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Police in Taiwan are currently investigating the "Bully Councillors"-scandal at the 2007 Baseball World Cup. City councillors are accused of showing up for a game with only one ticket, but demanding that two or more people be allowed entry. Several baseball fans in Taiwan protested to the Taichung City Government yesterday. A witness to this scandal, who recorded its process, was threatened by some councilors and hooligans in Taichung City. However, this might be a rumor because some facts are uncertain. A Taichung City Councilor Hsiao Chieh th

__NOTOC__ A British teacher working in Sudan was arrested on Sunday after parents allegedly complained that she had insulted Islam by naming a teddy bear Muhammad. She faces a possible six months in prison, 40 lashes, or a fine. A blasphemous bear? Gillian Gibbons, 54, who had arrived at Khartoum's Unity High School in August, polled the six and seven year old children in her class on what they should call the bear. Out of 8 names, including Abdullah and Hassan, the children overwhelmingly voted for Muhammad, by 20 votes to 3. The bear was

On Tuesday, Google announced a new strategic initiative aimed at producing electricity from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal power that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal. Google plans to spend tens of millions of dollars on research and development in 2008, and to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to bring energy projects to market. The new initiative is dubbed "RE<C", for "Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal." It will "focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enha

In a third night of violence, that followed after two teenagers on a motorbike died in a collision with a police patrol vehicle on Sunday night, French authorities are reporting only sporadic clashes in the Val-d'Oise department. However, for the first time, unrest was reported outside of Paris suburbs. The southern city of Toulouse saw at least ten cars torched and a library was set on fire. "The situation is much calmer than the two previous nights but we can all feel that it remains fragile," said Prime Minister François Fillon, as Tuesday

Scientists at NASA have recently released the most detailed map of Antarctica ever. NASA's Landsat 7 satellite took 10,000 photographs of the continent over a period of two years, from 1999 to 2001. 1,100 pictures were chosen to form the mosaic map. Officially titled the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA), the map reveals Antarctica's geography in high definition and with accurate colors. Details as small as half the size of a basketball court are visible. NASA created the map to coincide with the International Polar Year of 2007-2008

On November 15, 2007, Wikinews reported about an internal United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo, in an exclusive report, detailing the threat of al-Qaeda and Hezbollah to the mainland of the U.S. and U.S. interests abroad. The authenticity of the 27-page document can now be undeniably confirmed. Wikinews, in another exclusive report, has obtained a DHS video of a recording from the briefing on the report, which is presented by Steven Maebus, a representative for the DHS and ex U.S. army intelligence officer of 21 years. The

A 16-year-old girl was shot dead from distance in Zürich, Switzerland on Friday night. The victim was waiting with her companion at a bus stop in Zürich at 10 p.m. CET, next to the Hönggerberg campus of Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, a technical university. The shooter, a conscript in the Swiss Armed Forces, used his army-issued assault rifle to shoot the victim at a distance of 60-100 metres. With a gunshot wound in her upper body, the girl died in the arms of her companion before the medical help could arrive. "Yes, it was me who was

At the conclusion of the Annapolis Conference, United States President George W. Bush read a statement of joint understanding by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and President Mahmoud Abbas. Commenting on the statement, President Bush said that: "Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is key to realizing their own aspirations—and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state. Such a state will provide Palestinians with the chance to lead lives of freedom and purpose a

Five men, including Harry Redknapp, the manager of the English football club Portsmouth, and former Portsmouh chairman Milan Mandaric (now at Leicester City) have been arrested by British police in an investigation into alleged corruption in British football transfers. Reports suggest that they have been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting Portsmouth Chief Executive Peter Storrie and player Amdy Faye have also been arrested.

Senior officials from nearly 50 countries and international organizations have gathered in Annapolis, Maryland near Washington, D.C. for a conference aimed at launching final-status peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The meeting, the product of months of Middle East diplomacy by the Bush administration, is intended to reopen peace talks between the two sides for the first time in seven years. The conference, hosted by the United States Department of State, has been dubbed the Annapolis Conference. "Our purpose here in Anna

A group of about 500 demonstrators protested the presence of David Irving, an English historian and convicted Holocaust denier, at a debate at Oxford University on Monday. The students broke into the Oxford Union building where the debate was being held and delayed the debate for over an hour. British riot police were on the scene to maintain the peace. The demonstrators gathered in front of the building hours before the debate was to begin and later staged a sit-down protest in the building's halls. Only half of the people who had tickets to

Monday night more than sixty French police officers have been left injured after a second night of running battles with youths in Paris suburb, Villiers-le-Bel. The rioting began Sunday night after two teenagers on a motorbike died after a collision with a police patrol vehicle. 36 vehicles were set ablaze, including a garbage truck and a police vehicle. A witness told Reuters that police were pelted with stones, petrol bombs and large firecrackers. Police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and paint guns. BBC reports that two schools, a