France24 - Series of deadly blasts rock Bangkok

AFP - A series of grenade attacks rocked central Bangkok on Thursday, killing one person and injuring more than 50, including foreigners, amid a tense standoff between groups of rival protesters.
   
Five grenades were fired into a crowd in the capital's business district, said army spokesman Sunsern Kaewkumnerd, where pro-government demonstrators were facing off with their rival "Red Shirts".
   
One Thai woman died, according to a local hospital, after the grenades hit the mass of pro-government supporters. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva immediately called an emergency meeting with security officials.
   
Ambulances rushed to the scene to load up bloodied victims after the blasts sent relaxed and cheerful pro-government crowds fleeing from the area, home to dozens of corporate towers and a notorious red-light district.

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France24 - India urban size to double, could face 'chaos': report

AFP - India's city population will nearly double to close to 600 million people by 2030, requiring huge investment to avoid urban "chaos", a report by global consultancy McKinsey warned Thursday.

India must invest 1.2 trillion dollars for core urban infrastructure in its cities over the next 20 years, equivalent to 134 dollars per capita a year, the report said -- almost eight times current spending in per capita terms.

"The need for change is urgent. India's current approach to urbanization is likely to result in urban gridlock and chaos," said Ireena Vittal, one of the report's authors

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France24 - In Haiti, schools lure back students with a free daily meal

AFP - The meal doesn't look like much, rice, a few vegetables and a little bit of meat, but for the Haitian school children who receive it for free, it is reason enough to come to class.

By 10:30 am on a Wednesday, the smell of chicken stock wafts through the Rosalie Javoukey school, located in a neighborhood of Haiti's devastated capital Port-au-Prince.

In the shade of a three-story building scheduled for demolition, women bustle about, doling food onto metal and plastic plates on huge tables set up in between white Unicef tents.

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France24 - PM certain Aqaba rockets were not fired from Jordinian soil

AFP - Two military-grade rockets struck Jordan early on Thursday, one slamming into an empty warehouse in Aqaba and the other splashing into the Red Sea near the Israeli border, a security official said.

"The preliminary investigation determined that the explosion in the (Red Sea) port of Aqaba on Thursday morning was due to a Katyusha rocket," the security official said, citing sources close to investigators.

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France24 - Seoul believes North Korea torpedoed navy ship

AFP - South Korea's military believes that a North Korean submarine launched a torpedo attack to sink a South Korean warship last month near their disputed sea border, the Yonhap news agency said Thursday.

The assessment was reported to the office of President Lee Myung-Bak and the defence ministry immediately after the ship sank last month, an unnamed senior military source told Yonhap.

"It's our military intelligence's assessment that North Korean submarines attacked the ship with a heavy torpedo," the source said, adding that the subs were armed with torpedoes with 200-kilogram (440-pound) warheads.

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France24 - US warns Syria after suspected missile transfer to Hezbollah

REUTERS - US President Barack Obama's administration has warned that "all options" are on the table if Syria supplied Scud missiles to Hezbollah but defended its pursuit of dialogue with Damascus.
   
Israel believes that Syria has supplied Hezbollah with the ballistic missiles, which could dramatically increase the Lebanese Shiite militia's ability to attack the Jewish state.
   
Jeffrey Feltman, the assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, said Wednesday the United States would have "really, really serious concern" if Syria had delivered such high-grade weapons to Hezbollah.

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Strike at University of Puerto Rico...
This may likely be of little or no interest to anybody but me.  However, with our local police riot squad deployed and the students just finished decreeing a continuation of what was supposed to have been a 48 hour stoppage, the stage is set for anything to happen.  If there is a bloody clash, this will become international news (in which case you can say you first learned of it from yours truly):

English Facebook link (unfortunately not updated)

Unknown blog note (in English but somewhat alarmist)

The most reliable and up-to-date source is this (unfortunately in Spanish)

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

Exclusive: WellPoint routinely targets breast cancer patients | Reuters

(Reuters) - Shortly after they were diagnosed with breast cancer, each of the women learned that her health insurance had been canceled. There was Yenny Hsu, who lived and worked in Los Angeles. And there was Patricia Reilling, a successful art gallery owner and interior designer from Louisville, Kentucky.

U.S.  |  Health  |  Healthcare Reform

Neither of these women knew about the other. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders -- more than any other health insurance company in the United States.

The women paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, neither had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.

They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.

Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women's specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.