Myanmar apologises to monks over mine protest injuries

YANGON: Myanmar's government has apologised to senior Buddhist clerics over injuries sustained in a violent police crackdown on a rally at a Chinese-backed copper mine, state media said Saturday.Religious Affairs Minister Myint Maung said the incident at the mine in Monywa, northern Myanmar, in which at least 99 monks and 11 others suffered wounds including severe burns, was a "great grief"...

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India misguided, paranoid over China: Guha

MUMBAI: A good half-hour into the discussion on 'India, China and the World', historian Ramachandra Guha issued a disclaimer—all the three members on the panel had been to China only once. "We should learn their language, promote quality research, and have a panel on China driven by Chinese scholars," he said. And that was the general tenor of the debate—that the Indian attitude to China was influenced...

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity

When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't...

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Federal Agencies Brace for Deep Cuts Post-'Cliff'

Dec 7, 2012 4:22pm Toby Jorrin/AFP/Getty ImagesWith the “fiscal cliff” quickly approaching, federal agencies are stepping up preparations for deep automatic budget cuts that will kick in Jan. 2 unless the White House and Congress can reach a deal.The Office of Management and Budget told ABC News that a memo went out to federal agencies earlier this week seeking “additional...

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Survey shows falling satisfaction among federal employees

When he released a federal worker survey on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry forthrightly noted that “continued tight budgets and pay freezes” contributed to many lower ratings. The report goes a bit further, suggesting “the downward trend of many of the survey items . . . suggest that the continued tight budgets, salary freezes and...

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China's Xi to retrace reform trip

BEIJING: The new leader of China's Communist Party Xi Jinping will make his first official trip in the post to Shenzhen, the country's powerfully symbolic hub of economic reform, a Hong Kong newspaper said Friday.Xi is due to become national president in March and the choice of the southern city for such a visit would "express his determination to further deepen China's reform," the South...

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Arvind Kejriwal, agitators detained during protest outside Sheila Dikshit's house

NEW DELHI: AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and scores of people were detained from outside chief minister Sheila Dikshit's residence on Friday during their protest against demolition of buildings in a south Delhi locality. Over 100 people had gathered outside Dikshit's 3-Motilal Nehru Marg residence at 7am while Kejriwal joined them an hour later to protest demolition of their houses in Shaheenbagh...

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Space Pictures This Week: Lunar Gravity, Venusian Volcano

Cassiopeia’s BubbleImage courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA/WIYN/NOAO/NSFA new camera called the One Degree Imager, located at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, is responsible...

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John McAfee Out of Hospital, Back in Cell

Software millionaire John McAfee has been returned to an immigration detention cell in Guatemala after being rushed to a Guatemala City hospital via ambulance.McAfee, 67 -- who soon may be deported back to Belize, where authorities want to question him about the shooting death of his neighbor -- was reportedly found prostrate on the floor of his cell and unresponsive.He was...

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Rubio, Ryan look to the future during award dinner speeches

Two high-profile Republican members of Congress who stand at the forefront of the effort to rebuild the party after a stinging presidential defeat delivered speeches Tuesday night aimed at turning the page with a fresh emphasis on inclusion and a renewed focus on growing the middle class. “Nothing represents how special America is more than our middle class. And our challenge and our opportunity...

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