11 October 2015

Suicide bombings kill 95 people at Ankara peace rally

Bodies of victims are covered with flags and banners as police officers secure the area after an explosion in Ankara, Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015. Two bomb explosions apparently targeting a peace rally in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday has killed many people a news agency and witnesses said. The explosions occurred minutes apart near Ankara's train station as people gathered for the rally organized by the country's public sector workers' trade union.
Nearly simultaneous explosions targeted a Turkish peace rally Saturday in Ankara, killing at least 95 people and wounding hundreds in Turkey's deadliest attack in years — one that threatens to inflame the nation's ethnic tensions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said there were "strong signs" that the two explosions — which struck 50 meters (yards) apart just after 10 a.m. — were suicide bombings. He suggested that Kurdish rebels or Islamic State group militants were to blame.

10 October 2015

30 killed, 126 injured in Ankara bomb attacks

Bodies of victims are covered with flags and banners as police officers secure the area after an explosion in Ankara, Turkey, Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015. Two bomb explosions apparently targeting a peace rally in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday has killed many people a news agency and witnesses said. The explosions occurred minutes apart near Ankara's train station as people gathered for the rally organized by the country's public sector workers' trade union.
Two bomb explosions targeting a peace rally in Turkey's capital Ankara on Saturday killed at least 30 people and injured 126 others, Turkey's Interior Ministry said.
The explosions occurred minutes apart near Ankara's main train station as people were gathering for the rally, organized by the country's public sector workers' trade union and other civic society groups. The rally aimed to call for an end to the renewed violence between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces.

9 October 2015

Egypt to restore King Tut mask after botched epoxy job

The Discovery of King Tut
The restoration of King Tutankhamun's world-famous golden mask will begin Saturday, over a year after the beard was accidentally broken off and hastily glued back with epoxy, Egypt's state-run news agency said Friday.

New Nobel literature prize winner transcends easy categories

Belarusian journalist and writer Svetlana Alexievich the 2015 Nobel literature winner, center, is surrounded after her news conference in Minsk, Belarus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2015. Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, for works that the prize judges called "a monument to suffering and courage."
With a reporter's eye and an artist's heart, Svetlana Alexievich writes of the catastrophes, upheaval and personal woes that have afflicted the Soviet Union and the troubled countries that succeeded it. Her writings, characterized by plain language and detail so visceral it's sometimes painful to read, won her this year's Nobel literature prize.
She is an unusual choice. The Swedish Academy, which picks the prestigious literature laureates, has only twice before bestowed the award on non-fiction — to Winston Churchill and Bertrand Russell — and had never honored journalistic work with a Nobel.

8 October 2015

Trio wins Nobel Prize for mapping how cells fix DNA damage

Professor Sara Snogerup Linse, left explains why the laureates were awarded as Goran K. Hansson, centre and Claes Gustafsson, members of the Nobel Assembly sit, during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015. Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich and U.S.-Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for "mechanistic studies of DNA repair."
Tomas Lindahl was eating his breakfast in England on Wednesday when the call came — ostensibly, from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It occurred to him that this might be a hoax, but then the caller started speaking Swedish.
It was no joke: Lindahl and two others had won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for pioneering studies into the way our bodies repair damage to DNA.

6 October 2015

Nobel Prize for missing piece in neutrino mass puzzle

A screen shows the winners as members of the Nobel Assembly announce the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in physics, in Stockholm, Tuesday Oct. 6, 2015. Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada won the Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of neutrino oscillations. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the two researchers had made key contributions to experiments showing that neutrinos change identities.
Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos change identities as they whiz through the universe, proving that they have mass.
By uncovering the "chameleon-like" nature of neutrinos, the laureates had solved a long-standing puzzle in particle physics that could alter our grasp of the cosmos, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

AP PHOTOS: Kashmir's floating market reopens after floods

Kashmiri men take a break to chat while selling their produce at the floating vegetable market on Dal Lake in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015. Vegetables traded in this floating market are supplied to Srinagar and many towns across the Kashmir valley. It's one of the major sources of income for the lake dwellers who spend years carefully nurturing their floating gardens from the weed and rich soil extracted from the lake bed.
Boats laden with fresh produce appear just after dawn, floating through a maze of waterways on Dal Lake in the main city of India's portion of Kashmir.
This is Kashmir's floating vegetable market, deep inside the lake and surrounded by scenic house boats and water lilies.