World

Despite allegations that the Mayor of London's office exerted pressure on the organisers of WorldPride in London to change the start time of the event to reduce the number of people attending, thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people and their supporters marched from Portman Square to Whitehall today. The event celebrated forty years since the first gay pride march in London in 1972. Veterans of the 1972 march led the parade, and were followed by groups representing LGBT charity and campaigning groups including Stonewa

The defence team for Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man who killed 77 people last year, have argued he was sane at the time of the attack. The hearing Friday concluded the trial for last July's bomb and gun attacks; Breivik admits carrying out the killings, but denies criminal responsibility. The outcome of the trial rests on whether Breivik was sane when on July 22 last year he detonated a car bomb near government buildings in Oslo before shooting dead 69 and injuring a further 242 on the island of Utøya. He has been the subject of two

A US federal court in Virginia has sent a second man to prison for online postings linked to Revolution Muslim. New York Islam convert Jesse Curtis Morton received an eleven-and-a-half-year sentence yesterday after his co-defendant was jailed in February. Morton, 33, also known as Younus Abdullah Muhammed, wrote alongside fellow convert Zachary Chesser, 20, on a now-defunct website that promoted violence against perceived enemies of Islam. Targets included those behind depictions of the Prophet Muhammed, which are widely held to be offensive t

Julian Assange, founder of whistle blowing site Wikileaks, has spent a third night in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He entered the embassy on Tuesday to claim asylum, breaking strict bail conditions, after losing an appeal in the British high courts over extradition to Sweden, where he faces questioning over allegations of sexual assault in 2010. Assange, 40, awaits a decision from diplomats on his asylum application. In a telephone interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he explained the decision following a feeling of aban

Two weeks ago, FanFiction.Net purged the site of much of the adult content, surprising many fan fiction readers and writers; leaving several archives on the Internet unprepared for a deluge of new users, problems continuing to this day. FanFiction.Net removed around 62,000 stories after a change allowing writers under the age of eighteen to register. FanFiction.Net spelled out the reasons for their purge on the front page of the site: According to alixe75 on LiveJournal's ffdotnetrants, FanFiction.Net deleted 2,002 Naruto stories, 1,497 Twil

Louisiana State University's (LSU's) baseball team lost against the Stony Brook Seawolves on Sunday in game 3 of the Baton Rouge Super Regional. The final score was 7–2. This loss closed out LSU's chances to compete in the US College World Series, but will send the Seawolves to compete in that major event. Game 1 of the series included a 19-hour rain delay, but ultimately, LSU won that game 5–4. The game was a loss for Stony Brook pitcher Frankie Vanderka. Game 3, however, gave Vanderka an opportunity to redeem himself. Game 2 resulted in a lo

I'll Have Another, who won both the 2012 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, was removed from the field in this weekend's Belmont Stakes — effectively ending the thoroughbred's attempt to become the twelfth US Triple Crown winner in history. At a Friday press conference, owner J. Paul Reddam announced that the thoroughbred was injured and he will not only be removed from the race Saturday but he will be retired from any further racing. The reason I'll Have Another was scratched from the field was because of a swelling in his left front tendo

A new study by Duke University in the US suggests depressed adolescents who respond to treatment within twelve weeks are at a reduced risk of drug abuse later in their lives. The research followed about half of a pool of 439 adolescents who had received treatment for major depression and volunteered for Duke University research. At the five-year study's conclusion the participants were aged 17–23. None of them had previously misused drink or drugs. Of those who had experienced a reduction in depressive symptoms within twelve weeks of treatme

A court in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg has sent serial killer Irina Gaidamachuk to prison for twenty years. Gaidamachuk, 40, killed seventeen elderly women so she could rob them. Gaidamachuk attacked her victims in the Urals region pretending she was a social worker so they let her into their flats. Once inside, she attacked the women with an axe or hammer. The first murder was in 2003 and Gaidamachuk was not detained until June 2010. She confessed. The investigation was troubled by the gender of the perpetrator; the possibility of a fe

A court in Libya has sent 24 foreigners, mostly Ukrainians, to prison for supporting late leader Colonel Muamar al-Gaddafi's regime by working on anti-aircraft missiles. The convicts say they are oil workers who were forced into the conflict which toppled Gaddafi. A Russian deemed to be the ringleader received a life sentence, while a second Russian, nineteen Ukranians, and three Belarussians were all given ten years' hard labour. Belarussian ambassador Anatoly Stepus attended yesterday's hearing and expressed surprise at "the worst kind of se

Australia's overnight penalty shootout 9–7 win against the Russia women's national water polo team qualified the Australia women's national water polo team into the quarter-finals of the FINA Women's World League Super Finals, where they will meet the Germany women's national water polo team at 9:00 p.m. AEST. Australia was behind at the end of the first quarter, with a score of 2–3. They came back to tie up the game at the end of the second period where they scored 3 goals to Russia's 2. Both teams scored a goal each in the third, before bo

Villagers assisting recovery efforts for a Russian passenger jet that crashed in Indonesia have found the aircraft's missing flight data recorder. All 45 on board were killed when the Sukhoi Superjet 100 crashed during a demonstration flight earlier this month. The cockpit voice recorder was found several days after the plane hit Mount Salak, West Java on May 9. A landslide triggered by the impact had concealed the flight data recorder, but it was uncovered today after recent rains removed some of the soil it was under. "It seems to be intact,