SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Hundreds of rescuers are working to free 83 miners, 24 hours after they were buried by a landslide near the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, Chinese state run media says 1,000 police, firefighters and doctors have been sent to the disaster site The camp, at an altitude of 4,600m (15,000ft) 70km (45 miles) east of Lhasa, was destroyed by thousands of tonnes of rock. In a separate incident, a gas explosion at a coal mine in…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that 24 cases of E. coli O121 have been reported across 15 states, with at least one linked to the consumption of Farm Rich brand frozen meals and snacks. One third of the cases have required hospitalization and no deaths have occurred. Illness related to this outbreak's strain have been reported in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, Utah,…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Adam Lanza left a home stuffed with weaponry and carried out the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in a 154-bullet barrage that took less than five minutes, investigators said Thursday in the first detailed account of his surroundings and troubled state of mind. Search warrants from the second-worst school shooting in American history revealed that the home Lanza shared with his mother in Newtown, Conn., was a veritable arsenal: Authorities found at least nine…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The U.S. Constitution requires that presidents "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, defines marriage as only between a man and woman. As such, it denies federal spousal benefits to same-sex couples. In a legal brief last month, the Obama Justice Department sided with litigants who are asking the high court to strike down the law…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- SIX people have set themselves on fire in Bulgaria in less than a month. Three have died. The death by self-immolation of Plamen Goranov, a 36-year-old amateur photographer and rock climber, especially shocked the public. Mr Goranov has become Bulgaria’s Jan Palach (the student who set himself on fire in 1969 to protest against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia), a symbol of the protests that have rocked the country in recent weeks. “You fired up…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Construction workers backed by German police have removed a section of the Berlin Wall to make way for a building project, despite calls for the historic site to be preserved. Residents expressed shock at the removal of the East Side Gallery, as that section is known, which followed a series of protests, including one attended by the actor David Hasselhoff. A police spokesman, Alexander Tönnies, said there were no incidents as work had begun at about 5am…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The Supreme Court justices raised questions on Tuesday morning on the meaning of marriage. Two California couples challenging Proposition 8, the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, say it excludes gay and lesbian couples from an institution with a deep and distinctive meaning and thus violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. Defenders of the ban say that states should be able to work out for themselves whether to permit same-sex marriage. The Constitution is silent…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- North Korea's weapons program is not the only nuclear headache for South Korea. The country's radioactive waste storage is filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what South Korea sees as its best solution — reprocessing the spent fuel so it can be used again — faces stiff opposition from its U.S. ally. South Korea fired up its first reactor in 1978 and since then the resource poor nation's reliance on atomic energy…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Video propaganda showing the White House and Congress being blown up. Talk of hitting U.S. bases in the Pacific. The renunciation of a 60-year-old armistice that has kept the tenuous peace on the Korean Peninsula. It seems barely a day passes without another North Korean threat, and coming after the December launch of a long-range rocket and a third nuclear test in February, the florid declarations from Pyongyang have gotten the attention of the…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- It took all weekend, but European finance chieftains finally clinched a deal that will keep Cyprus afloat—by taking a heavy toll from their wealthiest customers. The deal will prevent Cyprus and its banking system from going bankrupt and will keep the island nation in the euro zone. However, the cost will be the complete shutdown of one of the country's biggest banks and a levy of as much as 30 percent on those who have the largest amounts of…