Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue,  the son of Equatorial Guinea’s president, moved more than $110 million in suspect funds into U.S. accounts
Foreign officials with potential corruption links are exploiting weaknesses in federal anti-money-laundering safeguards to move millions of dollars into U.S. bank accounts and properties, according to a Senate report released Thursday.
 

Google hopes to build on its existing translation database of 52 languages.
 Search giant Google has said that it is working on a phone that can translate live, automatically between languages.
Live language translation on mobile phones could be just two years away, according to search giant Google. The company already offers text translation services and [...]

Ford Figo
Ford Motor Co. (F) Friday began producing its first small car in India and its engines as the U.S. auto maker tries to challenge Suzuki Motor Corp. (7269.TO) and Hyundai Motor Co. (007380.SE) in this growing market for automobiles.
 

 
The British Library has announced that the Klencke Atlas will have its first-ever public showing this summer as part of a map exhibition.
It is almost absurdly huge – 1.75 metres (5ft) tall and 1.9 metres (6ft) wide – and was given to [Charles II] by Dutch merchants and placed in his cabinet of curiosities.

Credit card numbers are so passe. Today’s hackers know the real powerhouse data to steal is emission certificates.
That’s exactly what hackers went after last week when they obtained unauthorized access to online accounts where companies maintain their carbon credits, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel.
The hackers launched a targeted phishing attack against employees of [...]

Debris objects in Earth’s orbit is an increasingly troublesome issue.
An international air traffic control for outer space should be set up to prevent damage to satellites and spacecraft orbiting the Earth, according to proposal to be discussed at the United Nations next week.  Space experts from around the world will discuss ways of tackling the [...]

Bestselling authors John and Doris Naisbitt
 John Naisbitt found success with his bestseller “Megatrends.” Now, he and his wife Doris have published a new book about China. They argue that the country has developed a new political and social system — and may be more democratic than the West.
 

Migrant workers wait for a bus to return them to the labor camps outside Dubai, but many of the jobs have dried up.
When his overnight flight landed, Abdul Wahib walked out of Kochi’s palm-fringed airport and hugged his family. After 24 years of working in the United Arab Emirates, he was home. He carried a [...]

A couple looking at a shop in Greece as the economy has suffered a major deficit crisis.
Governments in Athens, Madrid and Lisbon struggled on Friday to quell fears of a looming debt crisis in Europe that is pummeling the euro and rippling across global markets, as authorities vowed to impose fiscal austerity and plug their [...]

 
The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world’s oldest cultures.
Boa Sr, who lived through the 2004 tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by British settlers, was the last native of the island chain who was fluent in Bo.

India: fast food nation
Live and let live, right? We’ve all heard the phrase a million times, and it connotes that true-blue American sentiment of accomodation and freedom of choice. But what about when our choices are trashing the earth? Then it seems the only remedy is pointing out our own foibles again and again until [...]

Zero Rupee banknote
Special zero rupee banknotes have been issued by an anti-corruption campaign to challenge India’s bribe culture.  Campaigners from the Fifth Pillar charity, which confronts corrupt officials using freedom of information legislation, have issued notes bearing the image of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of its freedom struggle.
 

Lives of 8 million children could be saved by 2020
Endorsing vaccines as the world’s most cost-effective public health measure, Bill and Melinda Gates said Friday that their foundation would more than double its spending on them over the next decade, to at least $10 billion.  The change could save the lives of as many as [...]

Most experts believe that the Himalayan glaciers will take centuries to melt
The chairman of the leading climate change watchdog was informed that claims about melting Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit.  Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but [...]

Indian students not safe in Australia
Avoid Australia – that’s the clear warning to students planning to study Down Under, issued by the Indian government.  On the ground, the government’s warning apart, the unending attacks and two deaths resulting from it have clearly rattled admission seekers and students already studying there.

Madhavan Nair, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
Indian researchers have announced plans to send their astronauts to space in 2016.   The cost of the proposed mission is estimated at $4.8 billion, said S. Satish, spokesman for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).
 

Hiatchi designs world’s fastest elevator
Hitachi is stepping up efforts to finalize the design of the world’s fastest elevator.   In April, it will open the 213-metre tall G1 Tower in Japan, where it will conduct verification tests on an elevator with a speed of 1,080 metres per minute (m/min).
 

Did HAARP cause the damage? Hugo says so.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a ‘tectonic weapon’ to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.
President Chavez said the US was “playing God” by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish [...]

Elastic water
Think Silly Putty, and you’ll probably have a very good idea what the brains at Japan’s Tokyo University have created. The new material, called Elastic Water, retains its Flubber-like consistency by mixing a few grams of clay and organic matter to H20, essentially binding the whole into a jelly-like putty.

An environmental campaigner protesting against the grim outcome of GM crops.

Fresh fears were raised over GM crops yesterday after a study showed they can cause liver and kidney damage.
According to the research, animals fed on three strains of genetically modified maize created by the U.S. biotech firm Monsanto suffered signs of organ damage after just [...]

Scott Allen over at Mental Floss posted a very timely piece about the warm climate countries that participate in Winter Olypics.

The Winter Olympics are traditionally dominated by athletes from countries where winter brings freezing temperatures and snow, but that hasn’t stopped a number of athletes from more tropical climates from infiltrating the ranks of the [...]

Donating by text
The American Red Cross has received more than $22 million in U.S. text-message donations for Haiti earthquake relief efforts, far outpacing the charity’s previous record of $400,000 for emergency relief using similar technology.
 

Wirtland to acquire physical land
Wirtland has announced plan to legitimately acquire real land from one (or even several) world’s countries. If realized, it will be the first case of peaceful formation of a new country “from a scratch”.

We will miss the workplace when it’s gone
By the end of the month, a company called txteagle will be the largest employer in Kenya. The firm, started in its original form in 2008 by a young computer engineer named Nathan Eagle and, as of this coming June, based in Boston, will have 10,000 people working [...]

The first leg of the financial crisis seems to be behind us and most European economies are reemerging from recession. Attention is now shifting towards the sustainability of public finances. The latest European Commission forecasts show the public debt-to-GDP ratio for euro-zone countries rising to 88% in 2011 from 69% as recently as 2008. Government [...]