Attacks in Nigeria's northern city of Kano on Friday killed 185 people, including more than two dozen policemen, police said on Monday, adding that hundreds of bombs have been found. "The statistics available to the police indicate that 29 policemen, three SSS (intelligence) officers, two immigration officers and a total of 150 civilians have so far been killed by the extremists," police commissioner Ibrahim Idris said in a statement. He also listed …

Cuba remains the sole Latin American nation which "represses virtually all forms of political dissent," Human Rights Watch said in a report Sunday, while citing concerns over developments in Venezuela and Mexico. "Cubans who criticize the government are subject to criminal charges," the watchdog group said in its annual survey released in Cairo. "They are exempt from due process guarantees," and courts "are 'subordinated' to the executive and legislative …

The global average temperature last year was the ninth-warmest in the modern meteorological record, continuing a trend linked to greenhouse gases that saw nine of the 10 hottest years occurring since the year 2000, NASA scientists said on Thursday. A separate report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the average temperature for the United States in 2011 as the 23rd warmest year on record. The global average …

A senior Chinese propaganda official has said real-name registration for the nation's hugely popular microblogs will be expanded, as authorities tighten their grip on the web amid fear of unrest. Beijing, Shanghai and the southern province of Guangdong have recently ordered new users of weibos - microblogs similar to Twitter - to register using their real names, making it easier for authorities to track them. "This started at the end of last year. …

In what could simply be described as an enormous loss for Pakistan, Arfa Karim, the world's youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), Saturday night, lost the battle of life after remaining admitted here at Combined Military Hospital for 26 days, Geo News reported. Arfa Karim was only sixteen years old. Her funeral prayers will be offered on Sunday at 10 AM in Cantt area. Arfa Karim remained in intensive care at Combined Military Hospital …

The Milky Way is home to far more planets than previously thought, boosting the odds that at least one of them may harbour life, according to a study released Wednesday. Not long ago, astronomers counted the number of "exoplanets" detected outside our own solar system in the teens, then in the hundreds. Today the tally stands at just over 700. But the new study, published in Nature, provides evidence that there are more planets than stars in our …

Three dismembered bodies were found Tuesday in different parts of the Mexican resort town of Acapulco in what appears to be continuing drug cartel violence, the Guerrero state government said. Two of the bodies were found in a burning car and on the pavement of the roadway at the entrance of a resort, officials said. Firefighters responding to the report of a car fire found two heads on the pavement, the lower part of a man's body in the trunk …

Gunmen killed at least 51 people in the latest ethnic clashes in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei state, the region's governor said Tuesday. "The whole night (Monday) they burned the town... 51 are confirmed dead and now we have 22 (injured) evacuated to Juba," said Jonglei governor Kuol Manyang. Armed men stormed the village of Duk Padiet in northern Jonglei late Monday, with most of those killed "women, children and the elderly," Manyang told AFP. …

The ocean's deepest volcanic vents, kilometres below the surface, are teeming with life forms never before seen that thrive near super-hot underwater geysers, according to a new study. Eyeless shrimps and white-tentacled anemones were photographed bunched around cracks in the ocean floor spewing mineral-rich water that may top 450 degrees Celsius (842 degree Fahrenheit), researchers reported on Tuesday. The vents - baptised the Beebe Vent Field …

New ethnic clashes in South Sudan's troubled Jonglei state have killed 57 people, the government of the world's newest nation said late Thursday. Information Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said that in the latest clash "57 people got killed, and most of them are women and children. The men among them are only 11." The minister added that a further 53 people were wounded in the attack on Wek village in Uror county on Wednesday. Around 60 members …