Tag: Evening Edition

A monk at the flashpoint Kirti monastery in a mainly Tibetan area of Sichuan province named Phuntsog set himself on fire on March 16, the third anniversary of protests in Lhasa and neighboring areas against Chinese rule.

His death triggered a fresh clampdown by authorities nervous about renewed anti-government unrest.

Until officials figure out what went wrong with Russia’s essential Soyuz rockets, there will be no way to launch any more astronauts before the current residents have to leave in mid-November.

The unsettling predicament comes just weeks after NASA’s final space shuttle flight.

The national tourism office has made the auto industry a highlight of its annual programme for the first time and the southwestern region of Baden-Wuerttemburg alone has organised 200 events from May through September.

Anyone travelling to the regional capital Stuttgart will not miss the Mercedes star that sits above the main train station or the posters that advertise the local auto museum.

Proposed amendments to “residential surveillance” laws would allow police to hold suspects in secret locations in cases involving national security, terrorism or major corruption, the official Legal Daily said this week.

Residential surveillance is a form of house arrest.

Kan’s resignation comes after nearly 15 turbulent months in power during which his response to the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and resulting nuclear plant accident drew fierce criticism and sent his approval ratings plummeting.

“I propose to you that I resign as the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan today,” Kan told party lawmakers on Friday.

The failed launch of the unmanned Progress capsule on a Soyuz-U rocket was a spectacular blow for Russia which proudly became the sole nation capable of taking humans to the ISS after the July withdrawal of the US space shuttle.

Emergency services blocked access to the site of the crash in the Altai region of Siberia, state television said, amid fears the space freighter could have dumped highly-toxic fuel in the area.

Evidence to back the theory has often been contested as sketchy or anecdotal — but the case has been boosted by the first scientific study to declare an unmistakeable link between climate fluctuations and violence.

It says tropical countries affected by the notorious El Nino weather event are twice as likely to be hit by internal unrest compared to the phenomenon’s cooler, wetter counterpart, La Nina.

A Gallup poll last week found Obama’s poll numbers in the African American community down from its once stratospheric 95 percent approval early in his term, to a still-high, but notably lower 81 percent — tying his worst ever showing from earlier this year.

Realclearpolitics.com, which compiles an average of major polls, put the president’s approval rating among all Americans at 43.5 percent.

Obama’s approval rating on the struggling economy has dipped to 26 percent in a Gallup poll as fears grow of a slump into a second recession and global stock markets plunge, clouding his 2012 reelection prospects.

“You’ve got an unemployment rate that is still too high, an economy that’s not growing fast enough,” Obama said in an interview with CBS News taped during his economic-themed bus tour of three states last week.