A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report. Read the full story

Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The flash was brighter than anything ever detected from beyond our Solar System and lasted over a tenth of a second. NASA and European satellites and many radio telescopes detected the flash and its aftermath on December 27, 2004. Two science teams report about this event at a special press event today at NASA headquarters. A multitude of papers are planned for publication.

Read the full story

NEW YORK – Brazil has recently generated positive headlines with its 2016 Olympic bid victory, as well as its increased economic and political visibility.

Based on current economic trends, it could be one of the world’s five biggest economies — along with China, the United States, India and Japan — by the middle of this century, according to The Economist.

Yet, the evidence of progress has been marred by the nation’s troubling crime statistics — and reports of unlawful methods employed by the security forces. Read the full story

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – India is open to buying more gold from the International Monetary Fund following its purchase of 200 tonnes earlier this month, the Financial Chronicle newspaper said on Wednesday, helping to drive gold prices to an all-time high.

But India’s central bank governor, Duvvuri Subbarao, declined to comment on whether the bank would buy more gold from overseas, however. Read the full story

Though journalists, international affairs professionals, travel lovers, and international businessmen are already well aware that Brazil is the country to watch, there are still many gringos who aren’t tuned in to Brazil’s ascent or don’t quite understand the country’s importance. This list is for those gringos.

10. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s cultural capital (but not the national capital – that’s Brasília) is an excellent urban case study when learning about the developing world. It shares certain characteristics with other developing cities that provides many important lessons and a useful perspective on urban conflicts, like inequality, violent crime, and drug trafficking, as well as positive changes like a growing middle class, increased purchasing power of the average consumer and social movements. Read the full story

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Friday that Israel must prepare for a protracted struggle against a damning United Nations report on its winter offensive in Gaza, after the UN’s Human Rights Council endorsed the report. Read the full story

The Palestinian Authority would not oppose the prosecution of Hamas militants on war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court, Israel Radio on Saturday quoted the PA’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva as saying. Read the full story

LIVE VIDEO FEED!

Pittsburgh News Feed:

http://mfile.akamai.com/

CBS News Feed:

http://a123.g.akamai.net/ Read the full story

WASHINGTON: An angry, humiliated, and wounded A.Q.Khan has finally made public and official what has long been suspected: his nuclear proliferation activities that included exchanging and passing blue-prints and equipment to China, Iran, North Korea, and Libya was done at the behest of the Pakistani government and military, and he was forced to take the rap for it. ( Watch Video ) Read the full story

NEW DELHI: The Indian army has mobilised its troops to forwards posts in Jammu and Kashmir and along the northeastern border with China in an exercise named Operation Alert, a defence official said on Wednesday.

“About 50% troops on the Line of Actual Control have been mobilised to forward posts. The mobilisation would last for nearly a month,” a senior Indian army official said. Read the full story

In the beginning…

The New York Sunday News on March 30, 1947. Read the full story

An outbreak in Pune has Indians worried about the flu pandemic.

MUMBAI — Four months after the first outbreak of swine flu, India is discovering how deadly this virus can be. The country’s first swine flu death, that of a 14-year-old schoolgirl on Aug. 3, followed by seven more patients succumbing to the disease in the span of a week, has set off a panic attack that is spreading faster than the virus itself.

Pune, in Western India, with a population of nearly 4 million, has become the epicenter of the disease for India. Five of the eight victims, including a doctor and a chemist, were residents of this city that is home to automakers Tata Motors and Bajaj Auto, both of which have major factories on its outskirts. Lately, Pune has become a major tech hub with outsourcing, software and biotech companies setting up big campuses in the city. The latest victim, another Pune schoolgirl, died this morning. Read the full story