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Two successive suicide bombings killed 30 people in a camp providing aid to displaced people in northwestern Pakistan, police officials stated. The two explosions hit the Kacha Pukha camp located near the city of Kohat. Nearly 50 people were wounded. Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder said from Islamabad that the bomber hit the camp when a food distribution programme was underway. "This was a point where registration was under way and food distribution was under way," he said. "Most of the victims were the displaced people from the Orakzai agency where

More than 50 musicians held a concert for and donated school tools to schoolboys at Peralillo, Chile The Víctor Jara High School and the Violeta Parra School were both affected by the 2010 Chile earthquakes. Peralillo is part of the O'Higgins Region and is located around 10 kilometers from Santa Cruz along the road to Pichilemu. It has almost 10,000 inhabitants, most of whom work in agriculture. The Víctor Jara High School and the Violeta Parra School were severely damaged by the earthquakes. The musicians gave the students musical instrument

According to a United Nations survey, more people in India, the second most populous country in the world, have access to mobile phones than to a proper toilet. Over half a billion cell phones are active in India, but only 366 million people there have access to a toilet. "It is a tragic irony to think that in India, a country now wealthy enough that roughly half of the people own phones, about half cannot afford the basic necessity and dignity of a toilet," commented Zafar Adeel, Director of United Nations University's Institute for Water, En

US President Barack Obama unveiled on Thursday plans for the future of American space exploration, committing to sending American astronauts to Mars by the mid-2030s. The president was speaking at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida during a speech to lay out his plans for the future of American space agency NASA. His comments included assurances that America was not abandoning space exploration, contrary to claims he was doing so after he announced the US's budget for 2011, which would have ended most of NASA's current projects, including th

Current polls indicate that there is a high possibility that the general election of 2010 in the United Kingdom will result in a hung parliament. The polls, both independent and those conducted on behalf of political parties, predict that the Conservatives will win only 40% of constituencies, 10% short of that needed for a majority government. In the UK political system, each of the constituencies, whose number rose from 646 for the previous election to 650 for the May 6th poll, is represented by one Member of the House of Commons elected und

At least 31 people were killed by a cyclone in West Bengal, India, according to officials. The storm uprooted trees and destroyed several huts in the North Dinajpur district of the state. Civil defence Minister Srikumar Mukherjee reported that the storm hit the state late Tuesday in the North Dinajpur district of West Bengal. The storm snapped telephone and electric wires in the area. Mukherjee added that hundreds of people suffered injuries in the district, which is nearly 315 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of Kolkata, the capital of West B

The majority of radio stations in Somalia have stopped playing music after orders from Islamist militants, who claim that the songs are un-Islamic. The stations reported that they complied with the ban over fears for their life. Before the forbiddance, which includes playing all music and jingles, thirteen of the fifteen stations played music. A radio station manager said "We are using other sounds such as gunfire, the noise of the vehicles and birds to link up our programmes." Other controllers spoke about the fear of losing listeners and ad

The US Library of Congress plans to create an archive of every "tweet," or post made on Twitter. It announced the move via Twitter. Twitter's general counsel Alex MacGillivray told the BBC: "I think it shows the tweets are an interesting part of the historical record. This project however is not about us, it is about our users and the fact they use the service to chronicle these amazing events. President Obama actually tweeted after he was elected. That is a big deal and it's something he did. It is not something we imagined when we were formi

According to the UK Air Traffic Control Service NATS, ash coming from an active volcano in Iceland could disrupt flights coming out of and into the UK. NATS said that a decision had been made to prohibit flights coming out of northern Scotland; Aberdeen Airport in particular is expected to have "considerable impact". The move was made after the Met Office advised NATS that volcanic ash can damage a jet's engines. A spokeswoman for Aberdeen Airport commented that "[t]he closure will come into effect locally at midnight and may also spread to o

Kurmanbek Bakiyev left Kyrgyzstan today for Kazakhstan after large scale protest in the country forced him to flee from the Kyrgyz capital to his home village of Teyit. Kazhakstan's secretary of state and Foreign Minister called this "an important step" to stabilize Kyrgyzstan, thereby preventing conflicts in the country. The whereabouts of Bakiyev's brothers, whom Roza Otunbayeva, the interim President of Kyrgyzstan had refused security was not clear. The Interfax news agency of Russia mentioned witnesses claimed the deposed president had boa

Humanitarian aid groups and Chinese military forces are beginning rescue operations in western China after a heavy 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck the region on Wednesday, that reportedly killed over 600 people and injured almost ten thousand. The quake, which was centered around the remote town of Yushu, was largely destroyed by the heavy temblor, which occurred early in the morning as residents were waking up. The official death toll stands at 617, while 9,980 more were injured and an additional 313 reported as missing. The Chinese ministry

Hundreds of thousands of air travelers had their travel plans disrupted in Europe by volcanic ash from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption. Tens of thousands of air travelers were stranded when all flights into and out of the United Kingdom were grounded, as it became one of the first nations to be affected. The grounding was even more extensive than that following the September 11 attacks of 2001 when only trans-Atlantic flights were canceled. Eurocontrol released a statement saying "...most air traffic in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Nor