Saudi Arabia has another case of new coronavirus: WHO

LONDON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has reported another case of infection in a concentrated outbreak of a new strain of a virus that emerged in the Middle East last year and spread into Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

In a disease outbreak update issued from its Geneva headquarters, the WHO said the latest patient is an 81-year-old woman with multiple medical conditions. She became ill on April 28 and is in a critical but stable condition.

Worldwide, there have now been 41 laboratory-confirmed infections, including 20 deaths, since the new coronavirus was identified by scientists in September 2012.

The novel coronavirus, which had been known as by the acronym nCoV but which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS, belongs to the same family as viruses that cause common colds and the one that caused a deadly outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003.

MERS cases have so far been reported in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Britain, Germany and France, but Saudi Arabia has had the vast majority of cases.

The WHO said that latest patient was in the same clinic in eastern Saudi Arabia that has seen 22 cases, nine of them fatal, since April 8.

WHO experts visiting Saudi Arabia to consult with the authorities on the outbreak have said it seemed likely the new virus could be passed between humans, but only after prolonged, close contact.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-another-case-coronavirus-214258217.html

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CA-NEWS Summary

Rome protest turns up heat on new PM Letta

ROME (Reuters) - Thousands of people protested in Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession. "We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience," said Enzo Bernardis, who joined the sea of protesters waving red flags and calling for more workers' rights and better contracts.

North Korea fires three short-range missiles

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired three short-range missiles from its east coast on Saturday, South Korea's Defence Ministry said, prompting Western powers to urge Pyongyang to exercise restraint. Launches by the North of short-range missiles are not uncommon but, after recent warnings from the communist state of impending nuclear war, such actions raise concerns about the region's security.

Thirteen killed, 10 police kidnapped in Iraq violence

RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) - Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed four state-backed Sunni fighters in Iraq on Saturday, security sources said, apparently viewing them as collaborators with the Shi'ite-led government of a nation plagued by sectarian hatred. Sunni-Shi'ite tensions in Iraq have been amplified by the conflict between mostly Sunni rebels and President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite-dominated forces in neighboring Syria.

Gunmen kill senior woman member of Pakistani party led by Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior female politician from a reformist party in Pakistan on Saturday night, the latest violent incident in a bloody election campaign and one that set off a war of words between two major opposition parties. Around 150 people were killed in the run-up to national elections held last week, which handed a landslide victory to opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and his PML-N party.

Syria's Assad: Little chance peace talks would succeed - newspaper

LIMA (Reuters) - Proposed peace talks for Syria would not curb "terrorism" in the country and it is unrealistic to think they would succeed, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview published in an Argentine newspaper on Saturday. Speaking in Syria with the newspaper Clarin, Assad said he was doubtful that mediation the United States and Russia have proposed could settle a deadly conflict that has convulsed the country for two years.

Enraged by kidnapping, Egyptian police block Gaza border

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police angered by the kidnapping of seven colleagues by Islamist gunmen kept a crossing into the Gaza Strip closed again on Saturday, stranding hundreds of Palestinian travelers, witnesses said. The protest began on Friday when police strung barbed wire across the Rafah border post and chained up the gates, local residents said, a day after the abductions.

Regional force boosts troop numbers in Central African Republic

LIBREVILLE (Reuters) - African military chiefs agreed on Saturday to more than double the size of a regional peacekeeping force deployed in Central African Republic, where authorities have struggled to contain violence after a rebel takeover. Thousands of fighters from the Seleka rebel coalition led by Michel Djotodia marched into the capital Bangui on March 24, forcing President Francois Bozize to flee to neighboring Cameroon.

At least four suspected militants killed in Yemen drone strike

ADEN (Reuters) - At least four people were killed and a number of others wounded in a drone strike on a vehicle carrying suspected al Qaeda members in southern Yemen, a local official said on Saturday. The official said the strike took place at dawn on Saturday on a road to the north of Jaar in Abyan Governorate, near Aden. He did not say who was behind the strike, but previous drone strikes have been carried out by the United States.

Israel warns against Russian arms supply to Syria

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said on Saturday that advanced weapons supplied by Russia to war-torn Syria could end up in the wrong hands and be used against the Jewish state. A Russian shipment of Yakhont anti-ship missiles to Syria was condemned by the United States on Friday and Israel is also alarmed by the prospect of Russia supplying S-300 advanced air defense missile systems to Damascus.

Church must help the poorest, not dissect theology, pope says

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people on Saturday, telling them he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day and that it "breaks my heart" that the death of a homeless person is not news. Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering of Catholic associations in St. Peter's Square.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-003416837.html

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The South welcomes 'crazy ants.' Hail the latest invader

The South is being invaded ? again. This time it?s erratic but troublesome ?crazy ants? from South America marching ? actually, hitching rides ? across the South, setting up massive colonies, and relieving other occupying ant armies, including fire ants, of their duties.

With billions of ants possible per acre, crazy ants, known for their random, jerky travel, eat or chase away most other insects and reptiles, and hound yard pets inside. In single numbers pretty innocuous-looking, tiny tawny crazy ants also make pests out of themselves by sometimes biting people and shorting out home electrical wiring.

The question now is if there?s room enough in the South for the newcomers, or whether the US needs to invest in research to figure out how to stop the ?tawny crazy ant,? a well as its cousins, the ?black crazy ant,? and the ?Caribbean crazy ant,? before they?re ubiquitous.

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?The entire Gulf Coast is going to be inundated in a very short period of time,? entomologist Tom Rasberry, who found and identified the crazy ants in 2002, recently told a local CBS News broadcast.

Having already spread in the span of a decade from a bunch of counties surrounding Houston to as far away as Florida, crazy ant success so far is entirely due to their hitchhiking skills. A few ants clambering aboard at a truck stop in Waco, Texas, may soon find themselves starting a colony in Covington, Georgia. They thrive best in warmer, moister locales, which means the South is stuck with them.

But as with most invasive species, ?crazy ants? can have unexpected, sometimes paradoxical, impacts on their conquered ground. Fire ants, which were accidentally introduced in the 1930s and now pretty much own the South, apparently can?t stand ?crazy ants,? and retreat from the conquering horde, as do most other ant species.

And despite oftentimes legitimate cries of concern from the scientific community about the dangers of invasive plants and animals in the US, many one-time strangers-to-these-parts ? kudzu, snakeheads, boas, Yankees ? become, at least in the eyes of some Southerners, manageable pests, part of an ever-changing backdrop of wildlife at the door.

This being the South, even scientists have sought out Biblical insights into how to view the invasion, including this from Proverbs 6:6-8 cited in a Texas A&M research paper about invasive ants: ?Go to the ant, O sluggard/ Observe her ways and be wise/It has no commander/No overseer or ruler.?

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-welcomes-crazy-ants-hail-latest-invader-194109108.html

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Inmate In Wisconsin Jail Knocks Out Guard With 1 Punch (VIDEO)

It was swift and brutal. An inmate at a Wisconsin jail knocked out a guard with one punch, newly released video shows.

Caught by surveillance cameras, the March 27 fight apparently erupts as three corrections officers gather lunch trays and another enters the room. The alleged puncher, identified by the Marathon County Sheriff's Department as Fredrick Morris, can be seen in the footage adopting a fighting stance and coldcocking Officer Julie Christensen with a right hand to the face. She falls hard to the floor while Morris tangles with another guard.

Christensen (also spelled Christiansen in court documents) was knocked unconscious by the hit from Morris and was taken to intensive care and remained hospitalized as of Thursday, Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) reported.

According to WPR, a deputy claimed that during the incident prisoners had shouted, "Hope she dies," as Christensen lay on the ground.

Morris was charged with several counts of battery, according to a criminal complaint. He was transferred to a facility in Lincoln County, Wisc., the Marathon County Courthouse told The Huffington Post on Friday.

After the attack, safety conditions at the Marathon County jail were evaluated by a civilian panel this week, CBS local affiliate WSAW reported.

"What I saw was a battlefield," panel chair Paul Jones said of the video footage, per WPR. Another panelist, Mike Beck, said the incident made him distrust the jail's administration.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/17/inmate-knocks-out-guard_n_3292851.html

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New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

New discovery of ancient diet shatters conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged

Friday, May 17, 2013

Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionise thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.

They have uncovered evidence for the first time that people living in Xincun 5,000 years ago may have practised agriculture ?before the arrival of domesticated rice in the region.

Current archaeological thinking is that it was the advent of rice cultivation along the Lower Yangtze River that marked the beginning of agriculture in southern China. Poor organic preservation in the study region, as in many others, means that traditional archaeobotany techniques are not possible.

Now, thanks to a new method of analysis on ancient grinding stones, the archaeologists have uncovered evidence that agriculture could predate the advent of rice in the region.

The research was the result of a two-year collaboration between Dr Huw Barton, from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester, and Dr Xiaoyan Yang, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing.

Funded by a Royal Society UK-China NSFC International Joint Project, and other grants held by Yang in China, the research is published in PLOS ONE.

Dr Barton, Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of Leicester, described the find as 'hitting the jackpot': "Our discovery is totally unexpected and very exciting.

"We have used a relatively new method known as ancient starch analysis to analyse ancient human diet. This technique can tell us things about human diet in the past that no other method can.

"From a sample of grinding stones we extracted very small quantities of adhering sediment trapped in pits and cracks on the tool surface. From this material, preserved starch granules were extracted with our Chinese colleagues in the starch laboratory in Beijing. These samples were analysed in China and also here at Leicester in the Starch and Residue Laboratory, School of Archaeology and Ancient History.

"Our research shows us that there was something much more interesting going on in the subtropical south of China 5,000 years ago than we had first thought. The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil, so you never know what you will get until you sample. At Xincun we really hit the jackpot. Starch was well-preserved and there was plenty of it. While some of the starch granules we found were species we might expect to find on grinding and pounding stones, ie. some seeds and tuberous plants such as freshwater chestnuts, lotus root and the fern root, the addition of starch from palms was totally unexpected and very exciting."

Several types of tropical palms store prodigious quantities of starch. This starch can be literally bashed and washed out of the trunk pith, dried as flour, and of course eaten. It is non-toxic, not particularly tasty, but it is reliable and can be processed all year round. Many communities in the tropics today, particularly in Borneo and Indonesia, but also in eastern India, still rely on flour derived from palms.

Dr Barton said: "The presence of at least two, possibly three species of starch producing palms, bananas, and various roots, raises the intriguing possibility that these plants may have been planted nearby the settlement.

"Today groups that rely on palms growing in the wild are highly mobile, moving from one palm stand to another as they exhaust the clump. Sedentary groups that utilise palms for their starch today, plant suckers nearby the village, thus maintaining continuous supply. If they were planted at Xincun, this implies that 'agriculture' did not arrive here with the arrival of domesticated rice, as archaeologists currently think, but that an indigenous system of plant cultivation may have been in place by the mid Holocene.

"The adoption of domesticated rice was slow and gradual in this region; it was not a rapid transformation as in other places. Our findings may indicate why this was the case. People may have been busy with other types of cultivation, ignoring rice, which may have been in the landscape, but as a minor plant for a long time before it too became a food staple.

"Future work will focus on grinding stones from nearby sites to see if this pattern is repeated along the coast."

###

University of Leicester: http://www.leicester.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Leicester for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128302/New_discovery_of_ancient_diet_shatters_conventional_ideas_of_how_agriculture_emerged

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Video: Torre: 'The game isn't perfect'

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Mosque, funeral bombings kill 47 in Iraq

AAA??May. 17, 2013?11:45 AM ET
Mosque, funeral bombings kill 47 in Iraq
By SAMEER N. YACOUBBy SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press??

Iraqis gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. A bomb killed dozens of people at a Sunni mosque in central Iraq, hitting worshippers as they were emerging from Friday prayers, security officials said. The attack in Baqouba comes after two days of attacks, many in Shiite districts, left tens of people dead. Attacks against Sunni mosques have also been on the rise recently, raising fears that the country is slipping into a new round of sectarian violence. (AP Photo/Adem Hadei)

Iraqis gather at the scene of a bomb attack in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. A bomb killed dozens of people at a Sunni mosque in central Iraq, hitting worshippers as they were emerging from Friday prayers, security officials said. The attack in Baqouba comes after two days of attacks, many in Shiite districts, left tens of people dead. Attacks against Sunni mosques have also been on the rise recently, raising fears that the country is slipping into a new round of sectarian violence. (AP Photo/Adem Hadei)

The dead body of a thwarted suicide bomber lies outside of the Mustafa mosque after being killed by security forces in Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. Elsewhere, a bomb killed dozens of people at a Sunni mosque in central Iraq, hitting worshippers as they were emerging from Friday prayers, security officials said. The attack in Baqouba comes after two days of attacks, many in Shiite districts, left tens of people dead. Attacks against Sunni mosques have also been on the rise recently, raising fears that the country is slipping into a new round of sectarian violence. (AP Photo/Emad Matti)

Family members of Mohammed Aboud, chant slogans against the Sunni-dominated Free Syrian Army rebel group and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra during his funeral in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. Hundreds of Iraqis in Basra, have attended the funeral of two Shiite fighters killed in Syria. Relatives of Aboud say he was killed by a sniper fire near the shrine of Sayida Zeinab outside the capital of Damascus five days ago. Arabic writing on coffin reads, ?Sigh in grief, Zeinab.? (AP Photo/ Nabil Al-Jurani)

Family members of Mohammed Aboud chant slogans against the Sunni-dominated Free Syrian Army rebel group and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra during his funeral in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. Hundreds of Iraqis in Basra, Iraq have attended the funeral of two Shiite fighters killed in Syria. Relatives of Aboud say he was killed by a sniper fire near the shrine of Sayida Zeinab outside the capital of Damascus five days ago. Arabic writing on coffin reads, "God is great." (AP Photo/ Nabil Al-Jurani)

Family members of Mohammed Aboud, chant slogans against the Sunni-dominated Free Syrian Army rebel group and the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra during his funeral in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, May 17, 2013. Hundreds of Iraqis in Basra, Iraq have attended the funeral of two Shiite fighters killed in Syria. Relatives of Aboud say he was killed by a sniper fire near the shrine of Sayida Zeinab outside the capital of Damascus five days ago. Arabic writing on coffin reads, ?Sigh in grief, Zeinab.? (AP Photo/ Nabil Al-Jurani)

BAGHDAD (AP) ? Twin explosions ripped through a crowd of Sunni worshippers outside Baghdad on Friday, an attack which, combined with a second deadly bombing at a Sunni funeral to the south of the capital, deepened fears Iraq may be headed toward a new round of sectarian conflict.

In the first attack, police said a bomb detonated just as the congregation was leaving Friday prayer services at a mosque in Baqouba, a former Sunni insurgent stronghold 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Another explosion went off shortly afterward as people gathered to help the wounded, leaving a total of at least 40 dead and 56 wounded. After the explosions, bloodied bodies lay strewn across the road outside the mosque.

The violence was the latest to hit a Sunni Muslim house of worship, a trend that has been on the rise. About 30 mosques were attacked between mid-April to mid-May, killing at least 65 Sunni worshippers.

Later in the day, a second bombing hit a Sunni funeral, killing seven and wounding 11, police said. Friday's attacks came after two days of violence mainly in Shiite areas that left 50 dead.

Two medical officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief reporters.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Iraqis attended the Friday funeral in a southern city of two Shiite fighters killed in Syria. Several such funerals have been held in recent months, the latest sign that that conflict has taken on a sectarian regional dimension.

In oil-rich Basra, mourners carried the coffin of Mohammed Aboud, whom they say was killed by sniper fire near the shrine of Sayida Zeinab outside the Syrian capital Damascus five days earlier.

They said Aboud went to Iran two months ago before flying to Syria in order to join a group of fighters protecting that country's Shiite shrines against attacks launched by the rebel Free Syrian Army.

For months, Iraqi Shiite fighters have trickled into Syria, where mostly Sunni rebels are fighting a regime dominated by a Shiite offshoot sect. Their relatives say the fighters are drawn by a sense of religious duty to protect the Sayida Zeinab shrine, which marks what is believed to be the grave of the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Iraq remains officially neutral in the Syrian conflict.

____

With reporting from Nabil al-Jurani in Basra

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-17-ML-Iraq/id-62a0212008954380a744636dd589822a

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