumption practices and patterns. (Hey, if it were easy, we’d already be there, right?)

Science in anthrax letter case comes under attack

Bruce E. Ivins, the chief suspect in the 2001 anthrax mailings, committed suicide before the FBI could present its case in court. Years later, some suspicions remain over results of the inquiry.

By David Willman, Washington Bureau

October 16, 2011

Reporting from Washington– FBI Agent Edward Montooth began worrying the moment he got the call early on the morning of July 27, 2008: The chief suspect in the deadly anthrax letter attacks of 2001 had just been rushed to a hospital.

The leader of the FBI investigation knew that if Army microbiologist Bruce E. Ivins died, the opportunity to present the case against him in a courtroom would be lost. Conspiracy theories and speculation, he feared, could well overshadow the evidence.

Banned list: the war on words

Verbiage and cliché are signs the speaker is unsure what they’re saying. John Rentoul on why certain phrases should be banned

Sunday, 16 October 2011

One of the reasons for caring about language is that verbiage is a reliable indicator that something is wrong. When Liam Fox started babbling about his friend Adam Werritty’s “transactional behaviour” in the House of Commons on Monday, we should have realised that it was the beginning of the end.

That was an extreme case. Normally, politicians just surround themselves with the cotton wool of cliché when they are under pressure. David Cameron did this in June this year, when he announced the great reform of the NHS reforms.