10 Worst Polluting Countries

They're responsible for emitting more carbon dioxide than the rest of the world combined, these are the 10 worst polluting countries.

Afghans protest against French cartoons, US film

KABUL — Hundreds of Afghans on Thursday protested for the first time against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed published in France and staged fresh rallies against a US-made anti-Islam film.

About 300 students chanted "death to France, death to America" in a western neighbourhood of the capital Kabul, an AFP photographer said.

Nearby, hundreds more gathered on a flyover and chanted "death to America" and "long live Islam, long live Afghanistan", another AFP photographer said.

Both demonstrations were peaceful, condemning new Mohammed cartoons published by a French satirical magazine on Wednesday and the low-budget film "Innocence of Muslims", which has triggered protests around the world.

Similar rallies have been held across Afghanistan in the last four days.

On Monday, a protest of more than 1,000 residents in eastern Kabul turned violent when the crowd set fire to cars and threw stones at police. About 50 officers were slightly wounded.

Afghanistan is a devoutly Muslim nation and perceived insults to religion are taken very seriously, often with violent consequences.

Earlier this year 40 people were killed in street unrest over the burning of copies of the Koran by US soldiers on a base.

France has said that on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, it will close diplomatic missions, cultural centres and French schools in around 20 Muslim countries for fear of violent protests over the cartoons.

More than 30 people have been killed worldwide in attacks and violent protests linked to "Innocence of Muslims", including 12 people who died in an attack by a female suicide bomber in Kabul on Tuesday.

The crudely made film produced by US-based extremist Christians has triggered protests in at least 20 countries since excerpts were posted online.

In reaction to the uproar, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons mocking the film and caricaturing the Muslim prophet, including two drawings showing him naked.

Charlie Hebdo's editor, Stephane Charbonnier, described those getting irate over the cartoons as "ridiculous clowns" and accused the French government of pandering to them by criticising him for being provocative.

The left-wing publication's offices were firebombed last year after it published an edition "guest-edited by Mohammed" that it called Sharia Hebdo.

US ambassador to Libya killed, Obama calls it 'outrageous attack'

BENGHAZI: The US ambassador to Libya and three other embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car, a Libyan official said, as they were rushed from a consular building stormed by militants denouncing a US-made film insulting the Prophet Mohammad. 

US President Barack Obama has strongly condemned the "outrageous attack" that killed ambassador and three other Americans. 

Gunmen had attacked and burned the US consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, a center of last year's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, late on Tuesday evening, killing one US consular official. The building was evacuated. 

The Libyan official said the ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was being driven from the consulate building to a safer location when gunmen opened fire. 

"The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when gunmen fired rockets at them," the official in Benghazi told Reuters. 

There was no immediate comment from the state department in Washington. US ambassadors in such volatile countries are accompanied by tight security, usually travelling in well-protected convoys. Security officials will be considering whether the two attacks were coordinated. 

Libyan deputy prime minister Mustafa Abu Shagour condemned the killing of the US diplomats as a cowardly act. 

The consular official had died after clashes between Libyan security forces and Islamist militants around the consulate building. Looters raided the empty compound and some onlookers took pictures after calm returned. 

Build-up to London 2012 Olympic Ceremony

 The opening ceremony of the London Olympics is due to take place later after seven years of preparations 

The Olympic torch is on the final day of its 70-day UK journey, travelling down the Thames and finally lighting the cauldron during the Opening Ceremony

Researches Says Antarctic rift: speeding ice thaw

According to researchers, a rift in the Antarctic rock as deep as the Grand Canyon is increasing ice melt from the continent. The panel writes in Nature journal that the gorge is bringing more warm sea water to the ice sheet, speeding up melt. The rift lies under the Ferrigno Ice Stream on a stretch of coast so far-off that it has only been visited once formerly.

A UK team establishes the Ferrigno rift using ice-penetrating radar, and showed it to be on 1.5km deep. The team towed ice-penetrating radar kit at the rear a snowmobile, traversing an overall of about 2,500km. A total melt of either piece would raise sea levels internationally by some metres.The scientists propose that throughout Ice Ages, when sea levels were much lower than at present, the rift would have channelled a major ice stream from side to side.

First spiral galaxy stuns astronomers

Astronomers have dappled the first known spiral galaxy, dating to just three billion years after the Big Bang. They first speckled BX442 as the one and only spiral-looking object in a study of 300 galaxies carried out by the Hubble space telescope, when they were shocked to see what looked to be a spiral galaxy. Those observations confirmed a hint apparent in the Hubble data: that BX442 was being orbited by a smaller dwarf galaxy at its edges.

To get a closer look at BX442, the team went on to use the OH-Suppressing Infrared Integral Field Spectrograph at the Keck observatory in Hawaii which can take away the effect of all the water that lies between the Earth and galaxies at such astronomical distances. The observations confirmed a hint apparent in the Hubble data: that BX442 was being orbited by a lesser dwarf galaxy at its edges.

Study Says Iceberg breaks off from Greenland's Petermann Glacier

According to scientists The Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland has calved an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan. NASA satellite images show the island breaking off a tongue of ice that extends at the end of the glacier. Glaciers do calve icebergs obviously, other than the level of the changes to the Petermann Glacier in current years has taken many experts by shock.

 Some other observers have gone further. "It's dramatic. It's disturbing, University of Delaware's Andreas Muenchow told the Associated Press. In 2010 an ice island measuring 250 square km broke off the same glacier. According to the Canadian Ice Service Icebergs from the Petermann Glacier sometimes get to the coast off Newfoundland in Canada, posturing a danger to shipping and navigation.