He who is slient, is strongest.

One of three Australian MPs who hold the balance of power in parliament announces his support for opposition leader Tony Abbott.

France faces disruption in a strike over pension reform, with MPs also due to debate a ban on full face veils and a new security bill.

Violent aftershocks rattle the New Zealand city of Christchurch following the weekend's powerful earthquake that caused widespread damage.

Severe disruption is expected on London Underground on the first morning of a series of 24-hour strikes.

Save the Children says there have been four million preventable child deaths over the past 10 years because the poorest have not been the focus of aid.

Kilrah_il writes "In recent years the number of people killed on roads in New South Wales, Australia has dropped, but strangely enough, the number of pedestrians killed has risen. Some think it's because of the use of iPods and other music players making people not attentive to road dangers (the so-called 'iPod Zombie Trance'). Based on this (unproven) assumption, the Pedestrian Council has started a campaign in an effort to educate the people, but apparently it isn't enough. Now, some are pushing for the government to enact laws to help eradicate the problem. 'The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music up too loud in their cars, but is apparently unconcerned that listening devices now appear to have become lethal pieces of entertainment,' [Harold Scruby of the Pedestrian Council of Australia] said. 'They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare and that of others. ... Manufacturers should be made to [warn] consumers of the risks they run.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Roger Federer continues his smooth progress through the US Open draw with a straight-sets win over Jurgen Melzer in round four.

Should Islamabad surrender some sovereignty to save the country?

The international community is calling for Iran to reconsider the stoning to death of a woman for adultery.

Phillips replaced by Larry tennis buddy

Ex-HP CEO Mark Hurd has been named co-president at Oracle.…

Free On-Demand Webcast - Virtualizing the Hard Stuff

Teams in Guatemala have to halt the search for bodies following devasting mudslides which have killed at least 45 people.

Three independent Australian MPs are due to reveal who they will back as prime minister, ending two weeks of deadlock since inconclusive elections.

Greek PM George Papandreou reshuffles his cabinet but leaves the key post of finance minister unchanged as his government battles a debt crisis.

Andrea Bocelli is inviting survivors of the attacks on 11 September 2001 in New York to concerts on the Amalfi coast.

Guatemalan officials say they have given up hope for dozens of people buried when a landslide engulfed a highway north-west of the capital.

GovTechGuy writes "On Friday we discussed news that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott opened a probe into whether Google ranks its search listings with an eye toward nicking the competition. Google suggested the concerns have a major sponsor: Microsoft. In question is whether the world's biggest search engine could be unfairly disadvantaging some companies by giving them a low ranking in free search listings and in paid ads that appear at the top of the page. That could make it tough for users to find those sites and might violate antitrust laws. Abbott's office asked for information about three companies who have publicly complained about Google, according to blog post by Don Harrison, the company's deputy general counsel. Harrison linked each of the companies to Microsoft."

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Connaught, the property services group that specialises in social housing, is on the brink of going into administration, the BBC learns.

jamie tips a post at Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog about an extremely unusual astronomical phenomenon originating from a binary system about 3000 light years away. Quoting: "The name of this thing is AFGL 3068. It's been known as a bright infrared source for some time, but images just showed it as a dot. This Hubble image using the Advanced Camera for Surveys reveals an intricate, delicate and exceedingly faint spiral pattern. ... Red giants tend to blow a lot of their outer layers into space in an expanding spherical wind; think of it as a super-solar wind. The star surrounds itself with a cloud of this material, essentially enclosing it in a cocoon. In general the material isn't all that thick, but in some of these stars there is an overabundance of carbon in the outer layers which gets carried along in these winds. ... AFGL 3068 is a carbon star and most likely evolved just like this, but with a difference: it's a binary. As the two stars swing around each other, the wind from the carbon star doesn't expand in a sphere. Instead, we see a spiral pattern as the material expands."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some of the UK's rarest bumblebees are at risk of becoming extinct as a result of inbreeding, research suggests.

Criminals have managed to clone prepayment meter keys in order to make money by offering discounted credit to customers.