NEWS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

US/ HOLLYWOOD FILM COMES TO LIFE IN CHICAGO ROBBERY: An armed man and woman robbed a Chicago bank yesterday in a heist that the FBI said looked like a scene from the movies. The masked and armed thieves made off with a bag full of money when they robbed the bank inside a suburban Chicago grocery store. The thieves were dressed as nuns and wearing habits and masks similar to the bank robbers in last year's Hollywood film, "The Town".  The pair pulled out handguns as they entered the bank branch and then jumped over the counter and ordered a teller and bank manager to open the vault and fill a bag they brought with money. The pair then drove off in a silver colored 4 door Chevrolet. The FBI is currently searching for the pair who made off with an undisclosed amount of money.

WORLD/ MOBILE PHONES "POSSIBLY CARCINOGENIC": The World Health Organization's cancer research agency said today that mobile phones are "possibly carcinogenic".m A review of evidence suggests an increased risk of a malignant type of brain cancer cannot be ruled out. However, any link is not certain, and they concluded that it was "not clearly established that it does cause cancer in humans". A cancer charity said the evidence was too weak to draw strong conclusions from. Cancer Research UK, said: "The WHO's verdict means that there is some evidence linking mobile phones to cancer but it is too weak to draw strong conclusions from. The vast majority of existing studies have not found a link between phones and cancer, and if such a link exists, it is unlikely to be a large one. The risk of brain cancer is similar in people who use mobile phones compared to those who don't, and rates of this cancer have not gone up in recent years despite a dramatic rise in phone use during the 1980s". A group of 31 experts has been meeting in Lyon, France, to review human evidence coming from epidemiological studies.

WORLD/ CONCERN OVER DROP IN WILDLIFE IN MARA REGION OF KENYA: The Populations of wildlife species in the world-renowned Masai Mara reserve in Kenya have crashed in the past 3 decades, according to new research published in the Journal of Zoology. Numbers of impala, warthog, giraffe, topi and Coke's hartebeest have declined by over 70%, say scientists. Even fewer survive beyond the reserve in the wider Mara, where buffalo, pictured, and wild dogs have all but disappeared, while huge numbers of wildebeest no longer pass through the region on their epic migration. However, numbers of cattle grazing in the reserve have increased by more than 1100% per cent, although it is illegal for them to so do. This explosion in the numbers of domestic livestock grazing in the Mara region of south-west Kenya, including within the Masai Mara national reserve, is one of the principal reasons wildlife has disappeared, say the scientists who conducted the research. Of the 13 large species studied, only ostriches and elephants had not fared badly outside of the reserve, while inside the Masai Mara only eland, Grant's gazelle and ostrich showed any signs of population recovery in the past decade. The full study can be found in the Journal of Zoology.

WORLD/ AUSSIES OUTRAGED OVER CATTLE MISTREATMENT IN INDONESIA: A potentially huge diplomatic row is brewing between Australia and Indonesia after Australia's Agriculture Minister moved to suspend live animal exports to a number of slaughterhouses in Indonesia. The live cattle trade between Australia and Indonesia has been called into question after a report featuring video collected by Animals Australia showed the brutal mistreatment of cattle exported from Australia in a number of abattoirs in Indonesia. The Australian Agriculture Minister said today he had asked Australian officials to prepare orders that would enforce the complete suspension of live animal exports to the facilities identified by Animals Australia. He reserved the right to add further Indonesian facilities to the banned list. Indonesia's Vice-Minister of Agriculture has warned against an overreaction to the report in Australia, noting the importance of the live cattle trade to both countries. The video report has caused outrage in Australia, with tens of thousands of Aussies going online and adding their names to petitions to ban cattle export. (SK COMMENT: I have seen the videos and they are not only shocking, but appalling. Indonesia's excuses, which blames the culture of the country, just do not wash. Anyone, no matter where they live, understands what animal cruelty looks like).

WORLD/ SERBIA EXTRADITES MLADIC TO THE HAGUE: Ratko Mladic is being flown from Belgrade to a UN tribunal in The Hague, after a Serbian court today rejected an appeal against his transfer. Serbia's justice minister said she had signed the extradition order. After the hearing, the former Bosnian Serb army chief was taken to the Airport. He faces genocide charges over the Bosnian conflict in the 1990s. His lawyer had argued he was too ill to be tried. But doctors said he was fit enough to be extradited. The 69 year old was seized last Thursday in Lazarevo village, north of Belgrade, having been on the run for 16 years. He is accused of crimes against humanity, including the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of at least 7500 Muslim men and boys. Once he arrives at the tribunal, there will be an initial hearing before preparations begin for his trial on genocide and other charges. (SK COMMENT: Well done Serbia! Mladic deserves no sympathy for his role in the Srebrenica massacre).

WORLD/ DRAFT REPORT SAYS HAITI QUAKE TOLL LOWER THAN THOUGHT: Significantly fewer people died or were left homeless by last year's earthquake in Haiti than claimed by the country's leaders, according to a draft report commissioned by the US government. The unpublished report puts the death toll between 46,000 and 85,000. Haiti's government says about 316,000 died in the 7.0 earthquake on January 12, 2010. The report also suggests many of those still living in tent cities did not lose their homes in the disaster. The draft report, which has yet to be released publicly, is based on a survey commissioned by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and draws its numbers from door-to-door surveys carried out over 29 days in January 2011. But a US State Department spokeswoman said the report had inconsistencies and would not be released until they were resolved. The report also estimates that about 895,000 people moved into temporary settlement camps around the country's capital of Port-au-Prince and says that no more than 375,000 individuals are now still living in the tent communities. Those figures conflict with the numbers provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which has said 1.5m people moved into the camps after the quake and that there are still 680,000 in settlement camps around the capital.