Italy, China sign deals worth US$1.27b

ROME: Italian and Chinese firms signed deals worth $1.27 billion (984 million euros) on Wednesday in Rome at talks attended by Prime Minister Mario Monti and senior Chinese politburo member Jia Qinglin.The six deals included agreements between Chinese telecoms giant Huawei and Italian Internet provider Fastweb for $557 million and between China Everbright and Chinese-owned Italy-based...

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$2.4 million air-conditioned limo submarine perfect for 007

The red paint job makes it faster, right?(Credit:U-Boat Worx)When I get into a submarine, I expect certain amenities like air conditioning, aniPod sound system, a screaming red paint job, and a plate of caviar. All except the caviar are available with the C-Explorer 5 from U-Boat Worx.The $2.4 million C-Explorer 5 is being advertised as the "world's first subsea limousine." It holds five people, has...

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Black Hole Blast Biggest Ever Recorded

Astronomers have witnessed a record-breaking blast of gas and dust flowing out of a monster black hole more than 11.5 billion light years away.The supermassive gravity well, with a mass of one to three billion suns, lurks at the core of a quasar—a class of extremely bright and energetic galaxies—dubbed SDSS J1106 1939. (See "Black Hole Blasts Superheated Early Universe.")"We discovered...

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Susan Rice Made Allies, Enemies Before Benghazi

United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, on Capitol Hill this week answering questions about her role after the U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, has become yet another player in the divide between the left and right, with her possible nomination as the next Secretary of State hanging in the balance.But who was Susan Rice before she told ABC's "This Week" and other Sunday morning...

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Banished diseases making a comeback in Europe

A perfect storm of warmer weather, tropical migrants and plummeting health budgets is stoking the resurgence of once-banished, mosquito-borne diseases in Europe. Several countries have been hit by Europe's financial crisis, and by diseases brought in by...

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Experts comb for clues in deadly German blaze

TITISEE-NEUSTADT, Germany: Experts sifted through a fire-ravaged workshop for the disabled in Germany on Tuesday, hunting for the cause of a fierce blaze there that killed 14 people.Most of the dead from the fire which began on Monday at the centre in the southwestern town of Titisee-Neustadt in Germany's Black Forest region were disabled, police said.A 50-year-old female carer was also...

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Google fighting German plan for linking fee

Google has kicked off a campaign against a proposed German law that would force search engine providers to pay copyright fees every time they return a news article in their results.The Leistungsschutzrecht für Presseverleger, or "ancillary copyright for press publishers," would provide an extension of copyright in Germany to cover snippets of articles, such as those that show up in search results...

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Space Pictures This Week: Space "Horse," Mars Rover, More

High Horse Photograph by Greg Parker, Your Shot The Horsehead Nebula rears its pretty head in a November 17 photograph submitted to National Geographic's Your Shot photo community.Taken...

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GOP Senators More Troubled After Rice Meeting

Emerging from a closed-door meeting, three Republican senators said Tuesday they are more troubled than ever with comments made days after the deadly Sept. 11 raid in Libya by Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador and President Barack Obama's possible choice for secretary of state.Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte met privately with Rice and acting CIA Director Michael...

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Arafat's bones could reveal polonium poisoning

The body of Yasser Arafat is set to be exhumed tomorrow in an effort to determine whether his death in 2004 was caused by polonium-210 poisoning. Tests earlier this year found unusually high levels of the radioactive material on the former Palestinian leader's clothes and toothbrush, but it's still unclear whether Arafat was...

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