India’s Kumbh Mela festival holds most auspicious day

10 February 2013 Last updated at 06:48 GMT

 By Soutik Biswas

BBC News, Allahabad

The main day of bathing is taking place at India’s Kumbh Mela, with more than 30 million pilgrims expected to take a dip at the confluence of India’s Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

This is the most auspicious of six bathing days at the event, billed as the biggest human gathering on Earth.

More than eight million took to the waters on the opening day, 14 January.

Hindus believe a festival dip at Sangam – where the rivers meet – will cleanse sins and help bring salvation.

In all, up to 100 million pilgrims are expected to bathe in the holy waters in January and February at the 55-day Kumbh Mela, which is held every 12 years.

ONLY IN JAPAN

In an annual ritual meant to “foster spiritual strength,” 100 SDF troops in Hokkaido engaged in a tug of war with a tank.

Zookeepers in Fukuoka have discovered that feeding chimpanzees three leeks a day helps them ward off colds.

A 114-year-old Osaka resident took the title of world’s oldest woman after the previous record-holder, a 115-year-old who lived in Kawasaki, died last month.

Sentence of the Week: “A man suspected in a series of computer hacking cases has been linked by a security camera to a man who suspiciously approached a cat, which was later found to have a memory device attached to its collar, investigative sources said.” (via Mainichi Japan)

Why extreme Islamists are intent on destroying cultural artifacts

 By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

LONDON — They have destroyed the iconic Buddhas of Bamiyan, smashed down the fabled “end of the world” gate in the ancient city of Timbuktu and even called for the destruction of Egypt’s ancient pyramids and the Sphinx.

Extreme Islamist movements across the world have developed a reputation for the destruction of historic artifacts, monuments and buildings.

This week, officials confirmed that up to 2,000 manuscripts at Mali’s Ahmed Baba Institute had been destroyed or looted during a 10-month occupation of Timbuktu by Islamist fighters. Some experts have compared the texts to the Dead Sea Scrolls.

THAT’LL SHOW ‘EM

The National Police Agency and the Japan Securities Dealers Association announced new measures intended to keep yakuza groups from… stock trading.

Leading online game operator Gree blamed a software glitch for overcharging the accounts of 733 minors-including 30 kids who were stuck with bills of more than ¥100,000 each.

Education officials in Saitama have developed a system that enables students to report bullying incidents via mobile phone.

It was reported that the Japanese are trying to save electricity this winter by “warmth sharing”-that is, “the communal use of warm and toasty places.”

Mali conflict: AU set to discuss troop deployments

 The BBC 27 January 2013 Last updated at 06:56 GMT

African Union leaders are meeting to discuss the conflict in Mali, as members move to deploy troops to help the French-led operation there.

African states have pledged 7,700 troops to support French and Malian forces in their campaign against Islamist militants in northern Mali.

Only a small part of the African force has so far deployed.

French-led troops have retaken several towns since France intervened two weeks ago, and on Saturday captured Gao.

The French defence ministry said troops gained control of the city – northern Mali’s most populous – after securing the airport and a strategic bridge to the south.

Chinese Colonel Explains His Hatred of Japan With Weird Animal Metaphor

Chinese Senior Colonel Liu Mingfu must have just finished watching a nature documentary as he answered questions about China’s territorial disputes, attempting to convey his hatred of Japan through strange animal metaphors.

”America is the global tiger and Japan is Asia’s wolf and both are now madly biting China,” Colonel Liu said, ”Of all the animals, Chinese people hate the wolf the most.”

We’re pretty sure Chinese people don’t have some inexplicable national hatred of wolves. He most likely would have professed his countrymen’s abhorrence of baby pandas if they happened to represent Japan in the metaphor.

The Pennsylvania Republican told an ABC News panel that conservatives “should stick to our guns” and oppose President Barack Obama’s efforts to curb gun violence in the wake of the slaughter of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Having a gun and gun ownership is part of how people can feel safer,” Santorum explained. “And in my opinion, when you look at the disingenuousness of the [Obama] administration when they met with the NRA, and [Vice President] Joe Biden did. And the NRA brought up the fact that prosecutions for gun crimes and prosecutions for people who lie on their registration forms or gun forms are down under this administration. The vice president responded, ‘We don’t have time to devote to see whether people fill out a form right!'”

Current TV host Jennifer Granholm pointed out that there had been fewer enforcements because the National Rifle Association (NRA) had pushed Republicans to oppose any effort to confirm a head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

“Here’s what I would say about that: 50 years ago, you could go on a catalog and buy a gun,” Santorum opined. “There were no restrictions on gun ownership, there were no restrictions on magazines, there were no restrictions on anything and we had a lot less violence in society than we do today. The idea of pointing to the gun instead of pointing to society — and not one thing the president did dealt with Hollywood and gun violence and video games and all the glorification of violence.”

“Armor-piercing bullets, why do you need that?” Granholm interrupted.

“Why do you need to protect Hollywood?” Santorum shot back.

“You’re deflecting,” Granholm observed. “Deer don’t wear armor. Why do you need an armor-piercing bullet?”

“But criminals could,” Santorum quipped.

“And police officers certainly do,” Granholm noted.

“Having the ability to defend yourself is something that is a right in our country,” Santorum asserted.

Gun control opponents hold rallies across the US

‘High noon’ events held in 47 states to protest against legislative proposals announced by Barack Obama

 Julie Dermansky and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 January 2013 01.07 GMT

Thousands of gun advocates gathered peacefully on Saturday at state capitals around the US to rally against stricter limits on firearms, with demonstrators carrying rifles and pistols in some places while those elsewhere settled for waving hand-scrawled signs or screaming themselves hoarse.

Activists promoted the “Guns Across America” rallies primarily through social media. Over 18,000 people RSVPed on Facebook, and the rallies kicked off at high noon in 47 states.

The size of crowds at each location varied from dozens of people in South Dakota to 2,000 in New York. Large crowds also turned out in Connecticut, Tennessee and Texas. Some demonstrators in Phoenix, Arizona, and Salem, Oregon, came with holstered handguns or rifles on their backs. In Frankfort, Kentucky, attendees gave a special round of applause for “the ladies that are packin’.”

In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, over 200 people, mostly white, middle-aged males, turned up to show their displeasure with Obama’s 23 new executive orders and his attempt to reinstate the assault weapons ban.

RIDING THE RAILS

JR West announced plans to build Japan’s largest railway museum in Kyoto’s Umekoji Park. The 18,800m2 space, which will house as many as 50 exhibits, is expected to cost ¥7 billion.

JTB Corp. says that it expects 18.7 million Japanese to travel abroad in 2013-a record high.

A Kyoto University-led project that produced “eggs from artificially derived multipurpose stem cells” was selected by the prestigious US journal Science as one of the top 10 scientific breakthroughs in 2012.

Headline of the Week: “115-yr-old Kimura Doesn’t Sweat the Small Stuff” (via The Yomiuri Shimbun)

Family of Aaron Swartz: Government officials partly to blame for his death

 By Isolde Raftery, Staff Writer, NBC News

In the 24 hours since Aaron Swartz, a prodigy programmer turned Internet folk hero, hanged himself in his New York apartment, his family and a close friend and mentor have not only expressed devastation – they have been angry.

“Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy,” his family wrote in a statement. “It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach.”

Swartz, who helped to create RSS at age 14, was indicted in 2011 on charges alleging he improperly downloaded more than four million articles from JSTOR, an online system for archiving academic journals. Swartz argued for transparency — JSTOR costs more than $50,000 for an annual university subscription — but court records show that the federal government believed he had, among other felonies, committed wire fraud and computer fraud and unlawfully obtained information from a protected computer.