NASA's RXTE detects 'heartbeat' of smallest black hole candidate

Friday, December 16, 2011

An international team of astronomers has identified a candidate for the smallest-known black hole using data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). The evidence comes from a specific type of X-ray pattern, nicknamed a "heartbeat" because of its resemblance to an electrocardiogram. The pattern until now has been recorded in only one other black hole system.

Named IGR J17091-3624 after the astronomical coordinates of its sky position, the binary system combines a normal star with a black hole that may weigh less than three times the sun's mass. That is near the theoretical mass boundary where black holes become possible.

Gas from the normal star streams toward the black hole and forms a disk around it. Friction within the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees, which is hot enough to emit X-rays. Cyclical variations in the intensity of the X-rays observed reflect processes taking place within the gas disk. Scientists think that the most rapid changes occur near the black hole's event horizon, the point beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape.

Astronomers first became aware of the binary system during an outburst in 2003. Archival data from various space missions show it becomes active every few years. Its most recent outburst started in February and is ongoing. The system is located in the direction of the constellation Scorpius, but its distance is not well established. It could be as close as 16,000 light-years or more than 65,000 light-years away.

The record-holder for wide-ranging X-ray variability is another black hole binary system named GRS 1915+105. This system is unique in displaying more than a dozen highly structured patterns, typically lasting between seconds and hours.

"We think that most of these patterns represent cycles of accumulation and ejection in an unstable disk, and we now see seven of them in IGR J17091," said Tomaso Belloni at Brera Observatory in Merate, Italy. "Identifying these signatures in a second black hole system is very exciting."

In GRS 1915, strong magnetic fields near the black hole's event horizon eject some of the gas into dual, oppositely directed jets that blast outward at about 98 percent the speed of light. The peak of its heartbeat emission corresponds to the emergence of the jet.

Changes in the X-ray spectrum observed by RXTE during each beat reveal that the innermost region of the disk emits enough radiation to push back the gas, creating a strong outward wind that stops the inward flow, briefly starving the black hole and shutting down the jet. This corresponds to the faintest emission. Eventually, the inner disk gets so bright and hot it essentially disintegrates and plunges toward the black hole, re-establishing the jet and beginning the cycle anew. This entire process happens in as little as 40 seconds.

While there is no direct evidence IGR J17091 possesses a particle jet, its heartbeat signature suggests that similar processes are at work. Researchers say that this system's heartbeat emission can be 20 times fainter than GRS 1915 and can cycle some eight times faster, in as little as five seconds.

Astronomers estimate that GRS 1915 is about 14 times the sun's mass, placing it among the most-massive-known black holes that have formed because of the collapse of a single star. The research team analyzed six months of RXTE observations to compare the two systems, concluding that IGR J17091 must possess a minuscule black hole.

"Just as the heart rate of a mouse is faster than an elephant's, the heartbeat signals from these black holes scale according to their masses," said Diego Altamirano, an astrophysicist at the University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands and lead author of a paper describing the findings in the Nov. 4 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The researchers say this analysis is just the start of a larger program to compare both of these black holes in detail using data from RXTE, NASA's Swift satellite and the European XMM-Newton observatory.

"Until this study, GRS 1915 was essentially a one-off, and there's only so much we can understand from a single example," said Tod Strohmayer, the project scientist for RXTE at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Now, with a second system exhibiting similar types of variability, we really can begin to test how well we understand what happens at the brink of a black hole."

Launched in late 1995, RXTE is second only to Hubble as the longest serving of NASA's operating astrophysics missions. RXTE provides a unique observing window into the extreme environments of neutron stars and black holes.

###

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center: http://www.nasa.gov/goddard

Thanks to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116101/NASA_s_RXTE_detects__heartbeat__of_smallest_black_hole_candidate

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iTunes Match rolls out to international community, makes music lovers flinch

Thought you'd have to wait until 2012 to snag an international iTunes Match account? Think again. It seems Apple ended its negotiations with British record companies earlier than expected, as the outfit prematurely launched the music matching service on Wednesday, pulled it and refunded early subscribers, and finally relaunched a fully functional Match to the international community on Thursday. Users from the UK, Australia, Canada, France, the Czech Republic and other countries are now reporting that the service is live, appearing in the iTunes Store and fully functional. If the US rollout was a little late, we certainly don't mind the international debuting a tad early.

iTunes Match rolls out to international community, makes music lovers flinch originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Prominent journalist gunned down in Russia's south (AP)

MAKHACHKALA, Russia ? The founder of a leading independent weekly publication critical of authorities in the restive province of Dagestan in Russia's North Caucasus has been shot dead outside the newspaper's office, police said Friday.

Khadzhimurad Kamalov's paper Chernovik (Rough Draft) has reported extensively on police abuses in the fight against an Islamist insurgency that originated in neighboring Chechnya and has spread across Russia's Caucasus region. Kamalov founded the weekly in 2003, worked as its editor for several years and remained its publisher until his killing late Thursday.

Vyacheslav Gasanov, a spokesman for the Russian Interior Minister's branch in Dagestan, said that a masked gunman riddled Kamalov with bullets outside the newspaper's office in the provincial capital, Makhachkala. Kamalov died of his wounds at a local hospital shortly after.

Chernovik's editor Nadira Isayeva was presented with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists' International Press Freedom award in 2010.

CPJ hailed the paper's relentless reporting on the heavy-handed tactics of security agencies in the fight against Islamic militancy. It said that Isayeva and the newspaper were regularly harassed with official summonses, financial audits and state-commissioned "linguistic analyses" that label content as extremist.

Chechen rebels have fought two separatist wars against Russian forces since 1994. Major battles in the second war died down about a decade ago, but the Islamist insurgency has spread across neighboring North Caucasus provinces, stoked by poverty, corruption and abuses against civilians by security forces. Attacks on police and other authorities have become a near daily occurrence.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111216/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_journalist_killed

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Steve Jobs, G , iPad 2 in Google's top 2011

Google

Global fastest rising Google searches for 2011

By Athima Chansanchai

In the past year, Google users around the world got more excited about tech topics Google+, "Battlefield 3" and Steve Jobs than almost anything else, according to their billions of queries.?In the Google top 10 list of 2011's fastest rising search terms overall, the mythical iPhone 5 also appeared, along with a very real Apple product, the iPad 2.

Google's annual Zeitgeist is a look back at the year and its fastest rising search terms ??as opposed to staples like such as "Lady Gaga" and "Justin Bieber," who have reigned in popular searches for a while. "Fastest rising" gives a better indication of what was hot at different points during the year.

The interactive list of the top 10 fastest rising searches allows for more exploration, instantly. Clicking on Steve Jobs, for example, leads to several tabs that show a young Jobs, an older Jobs and a search volume time-lapse interactive that shows how the searches for him peaked in the week of his death last October.

Google

What appears under "The Data" tab of the Steve Jobs portion of the Google Zeitgeist

That's not to say it's not confusing, trying to navigate the newly redesigned Zeitgeist site. It took a little while just to go beyond the global lists and find all the categories under the "United States" tab. Last year,?the site had some interactive elements, but the list made it easy to sift through the information.

There, G+, iPhone 5 and Jobs once again appeared in the fastest rising (overall) top 10 list; iPhone and iPad 2 broke into the top five of U.S.-based Google News searches; and amongst fastest rising images, planking ruled.?

Also in the U.S., tech completely dominated the fastest rising product searches from the?HP TouchPad?(which touched off a fire-sale frenzy a few times this year) at the very top to the iPhone 4 at No. 10. In-between, tablets and smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy captured the interest of consumers this year.?

In the "Tech & Gadgets" section of the U.S. results, Apple dominates the fastest rising technology category, with 7 of 10 entries. (Good work, fanboys and girls!) In the fasetest rising gadgets category, the Amazon Kindle Fire sparked the most interest, with the iPhone 4S close behind. This one-two punch would be repeated in?the global?top 10 list of fastest rising consumer electronics searches.

Several Android devices did manage to muscle their way in, all from HTC: the Thunderbolt, the Inspire and the Sensation. The soon-to-be-extinct also made a good run in 2011: the HP TouchPad and Palm Pre 3 were in the U.S. gadgets list too.

Among cellphones, the iPhone was the most searched, but six of the top 10 were Androids.

While much of the tech that shows up on the lists is consistent, there was one notable omission on the U.S. side that was prominent on global searches:?the Nexus Prime (by Samsung). While its appearance does show how Google reflects?anticipation among the masses for the Next Big Thing around the corner, perhaps its lower standing in the U.S. was due to a late-in-the-year name change: Here it is called the?Galaxy Nexus.

Last year, the World Cup caught the curiosity of Google users, as well as other big world events, such as the earthquake in Haiti and Gulf oil spill. This year, the disaster in Japan was reflected in the multiple appearances of the Fukushima nuclear plant on the lists.

You can also check out the year-end video Google made, which flashes some of the more familiar visuals of the past year: Thailand floods, the Occupy movement, revolutionary movements fueled by social media, President Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden and the final launch of the space shuttle program.

More stories:

Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.

Source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/15/9467707-steve-jobs-g-and-ipad-2-in-googles-2011-top-searches

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Mason Inman: The Climate Post: Surprise Deal Emerges at United Nations Climate Talks

In a surprise turnaround, the United Nations climate talks managed to produce a new deal to eventually curb global emissions moving forward. In a press release announcing the agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) called it a "breakthrough."

The new agreement marks a break from the Kyoto Protocol, which divided the world into two categories -- the developed and the developing world. Instead, said the European Union's Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, the new agreement reflects "today's mutually interdependent world," and moves toward an agreement that partners all countries in combating climate change.

The new agreement -- dubbed the "Durban Platform" -- created a group with an unwieldy name, the Ad Hoc Working Group on a Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which has the mandate to develop "a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force." In essence, it is an agreement to finalize an accord no later than 2015, which would go into effect in 2020.

The agreement would also extend the Kyoto Protocol, set to expire at the end of 2012, for an additional five years, allowing the system's carbon trading to continue. This won't have much impact on carbon markets or renewable investment in the next few years, analysts told Reuters, but could have an effect over the longer term.

How the Deal Was Done

To forge the deal at the thirteenth hour, the talks were extended nearly two days.

The push for the new agreement reportedly came from developing nations and those likely to be most affected by climate change, which put pressure on the European Union to work for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.

The bloc of emerging countries known as BASIC -- Brazil, South Africa, India and China -- was divided, with India the strongest holdout against binding emissions cuts for these countries -- at least until richer countries met the targets they'd already committed to.

India was persuaded by an addition in the Durban text of an option of an "outcome with legal force" -- although the difference in meaning between that and a protocol or "legal instrument" is not yet clear. The United States' Special Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, said overall it is "pretty clear that we're talking about something probably in the nature of a protocol."

Just after the talks wrapped up, Canada pulled out of Kyoto Protocol, saying it won't meet the goals it had agreed to for cutting its emissions, bringing condemnation at home and abroad. Nonetheless, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said Canada still has a "legal obligation" to cut its emissions.

Landmark or Disaster?

Opinions were divided over the new pact's significance.

Some called it a "landmark deal," although many seem to think it is unlikely to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the line the U.N. had drawn for "dangerous climate change."

A Nature editorial called the outcome "an unqualified disaster" for the climate, and argued politicians can no longer talk "with a straight face" of meeting the 2-degrees-Celsius goal. With India's agriculture under major threat from further warming, the country's reluctance to sign a binding climate treaty was "suicidal," argued Gwynne Dyer.

Persian Gulf Tensions

Meanwhile another deal was being hashed out, among the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). They agreed to raise officially allowed production to 30 million barrels a day -- but since production is already at that level, the agreement will likely have little effect on oil prices. The compromise came out in Saudi Arabia's favor, since the country defied other OPEC members earlier this year and unilaterally raised its own production.

Oil markets are "cooling" as the Eurozone crisis has slowed global growth, said the International Energy Agency; nonetheless, the agency warned oil prices are high enough to threaten growth.

Tensions between Iran and the West continued, with some saying a covert war has already begun. An escalation would likely drive oil prices much higher, and the U.S. and European Union are reportedly trying to find ways to apply pressure to Iran that would neither raise oil prices nor hand Iran windfall profits.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

?

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mason-inman/the-climate-post-surprise_b_1152063.html

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Rwanda tribunal reduces sentences for 2 officials (AP)

ARUSHA, Tanzania ? A U.N. tribunal has reduced sentences for two former Rwandan military officials who were convicted of genocide during one of the court's most significant verdicts.

The Tanzania-based court said Wednesday it overturned several convictions against former Rwandan Ministry of Defense director Col. Theoneste Bagosora.

The court reduced his life sentence to 35 years. Bagosora had been sentenced in 2008 at the age of 67.

The court also reduced the life sentence of former military commander Anatole Nsengiyumva to 15 years and released him for time served.

The court did not reverse either man's genocide conviction.

More than half a million members of the Tutsi ethnic minority and moderates from the Hutu majority were slaughtered during the 100-day genocide in 1994.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111215/ap_on_re_af/af_rwanda_genocide

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US to adopt strict new limits on chimp research

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 1961 file photo, Ham, the first higher primate launched into outer space, is comforted by an unidentified man on the deck of a rescue ship after the splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Chimpanzees should hardly ever be used for medical research, a prestigious scientific group told the government Thursday _ advice that means days in the laboratory may be numbered for humans' closest relatives. The Institute of Medicine stopped short of recommending the outright ban that animal rights activists had pushed. Instead, it urged strict limits that would make invasive experiments with chimps essentially a last resort, saying today's more advanced research tools mean the primates' use only rarely will be necessary enough to outweigh the moral costs. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 1961 file photo, Ham, the first higher primate launched into outer space, is comforted by an unidentified man on the deck of a rescue ship after the splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean. Chimpanzees should hardly ever be used for medical research, a prestigious scientific group told the government Thursday _ advice that means days in the laboratory may be numbered for humans' closest relatives. The Institute of Medicine stopped short of recommending the outright ban that animal rights activists had pushed. Instead, it urged strict limits that would make invasive experiments with chimps essentially a last resort, saying today's more advanced research tools mean the primates' use only rarely will be necessary enough to outweigh the moral costs. (AP Photo, File)

This undated photo provided by the Wildlife Way Station shows Booie the chimpanzee. Booie who kicked a smoking habit and used sign language to beg for candy has died at a California animal refuge. Martine Colette of the Wildlife WayStation says Booie, was being treated for a heart condition when he died Saturday, Dec. 11, 2011, at 44. The chimp had been living at the animal sanctuary near Los Angeles since 1995, after he retired from a research lab. Colette says she turned Booie into a non-smoker but couldn't fix his sweet tooth. (AP Photo/Wildlife Way Station, Dave Welling)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Days in the laboratory are numbered for chimpanzees, humans' closest relative.

Chimps paved astronauts' way into space and were vital in creating some important medicines. But the U.S. government said Thursday that science has advanced enough that from now on, chimpanzees essentially should be a last resort in medical research ? a move that puts the United States more in line with the rest of the world.

Chimps' similarity with people "demands special consideration and respect," said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health.

His move came after the prestigious Institute of Medicine declared that most use of chimpanzees for invasive medical research no longer can be justified ? and that strict new limits should determine which experiments are important enough to outweigh the moral cost of involving this species that is so like us.

"The bar is very high," said bioethicist Jeffrey Kahn of Johns Hopkins University, who led the institute panel.

The group stopped short of recommending an outright ban, saying a handful of research projects today might still require chimps ? but more importantly, that the animals might be required in the future as new diseases evolve and emerge.

Animal welfare groups welcomed the change but continue to push for Congress to pass legislation that would go a step further and phase out all invasive chimp research.

"Chimpanzees have provided limited value in research settings, and now alternative methods have been developed that will make their use all but obsolete," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States.

But some scientists say it's not that big a change because chimp studies already were dwindling fast as researchers turned to less costly and ethically charged alternatives.

"The use of a chimpanzee in biomedical research is the rare exception," said Dr. Thomas Rowell, who directs Louisiana's New Iberia Research Center, one of five research centers that houses chimps and other primate species used in both government- and privately financed studies.

It is not clear exactly how many of the nation's 937 research chimps ? 612 of them owned by the NIH ? are in the midst of experiments that would be affected by the new standards and could be moved into retirement instead. Most of the chimps are fairly old, as the nation has had a moratorium on breeding since 1995.

But Collins temporarily barred new government-funded studies involving chimps as his agency began implementing the recommended restrictions. Also, a working group will decide whether to phase out about 37 ongoing projects, about half of which Collins said probably don't meet the new standards.

These apes' genetic closeness to humans ? the genome is about 99 percent identical to ours ? has long caused a quandary, making the animals valuable to medical researchers for nearly a century but also sparking ethical and emotional questions about how they are housed and used.

"They are highly intelligent. They live in complex social settings, and they live for a very long time," said evolutionary anthropologist Anne Pusey of Duke University, who once worked with chimp expert Jane Goodall in Tanzania and manages an archive of Goodall's field data on the animals.

"When you enclose a chimp in a very small cage for 50 years, it really is cruel and unusual, even regardless of whether you're doing invasive things to them," she added.

The U.S. is one of only two countries known to still conduct medical research with chimpanzees; the other is Gabon, in Africa. The European Union essentially banned such research last year.

Thursday's decision was triggered by an uproar last year over the fate of 186 semi-retired research chimps that the NIH, to save money, planned to move from a New Mexico facility to an active research lab in Texas. They are staying put for now.

The Institute of Medicine's investigation found over the past 10 years, the NIH has paid for just 110 projects of any type that involved chimps. Most involved hepatitis C, a liver virus that infects only humans and chimps. Some involved HIV, a disease that scientists now know is better to study in rhesus monkeys. Still others involved comparing the genetics of chimps and humans, or behavioral research examining such things as development and mental health.

The institute recommended two different sets of restrictions. Biomedical research ? testing new drugs or giving chimps a disease ? should allow using the apes only if studies could not be done on other animals or people themselves, and if foregoing the work would hinder progress against life-threatening or debilitating conditions. The panel said behavioral and genetic research, while less controversial, nonetheless should be limited to studies that provide insights otherwise unattainable, using techniques that minimize any pain or distress.

The institute combed research files to see what types of projects would fit those strict criteria ? and could come up with only a handful, such as a possible need to test vaccines against hepatitis C in the animals. But the panel concluded chimps aren't needed to study cancer or a host of other diseases or even to test most drugs.

The standards would not automatically apply to privately funded pharmaceutical research, although the industry, too, is shifting away from use of chimps. One drug company, GlaxoSmithKline, adopted an official policy ending its use of great apes, including chimpanzees, in research.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2011-12-15-Chimp%20Research/id-9e718aef1a464af39c3b32997682ce03

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Putin a hero of Kosovo Serb defiance (AP)

MITROVICA, Kosovo ? Nobody questions Vladimir Putin here.

Images of the Russian prime minister are plastered all over the walls in Serb-run northern Kosovo as Russian flags flutter in the wind. Tens of thousands of Serbs in the region have recently sought Russian citizenship.

Banners reading "Russia Help!" or displaying Putin's portrait with the message "He's Watching After You" hang across the streets of Mitrovica, the divided northern Kosovo town that has been the center of recent tensions between Serbs and majority Albanians.

Moscow has become the champion of the Serb defiance against Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. The local Serbs are frustrated by Belgrade's refusal to use force to save them from ethnic Albanian rule.

The Kosovo Serbs have been desperately courting Moscow to press their sense of abandonment over Belgrade's enthusiastic pursuit of European Union membership, which could lead to Serbia dropping its designs on a territory it considers its spiritual homeland.

"These traitors in Belgrade will trade us for EU membership," said Milorad Jovanovic, a Serb from Mitrovica. "Only Putin and mother Russia and can save us from extermination."

Serbs have a historic affinity with Russia because of common Slavic roots and the Christian Orthodox religion. But their relations have gone up and down; former Russian President Boris Yeltsin tacitly supported NATO's 1999 air war against Serbia that stopped its government crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.

Beyond handouts and diplomatic opposition to Kosovo statehood at the United Nations, Moscow's interest in the Kosovo Serbs is at best marginal.

Moscow recently rejected some 22,000 Kosovo Serb applications for Russian citizenship, citing its strict citizenship laws.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said that it was obvious from the citizenship requests that "the people are in a difficult situation and feel hopeless."

But the Kremlin has offered only humanitarian aid. On Tuesday, some 25 trucks were bringing aid to the Kosovo Serbs, and even that symbolic mission failed to progress swiftly.

By afternoon, only two trucks carrying food, blankets and tents passed through a NATO checkpoint manned by American peacekeepers at a border point with Serbia.

Earlier, a convoy of EU police dispatched to provide security for the incoming trucks was turned back by the Serbs who are blocking roads and refusing passage for members of the 3,000-strong EU rule of law mission.

Russia's ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandr Konuzin, was escorting the Russian aid convoy Tuesday. He hugged Serbs manning the barricades in apparent support of their continued defiance. Associated Press video showed Konuzin meeting Krstimir Pantic, a Kosovo Serb leader, close to the border crossing.

The Russian diplomat blamed EULEX for blocking the convoy and setting conditions for entry through a different crossing point, Merdare, where Kosovo customs are stationed.

"We will not go through Merdare because the controls there are done by Pristina authorities and they are not considered as legitimate by Russia and Serbia," Serbia's official Tanjug news agency quoted Konuzin as saying.

For months, Serbs have dumped rocks and soil on roads coming from the ethnic Albanian dominated south to block Kosovo authorities from stamping their authority over the defiant northern strip bordering Serbia.

Tensions rose this summer after Pristina's botched attempt to send customs officials into the Serb area. Since then Serb protesters have clashed with NATO peacekeepers and EU police, both seen by many Serbs as supporters of Kosovo's statehood.

Dozens of NATO soldiers from Germany and Austria were injured in a clash early this month, some by small arms fire, and scores of Serb protesters were hit by rubber bullets and tear gas canisters.

The violence prompted Germany to block Serbia's bid for EU candidate status last week. Approval for Serbia's candidacy was deferred until March 2012, conditional on Serbia persuading Kosovo Serbs to remove their roadblocks.

___

Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/russia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111213/ap_on_re_eu/eu_kosovo_putin_s_help

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Libyan evacuees protest in Greece (AP)

THESSALONIKI, Greece ? Several dozen Libyans, flown to Greece for medical treatment and physiotherapy after the country's eight-month civil war, blocked traffic in protest in this northern city, after four people were injured in a hotel brawl.

Hospital and ambulance officials confirmed that four Libyans were being treated late Wednesday for minor injuries.

Police said the cause of the fight between the Libyans and other hotel guests remained unclear, and made no arrests. Traffic was blocked for about two hours before the protest ended peacefully.

Several hundred Libyan civil war victims are being treated in Greece.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111214/ap_on_re_eu/eu_greece_libyan_protest

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Attacks kill 7 Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad (AP)

BAGHDAD ? Two attacks targeting Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad killed seven people and wounded 33 others on Monday during an important religious ritual for the Muslim sect, Iraqi officials said.

In the first attack, a bomb exploded among Shiite pilgrims in Latifiyah, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the Iraqi capital, killing two of them and wounding three others, police said. A medical official confirmed the casualty toll.

Hours later, a car bomb exploded near a group of Shiite pilgrims in the town of Mahaweel as they were heading to the holy Shiite city of Karbala, killing five people and wounding about 30 other pilgrims, said police officials in Babil province.

Mahaweel is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Baghdad

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the are not authorized to talk to the media.

The ritual, known as Ashoura, marks the anniversary of the seventh-century death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. His death in a battle outside of Karbala sealed Islam's historical Sunni-Shiite split. To commemorate his death, hundreds of thousands of Shiites walk from around the country to Karbala.

Security is usually very tight in and around the city, so insurgents have taken to attacking the pilgrims during their long walk to and from Karbala when its much harder for the Iraqi security forces to protect them.

The pilgrims are often targeted by Sunni extremists who claim that Shiites are not true Muslims.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111205/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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