Daily Archives: December 28, 2013

Room with a view: NASA releases the best photos of Earth taken from space this year

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When it comes to a room with a view, one several hundred miles above earth is hard to beat.

Satellites orbiting the planet and astronauts aboard the International Space Station often take pictures of volcano eruptions, hurricanes and other examples of nature’s fury.

And now NASA has rounded up the most spectacular images taken from space all year.

The images also include some of the most beautiful sights our planet has to offer – from Princess Charlotte Bay, in Australia, to the surprising beauty of Reno, Nevada’s city lights set against the mountains that surround it.

A picture was captured just weeks ago of a new island forming in the Pacific.

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China Formalizes Easing of One-Child Policy

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china-one-childChina on Saturday formally allowed couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child, the first major easing of the 3-decade-old restrictive birth policy.

Demographers and policy makers have estimated the easing would benefit some 15 million to 20 million Chinese parents — mostly in cities — and result in 1 million to 2 million extra births per year in the first few years, on top of the 16 million babies born annually in China. They say the easing is so incremental that the extra births are not expected to strain resources such as the health care and education.

China has credited the restrictive policy with managing its population growth and improving the economy, but critics say it is a violation of human rights.

China is the world’s most populous country with 1.35 billion people.

 

At least 26 dead in India train fire

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unnamedAt least 26 people were killed and eight injured after a compartment of a passenger train caught fire early Saturday in southeast India, officials said.

Some 60 passengers were on board when the fire broke out on a Bangalore-Nanded express train near the Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh state, railway spokesman Anil Kumar Saxena said.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

 

Kim Kardashian Gets Hermes Bag With Her Nude Painting From Kanye West

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Kim Kardashian proudly showed off the gift she received from her baby daddy Kanye West for Christmas. It’s a Hermes bag with her bare-chested painting by visual artist George Condo, who created artwork for his 2010 album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy“.

#HandPaintedGeorgeCondo #HermesBirkin #OneofOne #ChristmasPresentFromYeezy,” she wrote on Instagram along with a picture of the customized bag. She also carried the bag when shopping with the rapper in Woodland Hills, California on Thursday, December 26.

While the cost of the finished product is not known, it can be estimated by the fact that a Hermes Birkin the size of Kim’s retails for around $16,000 (£10,000), while one of Condo’s paintings, The Manhattan Strip Club, sold at auction last year for a staggering $1.3million.

KimYe welcomed their first daughter, North West, this summer. On his first Father’s Day, Kim gave Kanye Apple computer mice signed by the high-tech company’s founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. “One of the other gifts my girl gave me for fathers day,” he tweeted back then.

Steve is one of Kanye’s idols as the outspoken lyricist once compared himself to the Apple founder, “I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period.”

 

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Floods Kill 41 People in Southeastern Brazil

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Brazilian officials say floods and mudslides have killed 41 people and driven close to 70,000 from their homes in two southeastern states.

The civil defense department in the state of Minas Gerais says the floods and mudslides caused by more than 10 days of heavy downpours left 18 people dead and forced 9,420 to flee their homes.

In Espirito Santo state, officials place the death toll at 23 and say that more than 60,000 were forced to seek shelter in public buildings or the homes of friends and relatives.

Troops are helping distribute food, water and medicine in Espirito Santo and Army engineers have been called in to help repair highways, roads and bridges damaged by the floods.