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Shuttle mission may be extended further due to ISS computer failure NASA has stated that they may extend the STS-117 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission by another two days to assist in the repair of the computers that control the position, oxygen and water levels of the International Space Station (ISS). Four of the six computers have failed. 13 schools torched in southern Thailand In an apparent coordinated attack, 13 schools were set ablaze late yesterday in southern Thailand, an escalation of violence that authorities are blaming on Muslim insurgents.

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Michael Moore's new film 'Sicko' leaked via P2P A number of reports confirm that Michael Moore's forthcoming documentary has been leaked onto Peer-to-peer networks.

Wikipedia Current Events
A U.S. federal jury convicts former Klansman James Ford Seale of kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the 1964 deaths of two African-American teenagers in Mississippi. Hamas claims full control of Palestinian Authority security agencies on the Gaza Strip. Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestine, dissolves the Unity Cabinet and declares a state of emergency. Hamas tightens its control of the Gaza Strip as violence continues. Golf's U.S. Open begins at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. Music producer and alleged con artist Lou Pearlman is arrested in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, and extradited to the United States territory of Guam to face fraud charges. He is accused of defrauding over 1,800 individual investors out of a total of $317 million. Bertie Ahern, of Fianna Fáil is elected as Ireland's Taoiseach for a record third term upon the opening of the 30th Dáil. The Taoiseach then announces his new cabinet with ministries. Entertainer Michael Barrymore is arrested in the UK along with two others over the murder of Stuart Lubbock, who was found dead in Barrymore's swimming pool in 2001. Lebanon prepares to bury anti-Syrian parliamentarian Walid Eido and nine others killed in yesterday's bombing with a national day of mourning declared. Three Sunni mosques near Baghdad are burned in apparent retaliation for the latest Al-Askari Mosque bombing. The Indian Airlines strike continues for a second day causing continuing disruption to Indian aviation. New Zealand condemns the expulsion of its High Commissioner to Fiji Mike Green by Frank Bainimarama's military government, which gave no reason for the expulsion. United Nations resolution on Puerto Rico calls on United States to expedite Puerto Rico's self determination process; text also requests General Assembly to consider question; urges clean up of vieques island, release of Puerto Rican political prisioners.

Nightwish announce details of new album
Finnish symphonic power metal band, Nightwish, has announced details about their latest studio album, which will be the first to feature new Swedish lead vocalist Anette Olzon, who recently replaced Tarja Turunen.

Among the details released is the name of the new album, which until now had been unrevealed. The album will be called Dark Passion Play. Nightwish have also released a full track listing for the album and revealed that as well as Eva, which has already been released, the song Amaranth will be released as a single.

Nightwish have also announced release details. The album will debut in the band's native Finland on September 26 from record labels Spinefarm Records and distributed by Universal Music Group. It will be released in the US and the rest of Europe two days later, with the US label being Roadrunner Records and the European label being Nuclear Blast Records. Nuclear Blast will release Amaranth on August 24 and Spinefarm/Universal will release it on August 22.

Ruth Bell Graham dies at 87
Ruth Bell Graham, wife of evangelist Billy Graham died today at her home in Montreat, North Carolina, United States, surrounded by family members, according to a family spokesperson. She was 87 years old.

She had grown noticeably weaker over the course of the past several weeks, suffering from degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck, and also underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. She asked for her feeding tube to be removed Wednesday; following her request, and after consultation with her family, she ceased to receive further nutrients. Billy Graham made a mention of her during the dedication of his library, saying that she was bedridden, and that she was "getting closer to meeting God in Heaven." He also announced that the couple will be buried at the library.

"Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team," Billy Graham said in a statement announcing her death. "No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support."

Bell was primarily a missionary doctor. She was the head of a Presbyterian hospital in China. Ruth grew up in China and spent three years of her high school career in North Korea.

Fossilized remains of birdlike dinosaur found in China
Scientists in China have unearthed the fossilized remains of a bird like dinosaur in the Erlian Basin that was as big as the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The measurements put the fossil, now named Gigantoraptor elrianensis, at 16 feet tall and 26 feet (8 meters) long, weighing in at an estimated over 3,000 pounds (1,400 kilograms) when it was alive. It is said to have had a beak, feathers and its closest relative would have been the Caudiperyx, which is 35 times smaller than the newly discovered fossil. It is estimated to have roamed Earth during the Cretaceous Period about 70 million years ago.

"We think it's the largest feathered animal ever to have been discovered. This is like having a mouse that is the size of a horse or cow. It is very important information for us in our efforts to trace the evolution process of dinosaurs to birds. It’s more complicated than we imagined," said one of the paleontologists who made the discovery, Xu Xing from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoanthropology.

Previous theories about dinosaurs were that they got smaller before they evolved into birds. But the new discovery could mean the exact opposite, that dinosaurs got larger before becoming smaller.

"Almost every group [of dinosaurs] that has evolved has tended to evolve giant forms,"said University of Alberta paleontologist, Philip Currie.

Scientists are not sure whether the dinosaur was a herbivore or a carnivore, because it has both claws, and a long neck with a small head. The scientists also originally thought the remains were of a T. Rex.

Former Austrian President Kurt Waldheim dies at 88
Kurt Waldheim, the former President of Austria and also a former United Nations Secretary General, has died at the age of 88 of heart failure at a hospital in Vienna. He was admitted on May 28 after having an elevated fever and problems with his circulatory system.

Waldheim served as the U.N.'s Secretary General from 1972 to 1981 and was elected as President of Austria in 1986.

Waldheim was involved in a scandal where he was part of a unit of a German army squad in World War II that was accused of war crimes. Waldheim first denied the allegations, and was later cleared of having done anything wrong.

Waldheim was also not allowed inside the United States because the U.S. government put him on a "watch list" which contains names of people not welcome in the country. To this day, he remains on the list.

UK TV star Michael Barrymore re-arrested over pool death probe
United Kingdom entertainer and former television presenter Michael Barrymore, 55, and two other men have been arrested on suspicion of murder and serious sexual assault concerning the death of Stuart Lubbock in 2001. Lubbock was found floating in Barrymore's swimming pool. Post-mortem toxicology reports found that his bloodstream contained a cocktail of cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol. Further, the autopsy revealed that Lubbock had suffered severe internal injuries consistant with a serious sexual assault.

Confidential sources named the two other men arrested as John Kenney, 37, and Justin Merritt, 32. Both were previously arrested six years ago with Barrymore by an earlier police investigation.

The arrests seemed to have been made after new evidence emerged. Essex police said that they have tapes of interviews with Barrymore. The tapes were made by Tony Cowell, brother of Simon Cowell, and literary agent for Barrymore.

However, an Essex police spokesperson said, "The arrests were planned prior to Essex police obtaining those tapes. The arrests are the result of a culmination of work by Essex police over 12 months in the form of a review and investigation."

Michael Moore's new film 'Sicko' leaked via P2P
A number of reports confirm that Michael Moore's forthcoming documentary has been leaked onto Peer-to-peer networks. This is the second pre-release leak in a month of a film from Lionsgate Studios.

The movie, Sicko contrasts the U.S. healthcare system with that of several other countries and includes a trip to Cuba for which Moore is being investigated. The investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the United States Department of the Treasury is looking into whether Moore has violated United States embargo against Cuba, which has been in effect since 1962 and codified in 1992.

Moore has, according to agency reports, stored a copy of the original film in Canada as a result of the Federal investigation by the Treasury department. His concern is that an attempt may be made to confiscate the section of the film shot in Cuba.

According to Associated Press, David Boies, attorney for Michael Moore, believes the targeting of Moore for his unauthorised trip to Cuba may be the result of the criticism of the current administration in such films as Fahrenheit 9/11.

Tuesday Moore was seen at two pre-release screenings of the movie in Sacramento, California. His audiences were a group of politicians and a number of nurses, each attending their own screening.

The movie opens with a cold statistic that approximately 45 million Americans are without healthcare insurance. It continues by giving examples of people with healthcare insurance who have been denied all or part of their treatment for technical reasons. As well as getting thousands of responses from people who had problems with their insurance he received information from people working inside Health maintenance organizations and ex-employees who claim the system is set up to provide the minimum care and the maximum profit to the company.

The segment of the film that triggered the Federal investigation is his trip to Cuba with a number of people who relate their experiences with healthcare. Among these are several volunteer workers who worked at ground zero following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These people claim to have been refused aid from the fund set up for 9/11 workers and were thus unable to afford their required treatment. After an attempt to obtain treatment at Guantanamo Bay detention facility - which Moore described as the only place on U.S. soil where there is "socialised medicine" - they seek out a hospital in Havana. All are checked and treated free of charge. One woman discovers that an inhaler for her respiratory problems costs approximately five cents in Cuba compared to 120 dollars in the U.S.

Health insurance companies, speaking through their trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), are critical of the film, which calls for healthcare similar to that of Canada, France, or the UK. "We need a uniquely American solution in which the public and private sectors work together to make sure that everyone has high-quality, affordable healthcare," said Karen Ignagni, president of AHIP, on Wednesday.

The film is scheduled for wide release in the U.S. and Canada on June 29, 2007.

Shuttle mission may be extended further due to ISS computer failure
NASA has stated that they may extend the STS-117 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission by another two days to assist in the repair of 4 of the 6 computers that control the position, oxygen and water levels of the International Space Station (ISS) which failed, and have not come back on. As a result of the computer's failure, the thrusters on the station and the shuttle have been stabilizing the stations orbit.

So far, only partial restoration has been made to at least some of the computer that controls the station's postion, oxygen and water, but NASA says that some of the system still needs to be cleaned up.

"They've made a lot of progress. There are some cleanup steps to do still and some investigation," said space station flight director for NASA, Holly Ridings.

Earlier NASA stated that, "Russian flight controllers will be working overnight to resolve a problem with the Russian segment computers that provide backup attitude control and orbital altitude adjustments. For now, the station’s control moment gyroscopes are handling attitude control, with the shuttle’s propulsion providing backup."

It is not known what caused the computers to fail, but Russian engineers say that it could be a problem with power supply. This type of failure has not been observed before on the space station as re-booting the computers have fixed any problems that occurred in the past, but today, that did not work.

"We have plenty of resources, so we have plenty of time to sort this out," said manager of the space station program at NASA, Mike Suffredini.

NASA officials state that there is an "option to depart" if at least one of the station's stabilizing computers cannot be fixed and the three member crew that is currently there, will have to be taken back to Earth in Atlantis. Without the computer that controls the oxygen levels, there is only 56 days of oxygen left available.

NASA had already extended the shuttle's mission by two days on June 11 to repair a tear of at least four inches in the shuttle's Thermal Protection System (TPS), which occurred during liftoff on June 8.

13 schools torched in southern Thailand
In an apparent coordinated attack, 13 schools were set ablaze late yesterday in southern Thailand, an escalation of violence that authorities are blaming on Muslim insurgents.

The 13 schools were burned in Pattani and Yala, two of the three restive, Muslim-majority Thai provinces on the border of Malaysia.

On Monday in the third province, Narathiwat, three teachers were fatally shot. Two female teachers, both Buddhist, were fatally shot while on lunch break at Bansako School in Si Sakorn. A male teacher from another school was gunned down while buying cigarettes at a store in Ra-ngae. On Tuesday morning in Yala's Raman district, a 60-year-old Muslim teacher was fatally shot in his pick-up truck on the Raman-Balo road.

Since 2004, more than 200 schools have been burned in arson attacks and 77 teachers killed, education officials say. About 110 schools in Narathiwat and Yala provinces have been temporarily closed, while officials re-assess the security situation.

Teachers and schools, potent symbols of the Buddhist majority Thai central government, are prime targets in the Muslim insurgency in south Thailand, which has seen a steady escalation since 2004, with almost daily fatal shootings and bombings, killing more than 2,300 people.

School staff called on the government to provide better security. Many teachers travel with armed escorts, or have taken to carrying firearms themselves.

"We want school compounds to be safe areas for teachers. Today we have no safe areas for teachers, be they houses, communities or schools," Vicharn Athikapan, chairman of the Confederation of Southern Teachers, was quoted as saying by the Bangkok Post yesterday. "Although it is difficult to deploy soldiers to protect teachers at schools, the state must do it."

Today, a Royal Thai Army soldier was seriously injured in the explosion of a roadside bomb, which was placed opposite a vocational college in Narathiwat.

Late yesterday evening (local time), a 44-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting in Yala. Earlier, in Narathiwat's Rueso district, three men were fatally shot, and one was beheaded. The beheading was the 10th this year, and one of 25 in southern Thailand since 2004.

Also yesterday, one soldier was killed and another injured in a roadside bomb near a school in Thung Yang Daeng, Pattani. Another soldier was killed and six others injured in Pattani's Yarang district when a roadside bomb ripped through the pickup truck they were riding in.

On Tuesday in eastern Thailand's Sa Kaeo Province, on the border with Cambodia, police detained 15 Cambodian Muslims after one of the group was found to be carrying items that could be used to make bombs.

The owner of the bag told police he was carrying the items for a friend in southern Thailand, and were to be used to make explosives for catching fish. The items were seized, and all 15 men were sent back to Cambodia.

The incident follows a diplomatic flare-up last weekend between Thailand and Cambodia, after published comments were attributed to Thai General Wattanachai Chaimuenwong, saying Cambodian Muslims have links to the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist organization, as well as the south Thailand insurgency.

Wattanachai, an adviser to Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, later denied making the statements, after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen issued an angry rebuke against Thai officials.

"Because of their own weakness, they are now finding others to blame," Hun Sen was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

Ten killed in Beirut seaside blast
On Wednesday evening, a bomb exploded at a popular seaside district of Manara, Beirut, killing Member Parliament Walid Eido, his son and eight other people, while injuring a dozen more just outside Manara's amusement park. This was the sixth bomb being dentonated in and around Beirut in less than four weeks. The blast is believed to have been caused by a bomb-rigged car.

Walid Eido was a member of parliamentary majority leader MP Saad Hariri's Future Movement and one of the most vocal critics of what he repeatedly called "Syria's relentless interference" in Lebanon. Saad Hariri, son of the slain former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, issued a televised speech after the bombing. He was quoted as saying: “It's the same evil fingers and the apparatus of evil that are planting terror in all of Lebanon.”

He called on the Arab League to boycott what he called "a terrorist regime," an obvious reference to neighboring Syria. Despite repeating accusations on Syria, the country's President Bashar al-Asad denied that Syria participated in any wrong doing in Lebanon.

14 injured in bombing at soccer match in southern Thailand

A bomb blast during a soccer match at stadium in Pattani injured 14 police officers who were providing security for the game between two local teams.

Police said the bomb was placed inside a flower planter and detonated via cellphone, and that five officers were seriously injured.

80th bird-flu death confirmed in Indonesia

A 29-year-old man in Riau was confirmed today to have died of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, making him the 80th person in Indonesia to die from the virus.

"Before showing bird flu symptoms, he slaughtered and cooked sick chickens," Muhammad Nadirin of the Health Ministry's Bird Flu Center was quoted as saying by Kyodo News.

Indonesia has the highest number of human deaths from H5N1, and the highest number of cases at 100.

Myanmar reports outbreak of bird flu

An outbreak of H5N1, the avian flu virus, was reported today by a livestock official in Myanmar. He said about 1,000 chickens were slaughtered after the virus was found on June 3 in 28 chickens on a farm in Bago, about 50 miles (80 kilometres) north of Yangon.

It is the first outbreak of the bird flu in Myanmar, also known as Burma, since April.

Hamas takes control of Palestinian Presidential compound

Hamas has said that their forces have taken control of the main compound of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas located in Gaza City.

Abbas was not in the compound at the time.

Reports also say that Fatah members fled the compound just before it was attacked.

Today in History
1215 - King John of England put his seal to Magna Carta.

1667 - Dr. Jean-Baptiste Denys administered the first fully-documented human blood transfusion, giving the blood of a sheep to a 15-year old boy.

1752 - Author/Inventor Benjamin Franklin conducted an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm.

1954 - The Union of European Football Associations, the administrative and controlling body for European football, was founded in Basel, Switzerland.

1996 - The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a bomb in the commercial centre of Manchester, England, injuring over 200 people and causing wide spread damage to buildings.

Quote of the Day

That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.
~ Yasunari Kawabata

Word of the Day

commodious; adj

Spacious and convenient; roomy and comfortable.

Suited to its use or purpose, or to wants and necessities.

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