LONDON (Reuters) — China is believed to have put to death thousands of people in 2010, the human rights group Amnesty International said Monday. The estimate dwarfs the number of recorded executions in other countries, which the group says dropped from 714 in 2009 to at least 527 last year.
The group said, as it has in past years, that China, which classifies executions as state

The devastating earthquake that tore through Christchurch on Tuesday is the product of a new fault line in the Earth’s crust that seismologists were previously unaware of.
New Zealanders have long known that their mountainous country is acutely vulnerable to tectonic movements. Major fault lines dissect the nation, snaking up the western coast of the South Island before splitting in two just south of the capital

Libya, officially the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya faces Egypt to the east, Sudan to the south east, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1,800,000 square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the fourth

Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, has resigned from his post, handing over power to the armed forces.
Omar Suleiman, the vice-president, announced in a televised address that the president was “waiving” his office, and had handed over authority to the Supreme Council of the armed forces.
Suleiman’s short statement was received with a roar of approval and by celebratory chanting and flag-waving from a crowd of hundreds

CAIRO – A young Google executive who helped ignite Egypt’s uprising energized a cheering crowd of hundreds of thousands Tuesday with his first appearance in their midst after being released from 12 days in secret detention. “We won’t give up,” he promised at one of the biggest protests yet in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
Once a behind-the-scenes Internet activist, 30-year-old Wael Ghonim has emerged as an inspiring

(Reuters) – Opposition groups including the banned Muslim Brotherhood held talks with the government on Sunday to resolve Egypt’s political crisis but said their core demand for the removal of President Hosni Mubarak was not met.
Demonstrators in central Tahrir Square, focal point of an uprising that has rocked the Arab world and alarmed Western powers, said they would intensify their 12-day battle to oust the

More than 60 undocumented Filipinos temporarily living under the Kandara Bridge in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia were affected by flood water due to non-stop rain for several days, an ABS-CBN News report on Wednesday said.
These pinoys, mostly overseas filipino workers (OFWs) including more than a dozen children and a baby were seeking refuge under the bridge when the 2011 Jeddah flood hit them.
The Department of Foreign

Brisbane residents have taken to their flooded streets in canoes.
The Australian city of Brisbane has experienced widespread flooding, although the peak level is a metre lower than feared, officials say.
The Brisbane River peaked at 4.46m (14.6ft) just before 0530 (1930GMT Wednesday), compared with 5.4m (17.7ft) in the 1974 floods.
However, dozens of suburbs and thousands of properties are inundated.
The death toll in Queensland’s flooding went up

I was looking at pictures of the flood in Australia and found a horrible amateur video-clip of the flood in Toowoomba (dated January 10, 2011). It started with a video of a street covered with flowing brown-colored water. Soon after, it started to flow over the parking lot. It gained speed and later cars floated one after the other.
A man tried to save his car.

Catherine Elizabeth “Kate” Middleton received widespread media attention after becoming the girlfriend of Prince William, son of deceased Princess Diana – a widely known figure throughout the world. The relationship was put to a halt after a rumored break-up between the two. However, it rekindled throughout the years.
And on the 16th of November 2010, Clarence House announced that the two are scheduled to marry