World

A court in Perth, Western Australia is set to deliver a verdict on whether an Islamic woman can testify while wearing a Burqa. The woman, who claims to be a devout Muslim, wishes not to show her face to men and says she might be too uncomfortable to give a sufficient testimony if uncovered in front of all the people in the courtroom. District court judge Shaun Dean received submissions from both the prosecution and the defence lawyers on the case that the woman was set to testify in, requesting that the woman either be allowed to tesify in th

The United States unemployment rate remained unchanged at a high 9.5% as employers and companies remained nervous about hiring new workers and the public sector laid off 143,000 temporary 2010 US Census workers during July. State and local governments, facing major budget deficits, also laid off many people. Overall, the 131,000 jobs lost during July far exceeded economist's predictions of 65,000 jobs lost. The private sector added just 71,000 jobs during July, also less than the 90,000 economists predicted. Around 200,000 gains each month ar

A Gainesville, Florida church named the Dove World Outreach Center has drawn international attention to itself with its planned book burning of the Qur'an. The church urges people to send them copies of the book for burning at a bonfire event to be held on church property this coming September 11. The date marks the ninth anniversary of the 2001 September 11 attacks on the United States. The church's motive is an act "in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the evil of Islam," according to its page wall on Facebook. Th

The 65th anniversary of the first use of an atomic bomb against people has been remembered in a ceremony Thursday in Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was dropped on Hiroshima at precisely 08:15 local time on August 6, 1945 by the specially converted United States Army Air Force B-29 Superfortress bomber Enola Gay piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets, who later retired as a brigadier general in the United States Air Force. Diplomats from 75 countries attended this anniversary including the United States, United Kingdom an

Massive wildfires in western and central Russia have killed at least 52 people and blanketed Moscow in dense smoke and smog. According to BBC News, around 560 fires were still burning on Friday. More than 800 wildfires have been reported this week in Russia, which is currently suffering from the worst heat since records began over 130 years ago. Since June, temperatures in the country have been rising, and Moscow was expected to reach over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.78 degrees Celsius) on Friday, about 25 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius

__NOTOC__ Since last reported, the flooding in Pakistan has spread and has now struck more than four million people. The UN reports it has left at least 1,600 people dead. The floods have been confirmed as the worst in eighty years. Heavy monsoon rains led to the flooding of the huge Indus River, destroying homes in the north of the country and causing a large amount of damage in the north-west frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Manuel Bessler of the United Nations said: "What we are facing now is a major catastrophe. We are afraid it w

US hip hop group Black Eyed Peas has announced that it is almost finished with its new studio album, The Beginning. The group's leader and producer, will.i.am (William James Adams, Jr.), says that the recording "symbolizes growth, new beginnings and starts, fresh new perspective. It's a positive, feel-good [album] at the time where there's question marks and uncertainty. People want to be reminded that it's going to be all right." The Beginning is the group's sixth studio album and is set to be released by the end of the year. It comes one yea

An earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale has been reported as having struck the Pacific island of New Britain, the second island in the Papua and New Guinea group. The quake, which struck at 22:01 UTC yesterday evening, hit at a depth of approximately according to the United States Geological Survey. According to a member of staff at the Port Moresby Geophysical Observatory, minor effects of the quake were felt there, more than South West of the epicenter. First reports from the area indicate that the Western parts of New Brita

A criminal investigation has begun in Edinburgh after three children were killed in a fire at a three storey house just before 3pm yesterday. Firefighters were called to the house on Slateford Road in Scotland's capital city, for a reported gas explosion, and they put out a small fire in an upstairs room. However, there was no evidence of an explosion and none of the surrounding houses were damaged. Three young children, two boys and a girl, were found to have died at the scene. Police are treating the deaths as suspicious. A woman, believed

Today, Zimbabwean officials informed the media that an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767 aircraft carrying 250 people had crashed at Harare International Airport, before they announced the reports were false and the incident had in fact been a drill to simulate the occurrence of such an event. Initial reports suggested that a flight from London had crashed upon landing at the airport. However, Medical Rescue International later stated in a post on Facebook that no airplane had crashed and it had "joined up with other services to attend to a mock accident

In a statement released earlier today, Fox Broadcasting Company announced that British producer Nigel Lythgoe would rejoin American Idol as the television series' executive producer. Lythgoe formerly held the position for the first seven seasons of the series. Lythgoe, who had been with American Idol since its inception, left to concentrate on dancing show So You Think You Can Dance two years ago. Fox said that Lythgoe would continue as a judge and executive producer of So You Think You Can Dance. He will join executive producers Simon Fuller,

The pilot of a small plane that crahed into a warehouse near Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix, Arizona has been confirmed dead. The plane veered off the airport runway early Wednesday, shortly before landing, and then slammed into a pest-control building a quarter-mile away, bursting into flames. The cause of the crash is unknown, and no one knows how many passengers were in the plane. The small plane was a four-seat single-engine Cirrus SR 22, which is built out of a composite of plastics and fiberglass. Cindy Cross, a witness of the crash,