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A massive power blackout in southern Brazil left tens of millions of people without power, with residents in major cities like Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo affected. Police called in extra officers and asked people to stay off the street when the Itaipu hydroelectric plant failed at 10:15 pm local time Tuesday (0015 GMT Wednesday) and plunged the affected areas into darkness. The electric plant supplies the regions of Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Rio de Janeiro, Goiás, Rio Grande do Sul, Paraná, and Espírito Santo,

A comprehensive new European pollutant release and transfer register named E-PRTR was launched by the European Commission and the European Environment Agency (EEA). Data from 91 substances had been collected to show the quantity and location of pollution of air, water and land by about 24.000 industrial facilities throughout Europe. Additional information have been presented like the amount and types of waste which is being transferred from one country to another. All data and information concerning the year 2007 and are available via Internet.

Somali pirates have seized a cargo vessel with 22 crew members. The Greek-owned MV Filitsa was hijacked on Wednesday in the Indian Ocean, several hundred kilometres northeast of the Seychelles islands. The ship was carrying cargo from Kuwait to South Africa. The European Union's anti-piracy force Atalanta said the crew includes three Greeks and 19 Filipinos. The ship has turned around and is now heading north, Atalanta said. There were conflicting reports as to whether the vessel was seized 400 kilometres or 750 kilometres off of the Seychelle

During a NASA competition, a group of researchers managed to create a robot, powered by a ground based laser, to climb a cable 1 kilometer high dangling from a helicopter. The contest winners will receive US$2 million for inventing a functioning robot which climbs to the set height in a reasonable amount of time. The competition took place in the Mojave desert at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, and teams from Missouri, Alaska, and Seattle competed for the prize. It was held to further the research on technolog

A man in Christchurch, New Zealand has pleaded guilty to murdering his wife and a neighbour in his home. Jason Somerville said he killed them out of anger and admitted having sex with their bodies after strangling them. Local press has dubbed the case the House of Horrors. Somerville, 33, killed Tisha Lowry, 28, on September 25, 2008. Lowry had been walking to her home just two doors from Somerville where she lived with her grandfather. A statement of fact released today said that the victim arrived at Somerville's sometime between 10.50am and

Nobel Prize winner, prominent Russian Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and theoretical physicist Vitaly Ginzburg has died on Sunday at the age of 93 years. Ginzburg was one of the fathers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb together with Andrei Sakharov, and the head of the Department of Theoretical Physics in the Lebedev Physical Institute of Academy of Sciences (FIAN), as well as editor-in-chief of the scientific journal UFN. He was born in Moscow in 1916, and graduated from the Physics Faculty of Moscow State University in 1938. In

China has loaned Ethiopia US$349 million worth of funds for the construction of the the country's first modern expressway, making Ethiopia among the first beneficiaries of the recently implemented China-Africa development funding plan. The road is to be close to 80 kilometres long, and will connect Nazaret (also called Adama), the country's second-largest city, with the capital, Addis Ababa. Funds from the Export-Import Bank of China are to be used to give the loans, according to the agreement. The deal was signed by Li Ruogu, the president o

Wikinews interviewed the creator of a parody website satirizing American political commentator Glenn Beck, about his thoughts after prevailing in a domain name dispute brought by Beck before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Florida resident Isaac Eiland-Hall created the website in September, and it asserts Beck uses questionable tactics "to spread lies and misinformation". Eiland-Hall was represented in the case by free speech lawyer Marc Randazza. Wikinews interviewed Randazza for the article "US fre

France has dispatched a special envoy to North Korea for talks that are expected to focus on establishing diplomatic ties with Pyongyang and possibly on the country's nuclear program. French special envoy Jack Lang arrived in North Korea for a five-day visit that could mark a turnaround in relations with the country. France is the only major European country not to have formal ties with Pyongyang, and it never recognised the country after it split from Korea following the Korean War. Some international observers consider dispatching a high-lev

At least one person was killed and several dozen more were injured on Monday, after a heavy earthquake with a magnitude of 6.7 struck near the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia. According to US Geological Survey statistics, the epicentre of the quake was sixteen kilometres from the town of Raba (about 1,300 kilometres from the capital Jakarta) at a depth of eighteen kilometres. The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said that it was unlikely that significant waves would be generated by the tremors. Indonesia's health ministry crisis centre head s

The president of El Salvador declared a national emergency in his country today, after torrential rains, flooding, and landslides inundated the area. Mauricio Funes said that the situation was "a tragedy", and that the amount of damage suffered by the country was "incalculable". "Today is a very sad day for the country and its government, in fact it is one of the most tragic days in memory," he said in a televised speech on Sunday. Rescue teams, residents, and the armed forces are digging through mud and rubble around the country to try and f

According to witness reports, two Kenyan businessmen were kidnapped in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Monday, and a ransom has been demanded for them. The Kenyans, workers of the printing agency Hamar Adde, were taken from the Bakara market, the biggest trading centre in the Somali capital, at gunpoint. Eyewitnesses said that two Somalis in the company of the Kenyans were also taken, but later were released without a ransom. Muktar Ise, a grocer at the complex, was a witness to the kidnapping. "The gunmen entered the printing shop and too