News articles in

This map highlights the countries that news stories in issue 46 refer to. To increase its size click anywhere on the map. You will then have three sizes to choose from. read more ...

On 25th July two Russian ships set off for the North Pole from the port of Murmansk. One was a research ship with 100 scientists on board. The other was an ‘icebreaker’ designed to clear a path through the thick polar ice. The research ship is carrying read more ...

On 17th July an aircraft flying between two cities in Brazil crashed. Landing at Congonhas airport in Sao Paulo – the biggest city in the country – the plane sped up, came off the end of the runway and crashed into a nearby office building. Over 195 read more ...

Chen Shui-bian is the president of Taiwan. On 20th July he wrote to the United Nations (UN) requesting membership for his country. The UN has 192 members and Taiwan wants to be the 193rd. Four days later the UN informed him that the application had been read more ...

In France, the UK and most other European countries automatic roadside cameras take pictures of vehicles going faster than the legal speed limit. Officials trace the owners of the speeding vehicles through a central computer. Most drivers then get a read more ...

Pratibha Patil has been elected President of India. She formally took up the position on 25th July. Mrs Patil, aged 72, is the first woman to become president. She won the election easily with almost two thirds of the votes cast by the 4,000 members of read more ...

David and Andrew Whelan are a father and grown up son. They live in the north of the UK. Both men have metal detectors. In January, in a field near Harrogate in Yorkshire, they found a silver pot. Packed inside it were coins, jewellery and small blocks of read more ...

Reluctant king who returned to his country after 29 years in exile Muhammad Zahir Shah was King of Afghanistan from 1933 to 1973 and again from 2002 to 2007. He died on 23rd July aged 92. Zahir Shah was born in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, in 1914. His read more ...

In 1999 a Palestinian doctor and five nurses from Bulgaria were imprisoned in Libya. They had gone there to work in a children’s hospital. Shortly after they arrived hundreds of children were found to have HIV Aids. The six were accused by Libyan read more ...

Aboriginal painting breaks sale record — Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, who died in 2002, was an Australian aboriginal artist. One of his paintings ‘Warlugulong’ shows how aboriginals traditionally believed that the world was created. It tells several read more ...

At a meeting in Saudi Arabia in March members of the Arab League agreed on a peace plan. The plan is designed to end all wars between the Jewish state of Israel and the Muslim countries of the Middle East. The Arab League is a group, or club, of 22 Muslim read more ...

One month ago Gordon Brown became the UK’s new prime minister. He took over from Tony Blair who had been prime minister for ten years. As prime minister Tony Blair was always very friendly with American presidents. First, with Bill Clinton, and then, read more ...

Shinzo Abe, aged 52, is the prime minister of Japan. He is the country’s youngest leader since the end of the Second World War in 1945. He also leads the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which has ruled Japan, almost continuously, since 1955. He became read more ...

The echidna is a small, rat-sized mammal which lays eggs. It has rough prickly hair on its back and a long leathery nose or beak. It digs for worms with its beak. It is found in Australia and New Guinea. It is a close relative of Australia’s duck-billed read more ...

On 19th July Taliban forces – who are fighting against NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) troops and Afghan soldiers – surrounded a bus in the south of Afghanistan. The bus was carrying 23 South Koreans. The Taliban took them all hostage. The South read more ...

Shambo was a young bull who lived in a religious community at Skanda Vale. It is in rural Wales, in the UK. In April Shambo was tested for bovine TB, an infectious disease. His test was positive. Under UK law animals with the disease, and any others in read more ...

Burj Dubai is a tower block being built in the trade area of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). On 21st July the chairman of Emaar Properties, the company building the tower, announced that it is now the world’s tallest building. It is 512 metres (1 read more ...

Alexander Litvinenko was a Russian spy. In 1998 he accused the Russian government of trying to murder Boris Berezovsky – a wealthy Russian businessman. Mr Berezovsky, who owned a number of television stations, used to be a friend and supporter of Vladimir read more ...

Nerve gas is a weapon. It is sometimes used against soldiers and others in wars and conflicts. It has no smell and is colourless. Nerve gas is absorbed through the skin and it often kills. Chemical weapons of this sort have been forbidden in international read more ...

Oscar is a grey and white cat. He lives in an old people’s nursing home in Rhode Island, in the USA. Many patients there have incurable diseases. Most are not expected to get well. So they stay at the home until, eventually, they die. Doctors and nurses read more ...

Bolivia, in South America, is one of the world’s highest countries. Much of it is part of the Andes mountain range. Its capital city, La Paz, is 3,600 metres (11,800 feet) above sea level. At this height the air contains a third less oxygen than at sea read more ...

HAVE YOU HEARD . . .? Malaysia (Malaya until its independence from the British in 1957) is in South East Asia. Its mainland borders Thailand in the north and is separated from independent Singapore in the south by a short stretch of water. It is divided read more ...