IF ALIENS CALL,MUST WE ANSWER?STEPHEN HAWKING WEIGHS IN

Stephen Hawking, perhaps the world’s pleasant-identified cosmologist, theoretical physicist and creator, has as soon as again issued a warning on this planet’s search for extraterrestrial life, repeating his advice that humans should feel twice before we make contact.

Dr. Hawking expressed his considerations on a newly launched 25-minute online movie known as "Stephen Hawking’s favorite places," where he takes viewers on a digital tour of his 5 favorite locations within the universe. As the digicam friends into black holes and appears at superstar techniques on the program, Hawking cautions that while lifestyles probably available in the market, it could not be a great factor for humanity to notice.

“We should be wary of answering back,” Hawking said, echoing sentiments he has previously expressed.  “meeting an advanced civilization would be like Native americans encountering Columbus — that didn’t turn out so well.”

even though Hawking has long supported the seek for lifestyles external our own planet, he has remained cautious through the years, many times warning that if we come upon life in other places, there's a good threat that the life we come across might no longer be the satisfactory sort of neighbor.

“We best have got to appear at ourselves to see how sensible existence would change into whatever we wouldn’t wish to meet,” Hawking informed The instances of London in 2010, adding that:
“I suppose they might exist in tremendous ships, having used up all of the resources from their home planet. Such developed aliens would might be emerge as nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they are able to reach.”

nevertheless, Hawking is an enthusiastic researcher, ever expressing curiosity within the feasible worlds beyond our sunlight process.

In Stephen Hawking’s favorite places, launched on the web platform Curiosity circulate, he brings viewers to the planet Gliese 832c, placed about sixteen light years far from our own planet in the constellation Grus. Presently, Gliese 832c is likely one of the excellent candidates to this point for life outside of Earth.

“It’s a wide ranging sight, a perfect-Earth five instances more big than ours,” Hawking tells viewers.

There are quite a lot of efforts underway within the search for lifestyles beyond this planet - starting from NASA's Mars mission to the three-decade ancient search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute in Mountain View, Calif.

A further just lately launched initiative, subsidized partly by using Hawking himself, is looking for signs of verbal exchange from outer house.

"there's no larger question. It's time to decide to finding the reply – to search for existence beyond Earth," stated Hawking on the launch of the $one hundred million breakthrough pay attention venture, although he remained cautious about contact with different civilizations.

Sponsored through Hawking, fb CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, leap forward hear venture would send 1000s of postage stamp sized nanobots via the universe, propelled by using gentle.

Whilst any civilization noticed could be countless numbers of years ahead of people, in phrases of technological know-how and figuring out, and for that reason harmful, Hawking is nonetheless eager about seeing simply how so much humanity can observe. And, he notes, we might need to appear past our Earth for survival.

"The Earth is a distinctive location, nevertheless it could no longer last perpetually," Hawking at a leap forward pay attention press convention this spring. "eventually we have got to seem to the celebs. Breakthrough Starshot is an extraordinarily exciting first step on that ride."

"The restrict that confronts us now is the quality void between us and the celebrities," he delivered. "however now we will transcend it, with light beams, gentle sails, and the lightest spacecraft ever developed. In these days we decide to this subsequent excellent soar into the cosmos, due to the fact that we're human and our nature is to fly."

LINCOLN TUNNEL BUS ACCIDENT

Thirty individuals were taken to healing centers in New York and New Jersey at the beginning of today after two transports crashed inside the Lincoln Burrow, bringing about broad activity delays, powers said.

Twenty-eight individuals were conveyed to New York City healing facilities, taking after the mischance inside the middle container of the passage, which was accounted for at 8:43 a.m., as indicated by the New York Fire Office's press office.

Two others were taken to Hoboken College Restorative Center, Port Power police representative Joe Pentangelo said.

None of the casualties' wounds give off an impression of being life-debilitating, as indicated by Pentangelo, who said one lady maintained a broken jaw and another purportedly endured a broken arm.

A sum of 44 individuals were assessed at the scene, FDNY said.

The passage's middle tube stayed shut until both transports could be expelled from the passage, Pentangelo said. One of the transports should have been towed out of the passage, while the other was driven out. Eastward movement is streaming by and by, he included.

One of the transport drivers was issued a summons for a dangerous path change - moving paths inside the Lincoln Passage is precluded - which is the point at w
hich the mischance happened. Both of the vehicles were NJ Travel transports, Pentangelo included.

HOUSTON GUNMAN'S RAMPAGE ENDS WITH SUSPECT DEAD

A "disgruntled lawyer" opened fire at a southwest Houston shopping mall on Monday morning, injuring 9 individuals before the gunman was shot dead by police.

The shooter was identified as Nathan DeSai, FOX26 reported , citing multiple sources. DeSai had antecedently worked at McDaniel & DeSai LLP, tho' the observe closed down at some point at intervals the last year, Ken McDaniel told ABC13.

An ABC13 reporter World Health Organization spoke with DeSai's father said the man had tried calling his son various times on Monday however had solely gotten the man's voicemail. DeSai's father stated that his son was upset over the failure of his law firm and therefore the business closed as a result of a scarcity of clients.

DeSai's father confirmed his son owned multiple guns and said he had a license to hold. He additionally said DeSai drove a black Porsche, a similar type of automotive police were examing within the shopping mall car parking zone. That car's registration number plate showed it had been registered to DeSai, ABC13 reported .

The shooter was known not requirement, authorities said, and a few firearms were found in the man's auto. He was an occupant of a loft complex close to the scene of the shooting and may have had past run-ins with some of his neighbors. 

Jennifer Molleda, who lives in the apartment suite complex, said the latest episode came a couple of weeks back, when the man waved an ambush style weapon at roofers in the complex. 

Houston Chairman Sylvester Turner said the shooter "seemed, by all accounts, to be a displeased legal advisor who took out his indignation and disappointment on people," KHOU reported. 

Inquired as to whether the shooting was a demonstration of fear based oppression, between time police boss Martha Montalvo said "I'm not prepared to affirm that." 

DeSai's LinkedIn page indicates he moved on from the College of Tulsa with a J.D. furthermore, the College of Houston with a four year certification in brain research. 

Six of those injured in the assault were transported to region doctor's facilities. Three have since been discharged. One individual was in basic condition. Three different casualties were dealt with at the scene. 

Related Picture 

Police examine the scene of a shooting along Wesleyan at Law Road that left different individuals harmed and the claimed shooter dead, Monday morning, Sept. 26, 2016, in Houston. (Mark Mulligan/Houston Narrative by means of AP)Expand/Contract 

Police research the scene of a shooting in Houston on Sept. 26. (AP) 

A discharge official said a few people were shot while inside their autos. A few people were hit with glass sections from smashed auto windows. 

A close-by mortgage holder advised FoxNews.com his significant other woke up to shots at 6:30 a.m. Presently police were seen going into an adjacent townhouse. 

A lady said her better half called as the shooting happened and said, "I'm hit." The man told his significant other that the shooter was shooting individuals with a "red light pointed through the front windshield." 

Introductory reports showed seven individuals were harmed before police lessened the number to six. 

Eduardo Andrade, 42, told The Houston Account that two projectiles struck his vehicle. 

"As I was driving by Law Road I all of a sudden heard a major blast," Andrade said. "I secured myself, quickened and attempted to leave. I didn't know whether somebody was tailing me or attempting to shoot me." 

Andrade included: "I felt the hot air." 

The strip mall is a broadly known upscale territory and is a well known staple spot. The strip shopping center elements a pet store, office supply store and medication store. It is almost a noteworthy convergence prompting the expressway. The Oaks at West College loft complex is straightforwardly south of the strip mall. 

The shooting comes days after a shooting at a Washington state shopping center that left five individuals dead. On Sept. 17, a 20-year-old man cut 10 individuals at a Minnesota shopping center before being shot to death by an off-duty cop.

FINAL HURRAH OF A STAR LIKE OUR SUN

This photo, taken via the NASA/ESA Hubble space Telescope, suggests the colourful “final hurrah” of a star like our sun. The burned-out megastar, known as a white dwarf, is the white dot in the center. Our own star, the solar, may also burn out and create a shell of stellar particles, however no longer for one more 5 billion years.

NASA described what’s taking place in the picture:

The superstar is ending its life by using taking out its outer layers of gasoline, which shaped a cocoon around the famous person’s last core. Ultraviolet light from the death superstar makes the material glow.

The picture, launched by means of NASA on September 23, 2016, suggests a planetary nebula called NGC 2440, which lies about four,000 gentle-years from Earth within the direction of the constellation Puppis.

A planetary nebula is an astronomical object consisting of a glowing shell of gasoline and plasma that’s shaped by means of exact varieties of stars on the finish of their lives. (Planetary nabulae have nothing to do with planets. They got the identify because eighteenth- and nineteenth-century astronomers watching through small telescopes inspiration they gave the look of the disks of the planets Uranus and Neptune.) Astronomers estimate that there are about 10,000 of these objects within the Milky way, even though most effective about 1,500 were detected thus far.

Right here’s extra from NASA concerning the picture:

The white dwarf at the center of NGC 2440 is one in every of the hottest identified, with a floor temperature of more than 360,000 levels Fahrenheit (200,000 levels Celsius). The nebula’s chaotic structure suggests that the big name shed its mass episodically. During each outburst, the star expelled material in yet another course. This will also be visible within the two bowtie-formed lobes. The nebula also is rich in clouds of dirt, some of which form long, dark streaks pointing away from the megastar.

The fabric expelled with the aid of the superstar glows with different colours relying on its composition, its density and how close it's to the scorching central celebrity. Blue samples helium; blue-inexperienced oxygen, and purple nitrogen and hydrogen.

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Bottom line: A Hubble area Telescope photograph launched on September 23, 2016 indicates a planetary nebula, referred to as NGC 2440, which lies about four,000 mild-years from Earth in the course of the constellation Puppis.

THE MYSTERY OF THE SINGING FISHES

"Singing fishes" at San Francisco Bay had been as soon as a mystery. But now, extra experiences have uncovered

Fact: There are fish that sing. At San Francisco Bay, residents living in houseboats were mesmerized by a strange hum that begins when darkness fall and stops all of a sudden earlier than the dawn.

The Washington post published an editorial that the unusual noise comes from male suitors of the species Porichthys Notatus, or the unpleasant fins midshipman fish. Alternatively, the feminine midshipman best grunts when displaying aggression for the male, when it is attempting to mate with them. What makes these noises are their swim bladders that look like a refrain of kazoos, a formation of a flying fish or a swarm of droning bees.

They definitely sound like an orchestra full or mournful, rasping oboes," SFGate suggested in 2004.

Or must one say that their noise is much like singing mermaids?   

Just lately, researchers found out a viable purpose why these midshipman fish are singing at night; it is due to the fact of a hormone called melatonin. Produced by many plants and animals, melatonin is triggered once darkness sets. However, for animals that sleep at night time, identical to people, melatonin secretion is proposal to aid keep an eye on the inner or body clocks. That explains why some men and women to find melatonin dietary supplements as the cure for insomnia.

Andrew Bass from Cornell university mentioned in his statement in Caltech, "Our outcome, together with these of others that additionally show melatonin's moves on vastly unique timescales, highlight the ability of hormones, customarily, to control the output of neural networks within the mind to manage distinctive components of habits."

Bass additionally introduced that "within the case of melatonin, one hormone can exert equivalent or different results in diurnal vs. Nocturnal species depending on the timescale of motion, from day-night time rhythms to the length of single cells."

of their research to hint melatonin's function in the humming mystery, scientists demonstrated the singing cycles of those midshipman fish in darkness and light and learned that after there's mild, they in no way sang at all. So, the researchers gave melatonin to the fish while they're in sunlight, and sooner or later, they heard the no longer-so-candy melodies of those fish.

TECHNOLOGY:Google Self-driving car involved in a further Crash

A Google self-using Lexus was involved in a crash in Mountain View, Calif. On Friday afternoon. Fortunately, no one used to be injured.

In step with a record from local television station KRON, the Google vehicle was, obviously, utilizing autonomously at the time of the crash, however was not at fault. The incident occurred at round 1:30 p.M. Shut El Camino actual and Phyllis Avenue, when yet an extra auto ran a red gentle and hit the passenger a part of Google's vehicle.

Google did not immediately reply to PCMag's request for remark however demonstrated the incident to TechCrunch. "A Google auto was journeying northbound on Phyllis Ave. In Mountain View when a auto heading westbound on El Camino actual ran a crimson soft and collided with the right facet of our automobile," the assertion reads. "Our mild was once as soon as green for no less than six seconds before our car entered the intersection."

The tech huge additionally used this possibility to remind every body why it is constructing self-driving cars.

"hundreds of thousands and hundreds and hundreds of crashes arise daily on US roads, and pink-tender walking is the leading motive of metropolis crashes in the united states. Human error performs a function in ninety four percentage of these crashes, which is why we're establishing totally self-driving technology to make our roads safer," Google acknowledged.

In step with KRON, a human used to be at the back of the wheel of Google's auto on the time of the incident. The Google vehicle (and presumably the human in the back of the wheel) sensed the reverse auto crossing the intersection, at which point the human took over and utilized the brakes, nevertheless the crash was once unavoidable.

CHINA:CHINA FINISHES BIGGEST RADIO TELESCOPE ON THE PLANET

The biggest radio telescope on the planet formally opened on Sunday, as indicated by China's legitimate Xinhua News.

The Five-hundred-meter Opening Round Telescope, or Quick, is named after its measurement, which, at 500 meters, is 195 meters more extensive than the second-biggest telescope of its kind, the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

Xinhua reports the telescope cost $180 million, and 8,000 individuals were uprooted from their homes to make the important 3-mile range of radio quiet around the office. It will be utilized for "perception of pulsars and additionally investigation of interstellar particles and interstellar correspondence signals."

Pulsars are imploded centers of stars marginally bigger than the Sun, which discharge radiation that can be distinguished from earth, if your telescope is sufficiently delicate. A specialist with China's National Galactic Perception, Qian Lei, told Xinhua the new telescope is so delicate, in a test it distinguished radio waves from a pulsar 1,351 light-years away.

Like radio telescopes in different parts of the world, Quick will think about interstellar atoms identified with how cosmic systems advance. For instance, this late spring a group utilizing information from the Expansive Exhibit, a gathering of radio recieving wires in the New Mexico desert, grabbed what researchers depict as "weak radio discharge from nuclear hydrogen ... in a universe almost 5 billion light-years from Earth." In the paper depicting their discoveries, the group composes that the "up and coming era of radio telescopes," like Quick, will expand on their discoveries about how gasses act in systems.

With respect to Quick's last utilize, concentrating on interstellar correspondence signals, it could be all the more just alluded to as hunting down clever extraterrestrial life. "In principle, if there is human advancement in space, the radio sign it sends will be like the sign we can get when a pulsar ... is drawing nearer us," Qian told Chinese state media, as indicated by the science news site Phys.org.

Such correspondence could go both ways. In 1974, the Arecibo radio telescope sent a sign profound into space with a realistic containing, in addition to other things, pictures of "the Arecibo telescope, our nearby planetary group, DNA, a stick figure of a human, and a portion of the biochemicals of natural life," as per the SETI foundation, a logical association committed to the quest for extraterrestrial life.

In a meeting with the BBC, the delegate venture administrator for the new Chinese telescope, Peng Bo, said the undertaking was energizing for Chinese researchers. "For a long time, we have needed to go outside of China to mention objective facts — and now we have the biggest telescope," he told the BBC.

China's interest in space investigation is not constrained to earth-based telescopes. Despite the fact that it is not one of the nations that runs the Worldwide Space Station, China dispatches its own particular rockets conveying satellites. Not long ago, China propelled Tiangong-2, its second space lab, in no time before its first space lab fell back to earth.

TEENAGE SURFER STABLE AFTER SHARK ATTACK AT AUSTRALIAN SHORELINE

CANBERRA, Australia — An adolescent surfer was in stable condition after he was chomped by a shark Monday at the same Australian shoreline where a Japanese surfer was lethally battered a year ago, authorities said.

Cooper Allen, a 17-year-old secondary school understudy, was surfing with companions on the main day of the understudies' spring get-away when he was assaulted off Ballina's Beacon Shoreline at midmorning, Ballina Chairman David Wright said.

The shark struck from behind and bit no matter how you look at it blades as the kid lay on the board paddling. The shark's lower jaw attacked the fiberglass as its upper teeth clasped his right hip and thigh, Wright said.

"The shark slashed his leg in three or four places genuinely profound," Wright said. "Fortunately the lifeguards were on obligation and got down there rapidly."

"He ought to be alright. It was near his supply route," Wright included.

Cooper, a Ballina inhabitant, was taken by rescue vehicle to Lismore Base Healing facility, where he was in a steady condition, crisis administrations said.

Police Analyst Boss Examiner Cameron Lindsay said teeth marks on the board proposed an incredible white shark somewhere around 2.5 and 3 meter (8 to 10 feet) long. Police likewise said a 4-meter (13-foot) incredible white was spotted off Beacon Shoreline later in the morning.

In February a year ago, Japanese traveler Tadashi Nakahara, 41, kicked the bucket subsequent to losing both his legs to an extraordinary white 3 to 4 meters (10 to 13 feet) drawn-out period of time surfing at Beacon Shoreline.

Four shark assaults in the Ballina region have required clinic treatment since that disaster and there have been numerous more close misses, Wright said.

The state government a month ago relinquished arrangements to defend Beacon Shoreline with a 700-meter (770-yard) nylon shark boundary.

Three endeavored trials "distinguished huge establishment and support issues," the administration said.

Cooper, who had been a companion of Nakahara, told The Australian daily paper in July that such a boundary would be a misuse of cash.

"Regardless we go out there without the net, at our own particular decision. I don't think there is any requirement for it," Cooper told The Australian.

Wright said he was in talks with the state government on Monday to store observation automatons to check the shorelines. Tourism is Ballina's greatest industry and an expansion in shark assaults and alarms have decreased guest numbers as of late.

State Head Mike Baird said automatons would be sent to Ballina and his administration was trying other shark insurance advancements.

"We can't promise, obviously, at any shoreline, that individuals will be protected. Be that as it may, we'll do all that we can," Baird told correspondents.

All shorelines around Ballina, which is on the east drift 600 kilometers (350 miles) north of Sydney, will be shut for 24 hours after the assault, police said.

The last lethal assault in Australia was in June, when a 60-year-old jumper was slaughtered by a substantial shark off the west drift city of Perth.

Not exactly a week prior, a 29-year-old surfer kicked the bucket after his leg was gnawed off south of Perth.

Australia has found the middle value of less than two destructive assaults for every year in late decades.

SYRIA STRIFE:US AND UK TALK "INADMISSIBLE" - RUSSIA

Russia has reprimanded the US and UK for utilizing "unsuitable" tone and talk in addresses on Syria at the UN, in the wake of being blamed for "brutality".

On Sunday, US perpetual delegate Samantha Power said Russian and Syrian powers were "destroying" to attacked rebel-held ranges of the city of Aleppo.

Kremlin representative Dmitry Peskov cautioned that such dialect may harm endeavors to end the five-year common war.

Activists in the mean time reported many outside air strikes on Aleppo overnight.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said no less than two regular folks had been slaughtered, while a salvage laborer denounced the Syrian and Russian aviation based armed forces of utilizing weapons containing phosphorus and napalm, and bunch bombs.

No less than 124 individuals are accepted to have been slaughtered in agitator held Aleppo since a week ago, when a détente handled by the US and Russia crumpled and the Syrian military declared the begin of an operation to take full control of the city.

The US, UK and France, which back the restriction to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, straightforwardly blamed Russia for lying about its inclusion in the attack on Aleppo at a crisis session of the UN Security Gathering.

English changeless delegate Matthew Rycroft said Mr Assad's powers and Moscow had "dove to new profundities and unleashed another hellfire on Aleppo".
He charged that they were perpetrating atrocities by utilizing "fortification busting bombs to decimate underground sanctuaries, dropping ignitable weapons unpredictably on non military personnel ranges, and focusing on the city's water supplies.

Ms Power told the meeting: "Rather than seeking after peace, Russia and Assad make war. Rather than getting life-sparing guide to regular folks, Russia and Assad are besieging the helpful guards, healing centers, and specialists on call who are attempting urgently to keep individuals alive."

"What Russia is supporting and doing is not counterterrorism; it is boorishness," she included.'

ALEPPO:BODIES LITTER FLOOR AT IMPROVISED HEALING FACILITY

Doctor's facilities are attempting to adapt in Syria's Aleppo as government and Russian contender planes kept on beating the city's dissident held east, executing more than 200 individuals in less than a week.

Al Jazeera's Amr al-Halabi, reporting from a stopgap clinic in the city, portrayed a somber circumstance as the healing facility flooded with many dead and injured individuals.

"Dead individuals are on the floor of this stopgap clinic," Halabi said. "The circumstance here is frantic."

Bodies littered the ground inside and outside the office, as volunteers and relatives conveyed severly injured individuals inside, searching for somehere to put them down on a story officially full with air attack casualties.

"There is insufficient space for us. We need to leave promptly to make more space for those harmed," Halabi said as a surge of ambulances carried in the dead and injured, packing healing facility wards.

"It would seem that judgment day," he said.

At a crisis meeting of the UN on Sunday, the US, England and France charged Russia, a key military benefactor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, of war wrongdoings.

"What Russia is supporting and doing is not counter-fear mongering. It is boorishness," US Represetative Samantha Power said.

"It is hard to deny that Russia is joining forces with the Syrian administration to complete atrocities," said English Diplomat Matthew Rycroft, including that cutting edge weaponry had exacted "another damnation" on war-tired Syrians.

"None of the pastry kitchens are open any more due to the shelling and the deficiencies of fuel and flour, so individuals have begun making their own particular bread," 30-year-old Imad Habush from Bab al-Nayrab neighborhood told the AFP news organization.

"I don't know why the administration is bombarding us in this primitive way. We're regular folks here. We're not conveying weapons, and we're blockaded. We have no real way to get away."
UN Secretary-General Boycott Ki-moon has additionally cautioned the utilization of cutting edge weaponry against regular folks could add up to atrocities.

Boycott approached world forces to "work harder for a conclusion to the bad dream" in Syria that has constrained almost 50% of the nation's populace to escape their homes and executed several thousands.

NIGERIA: ARIK RESUME FLIGHTS AFTER SHUTDOWN

Nigeria's largest airline carrier Arik Air is to resume flights this morning after operations were suspended yesterday because of problems with its insurance policy.

This led to many passengers being stranded at airports across the country – although the managing director said the flight to London did leave yesterday.

In a statement, the airline urged the public to disregard reports suggesting that it was unable to meet its financial obligations to buy fuel or pay its insurance:

Arik Air is in good standing with its fuel suppliers and has been meeting its obligations to them and to our insurers.
With the regularization of the required documents relating to the renewal of the insurance, Arik Air will be resuming its normal flying schedule from 11:00 hours on Wednesday."
It's now just after noon in Nigeria - but it's not clear yet if the operations have restarted.

ISRAEL:BUILDING COLLAPSES IN TEL AVIV,INJURING SCORES

A multilevel underground parking garage collapsed at a Tel Aviv construction site on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring some 17 others, according to police and rescue workers.

The midday collapse sent a large plume of dust floating over the area. TV images showed a large, crater-like hole in the ground, and twisted support beams as rescue teams, accompanied by search dogs, dug through the rubble for survivors. The cause of the collapse was under investigation.

A construction worker from the site said he was underground in the garage when he began to feel vibrations
."All of a sudden everything collapsed," the man, identified only as Micha, told Channel 10 TV. "It was scary. You feel like everything is going to collapse, and you are going with it." Speaking to reporters at a hospital, he said he was blown backward by the blast and lightly injured.

Israel's national rescue service said two people, including a 35-year-old man, were confirmed dead, and 22 people injured. Israeli media said four people were still missing.

The incident occurred at a construction site in Ramat Hahayal, a commercial area in northern Tel Aviv. The neighborhood is home to many high-tech businesses, restaurants and a hospital.

SYRIA:BLASTS HIT GOVERNMENT HELD AREAS

At least 40 people have been killed and dozens wounded in five explosions across mostly government-controlled areas of Syria, according to state media reports.

Monday morning's blasts hit the coastal city of Tartous, the central city of Homs, the suburbs of the capital Damascus as well as the northeastern city of Hasaka, which is mostly controlled by Kurdish forces but where the government maintains a presence.

The blast in Hasaka was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

State media said at least 11 people were killed and 45 injured in a double bomb attack just outside Tartous, in the coastal province of the same name, which is a base of President Bashar al-Assad's government.

"Two terrorist blasts on Arzuna bridge, the first a car bomb and the second a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt when people gathered to help the wounded," Syrian state television said.

State media also reported five people killed in Hasaka, in the northeast of the country.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based monitor, said the blast hit a checkpoint belonging to the Kurdish Asayesh security forces.

And state media also reported a car bomb at the entrance to the Al-Zahra neighbourhood in Homs, which is controlled by the government.

It said at least two people were killed and four wounded in the bombing, which is the latest in a series of attacks targeting Al-Zahra, where most residents are Alawite, the sect to which President Bashar al-Assad belongs.

State media also reported another bomb attack on a road west of the capital Damascus, but gave no immediate toll in the blast.

That attack targeted a checkpoint and left three people dead, said the SOHR.

Top diplomats from the US and Russia on Monday failed to reach a deal to ease fighting in Syria amid the string of bomb attacks in the country.

As blasts maimed and killed in Syria, a senior State Department official said fresh crisis talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the margins of the G20 summit in China had ended without agreement.

A deal to provide aid to Aleppo's ravaged civilians and at least partially halt Russian and Syrian bombardments had looked likely on Sunday, before talks collapsed.

US officials accused Russia of backtracking on already agreed issues which Washington refused to revisit, but the talks seemed to have been overtaken by developments on the ground.

Syrian government troops renewed their siege of Aleppo on Sunday, with state media saying they had taken an area south of the city, severing the last opposition-held route into its eastern neighbourhoods.

Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo has been ravaged by the war that began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad's government in March 2011.

DEADLY TWIN BOMB ATTACK ON PAKISTAN COURT

At least 12 people were killed and 40 wounded when two bomb blasts went off at a district court in northwestern Pakistan, officials said.

A suicide bomber threw a hand grenade at police guards before storming into the compound and blowing himself up in the court in Mardan town in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

"So far we have recovered 12 bodies of the lawyers, police personnel and civilians. Besides this, we rescued 52 injured, including lawyers, police personnel and civilians, from the spot," Haris Habib, chief rescue officer in the city of Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the blasts took place, told the Reuters news agency.

Earlier, four suicide bombers who were trying to attack a Christian colony were killed during a gunfight with security forces outside the northwestern city of Peshawar, the army said.

Soldiers backed by army helicopters fought back the fighters who had tried to attack the colony near Warsak Dam, just north of Peshawar.

Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, said "all four suicide bombers were killed" in the operation carried out against the fighters on Friday and that a clearance operation was under way.

Local sources, though, told Al Jazeera that at least one civilian was killed and several wounded in the attack.

Two of the four suicide bombers detonated their vests and the other two were shot dead, the sources said.

Pakistani Taliban faction Jamaat-ur-Ahrar claimed responsibility for the attacks.

The group's spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, promised more attacks in a statement released to media.

"We appeal to civilians to remain away from law enforcement installations and these un-Islamic courts. We will target them more," he said.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said despite army claims to have limited the number of attacks, armed groups still managed to operate across the country.

"Just yesterday the Pakistan military gave a press conference in which they said they had been able to control the number of attacks in the country," he said.

"But it appears that the Tehreek-e-Taliban and their factions are still able to operate within Pakistan and carry out these attacks."

Last month, the Pakistan Taliban faction and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL,also known as ISIS) both claimed responsibility for a suicide attack at a hospital in Pakistan's Quetta that killed at least 70 people.

The attack targeted a group of mourning lawyers, who had gathered at the emergency department of the hospital to accompany the body of a murdered colleague.

The Pakistan army launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb under US pressure in 2014 in an effort to wipe out fighters and their bases in the North Waziristan tribal area.

TURKEY:THE DEATH OF UZBEK PRESIDENT

Uzbek President Islam Karimov, one of Asia's most authoritarian leaders, has died, Turkey says - despite no official Uzbek confirmation.

Mr Karimov, 78 and in power since 1989, was taken to hospital last week after a brain haemorrhage but the government has only said he is critically ill.

On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a televised meeting Mr Karimov had died.
Uzbek state TV channels have dropped light entertainment programmes.
Uzbekistan opens up on president's health Profile: Islam Karimov.

Mr Karimov has no clear successor. There is no legal political opposition and the media are tightly controlled by the state.

A UN report has described the use of torture as "systematic". Mr Karimov often justified his strong-arm tactics by highlighting the danger from Islamist militancy in the mainly Muslim country, which borders Afghanistan.
"
Uzbek President Islam Karimov has passed away," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live.

"May God's mercy be upon him, as the Turkish Republic we are sharing the pain and sorrow of Uzbek people."

ALASKA PLANE CRASH KILLS FIVE

Five people have died in a mid-air collision between two small commercial planes in the US state of Alaska.

There were no survivors from the crash, which happened in a remote area near the village of Russian Mission.

Those killed included three people on a Cessna from Hageland Aviation, a local airline, and two on a Piper operated by Renfro's Alaskan Adventures, a tourism company, Alaska's national guard said.

Mid-air collisions are rare in the US and most occur near airports.

THAILAND BOMBS ATTACK,LEFT DOZENS INJURED AND ONE PERSON KILLED

One person has been killed and 30 others injured after two bombs exploded in a busy nightlife district in Thailand's troubled southern province of Pattani.

The first bomb targeted a pub and karaoke bar late on Tuesday causing no casualties, before a second blast struck the same area 20 minutes later in an apparent " double - tap attack", the Bangkok Post newspaper said.

A series of bombings across central and southern Thailand on August 11 and 12 left four people dead and more than 30 injured.om Bangkok, said the second attack killed a woman and injured those who were responding to the first blast.

"Pattani is a frequent target by southern insurgents, but the use of a car bomb is less frequent than IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or gun attacks," he said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but some security experts have blamed southern secessionist groups.

In remarks after the blasts in Pattani, Prawit Wongsuwanm,Thailand's deputy military leader, dismissed any link between the August 11-12 bombings and the unrest in the south.

Earlier on Tuesday, two Chinese nationals went on trial for their alleged roles in a deadly bombing in a Hindu shrine in Bangkok one year ago.

Since 2004, more than 6,200 have been killed and 11,000 injured as armed groups fight for the creation of an independent state combining Thailand's three southern Muslim-majority provinces: Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

The three provinces soundly rejected a referendum earlier this month on a new military-backed constitution, which passed convincingly in most of the rest of Thailand.

ITALY:DEADLY EARTHQUAKE STRIKES UMBRIA,CENTRAL ITALY

About 37 people have died after a deadly earthquake struck central Italy, destroying scores of villages.

The official death toll from the civil protection agency on Wednesday came hours after rescue efforts to save people trapped under collapsed buildings.

The first confirmed victims of the earthquake were an elderly couple whose home collapsed at Pescara del Tronto in the Marche region to the east of the epicentre, national broadcaster Rai and other media outlets reported.

Many others were trapped, feared dead, in their collapsed houses close to the epicentre.

The US Geological Survey said it was a 6.2 magnitude quake that hit near the town of Norcia, in the region of Umbria, at 3.36am local time (01:36 GMT).

The earthquake caused buildings to collapse and sent panicked residents fleeing into the streets of numerous towns and cities.

The mayor of the small town of Amatrice reported extensive damage.

"Half the town is gone," Sergio Pirozzi told RAI state television. "There are people under the rubble. ...There's been a landslide and a bridge might collapse."

Italy's civil protection agency said the earthquake was "severe".

A 5.5 magnitude aftershock hit the same region an hour after the initial quake.
Luca Cari, fire department spokesman, said "there have been reports of victims" in the quake zone, but he did not have any precise details.

Besides Amatrice, the worst hit towns were believed to be Accumoli, Posta and Arquata del Tronto, Cari told Reuters news agency, adding that helicopters would be sent up at first light to assess the damage.

Gilberto Saccorotti, a geologist at Italy's National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, told Al Jazeera: "That particular area has a long history of very [powerful], very energetic seismicity. It's not surprising to have had a [powerful] earthquake there.

"From my knowledge of the area, the roads are very narrow, so if one road fails, the connection may become very difficult. ... The depth is quite shallow, about four kilometre. Usually the typical depth is in the order of ten kilometres."


Saccarotti said it is difficult to predict whether there will be another earthquake or more aftershocks.

Residents of Rome, about 170km from the registered epicentre, were woken by Wednesday's tremors, which rattled furniture and swayed lights in most of central Italy.

A hostel on the Gran Sasso mountain, a popular area for hikers and climbers, said on its Facebook page that a large piece of rock had collapsed as a result of the tremor.

The spokesperson for Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister, said on Twitter the government was in touch with the country's civil protection agency and following the situation closely.

The last major earthquake to hit Italy struck the central city of L'Aquila in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

NIGERIA:SENIOR BOKO HARAM FIGHTERS KILLED

The leader of the Boko Haram group is believed to be fatally wounded in an air strike carried out by the Nigerian military in the country's northeast, according to official sources.

Government planes attacked the group inside the Sambisa forest on Friday, the Nigerian air force said on Tuesday, adding that it had only just confirmed details of the impact of the raid.

"Their leader, so-called 'Abubakar Shekau', is believed to be fatally wounded on his shoulders," said the statement released by military spokesman Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman.

Usman also said three Boko Haram commanders - Abubakar Mubi, Malam Nuhu and Malam Hamman - were confirmed dead and several others wounded.

There was no immediate reaction from Boko Haram to the government's claims.

Shekau's camp

Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idris, reporting from Nigeria's capital Abuja, said the air strike was launched when fighters had gathered for "some sort of a ceremony".

In recent months, Nigerian forces, with the support of regional troops, have recaptured large expanses of territory lost to the fighters.

Shekau's fate has been the subject of speculation recently amid claims he had been replaced by Sheikh Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the group's former spokesman.

Barnawi's appointment was announced in a magazine issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March last year.

But only a week later, Shekau surfaced in a video posted on social media, ridiculing suggestions of his death and looking more composed and energetic than in previous appearances.

The Nigerian military has reported Shekau's death in the past, only to have a man purporting to be him surface later, apparently unharmed, in video statements.

Boko Haram, which seeks to impose a strict Islamic law in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, has killed about 20,000 people and forced at least 2.6 million others to flee their homes since 2009.

"The attack happened on Friday on Shekau's camp. We know that the Chibok girls are held at the Shekau camp. Nigeria's army says it is doing everything possible to rescue them."

The group kidnapped 270 schoolgirls in April 2014 and security sources believe it is holding some of them in Sambisa forest.  

The Nigerian claim comes as John Kerry, the US secretary of state, visits the country for talks expected to focus on the fight against Boko Haram, which launched an armed campaign in 2009.

SOUTH AFRICA:WOMAN JAILED FOR KIDNAPPING

A South African woman who kidnapped a newborn baby nearly two decades ago from a hospital and raised the girl as her own has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.

Judge John Hlophe told the 52-year-old convicted kidnapper she had caused the biological parents whose baby was taken from them "immense" pain, the African News Agency reported.

Publicly, the young woman who was kidnapped as a baby is known as Zephany Nurse, the name given to her by her biological parents and used in the media in the years since her disappearance.

After she was found, the girl chose to continue using the name given to her by the kidnapper.

To protect her privacy, a judge ordered that her adopted name and the name of her kidnapper not be used by the media.

Judge Hlophe criticised the kidnapper for sticking to her story that she had bought the baby from a woman who told her that the biological parents did not want the child.

"At the very least, one would expect you to apologise, but you chose not to," the African News Agency quoted Judge Hlophe as saying.

The family of the convicted kidnapper blew kisses to her as she was led to a holding cell after the sentencing in Cape Town, according to the agency.

It also reported a confrontation between the kidnapper's family and Zephany Nurse's biological family outside the courthouse.

"She belongs to us," said Chantall Berry, Zephany Nurse's aunt. "She has our DNA. Her DNA will never change."

Zephany Nurse was reunited last year with her biological parents, Morne and Celeste Nurse, after the couple's second daughter befriended a girl at school who looked remarkably like her.

A police investigation and DNA tests showed that the two girls were sisters and that the new friend was the Nurses' missing child.

Zephany Nurse's biological parents were in court for the sentencing but their daughter was not.

Zephany Nurse has not been allowed contact with the convicted kidnapper but has been living with the kidnapper's husband, who she thought was her biological father, according to South African media reports.

The kidnapper snatched the three-day-old baby from her sleeping mother's hospital bedside in Cape Town in April 1997, state prosecutors said.

The prosecution also said the woman de

frauded authorities when she registered the child as her own daughter in 2003 under a false birth date