Moussavi, Khatami blast Iran trials

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi and reformist former President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday blasted the trials of people arrested in post-election demonstrations. Those on trial had been tortured into confessions, Moussavi said in a statement posted on his Ghalam News Web site. “They have been stepped on so severely that they would have confessed to anything else, had they been instructed to do so,” Moussavi said.

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What’s Behind Japan’s Love Affair with Robots?

If Japanese engineers had their way, we might soon be cheering on a robotic World Series. Every year or two, Japanese researchers roll out a new robotic invention — the latest to grab headlines earlier this month was a mechanized baseball duo of a batter and pitcher that can throw 90% of its pitches in the strike zone

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Clean Energy: U.S. Still Lags in Research and Development

When Apollo astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon 40 years ago, it was a triumph of American scientific skill. It was also the result of the government’s willingness to spend over $125 billion, in today’s dollars, to take the country to the moon. The need to remake our energy economy and to replace fossil fuels with renewables like wind and solar is often referred to as the new Apollo Project, a challenge to our scientists — and to the federal checkbook — that will be even greater than the moon race

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De facto Honduran president changes course, calls for envoy

Honduran interim President Roberto Micheletti’s hard-line stance against the return of ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya has softened, he said, but the signing of a proposed agreement to end the country’s political crisis remained uncertain. In a statement released late Wednesday, Micheletti said an agreement presented by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias “is the best path toward the achievement of consensus in Honduras.” Micheletti’s announcement was an apparent change of position, given that it was accompanied by a call to Arias to send a special envoy to Honduras to persuade political and business leaders to embrace the agreement, too. In the month since Zelaya’s ouster, members of Micheletti’s government have repeatedly stated that Zelaya’s return is an unacceptable condition

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Soros: In revolutionary times the impossible becomes possible

From the mid-1980s, Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist George Soros pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into foundations in Eastern Europe dedicated to promoting the idea of the "open society" and challenging the region’s Soviet-backed regimes. Here, writing exclusively for CNN.com, he describes how the work of his foundations ultimately contributed to the collapse of communism. I set up my first foundation in Hungary in 1984.

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Schoolyard Bullying: Which Kids Are Most Vulnerable?

Playground gibes are a rite of passage for most school-age kids, but for some children, teasing at school can turn into outright violence and abuse. Researchers say that as many as 1 in 10 children suffer physical attacks, name-calling and other social aggression at school, and a new study suggests that a child’s risk of becoming a chronic victim of bullying may depend on factors that appear very early in life.

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