Riot police fired teargas at stone-throwing youths in central Athens on Wednesday as thousands of striking Greek state sector workers marched against cuts the government says are needed to save the nation from bankruptcy.Youths broke up marble paving slabs in central Syntagma Square and hurled the chunks at police in full riot gear. The police responded by firing teargas grenades and chasing the protesters through the square and into surrounding streets.Flights were grounded, schools shut and government offices closed in Greece's first nationwide walkout in months. Labour leaders call it the start of a campaign to derail emergency austerity steps launched last month by a government that has already imposed two years of tax hikes and wage cuts... Read on

An Israeli scientist who suffered years of ridicule and even lost a research post for claiming to have found an entirely new class of solid material was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry on Wednesday for his discovery of quasicrystals.Three decades after Daniel Shechtman looked with an electron microscope at a metal alloy and saw a pattern familiar in Islamic art but then unknown at a molecular level, those non-stick, rust-free, heat-resistant quasicrystals are finding their way into tools from LEDs to engines and frying pans... Read on

Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Wednesday it had thwarted a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai after arresting a bodyguard and five people with links to the Haqqani network and al Qaeda.The plotters, who included university students and a medical professor, had been trained to launch attacks in the capital Kabul and had recruited one of Karzai's bodyguards to kill the president, the National Directorate of Security (NDS) said."A dangerous and educated group including teachers and students wanted to assassinate President Hamid Karzai," spokesman Lutfullah Mashal told a news conference."Unfortunately they infiltrated the presidential protection system and recruited one of the president's bodyguards... Read on

Steve Jobs, the transcendent Silicon Valley entrepreneur who reinvented the world's computing, music and mobile phone industries and changed the daily habits of millions around the globe, died on Wednesday at the age of 56.His death after a years-long battle with pancreatic cancer sparked an immediate outpouring of tributes as world leaders, business rivals and fans alike lamented the tragedy of his premature passing and celebrated his monumental achievements."The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement... Read on

Somalia's al Qaeda-linked rebels struck at the heart of the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, killing scores of people with a truck bomb in the group's most deadly single attack since launching an insurgency in 2007.Mogadishu's ambulance coordinator Ali Muse said at least 70 people had been killed by the blast. Initial official estimates were lower, but were expected to rise as the dead and wounded had been taken to a number of sites in the capital.Witnesses said a truck exploded at the gate of a compound housing government ministries in the K4 (Kilometre 4) area of Mogadishu, where students and parents had gathered to await the results of scholarship exams... Read on

American student Amanda Knox flew home free on Tuesday after spending four years in an Italian jail, leaving the family of murdered British student Meredith Kercher racked with anguish that they are no closer to the truth about her killing.Knox, cleared of the murder by an appeals court on Monday night, left Rome shortly before midday for London where she and her family were boarding a connecting flight to their home in Seattle, airport officials said.The 24-year-old broke down sobbing and nearly collapsed with emotion on Monday night after an appeals court in Perugia ruled she and her former boyfriend, Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito, were not guilty of killing Kercher and should be freed immediately... Read on

The "astounding" discovery that the expansion of the universe is speeding up won the Nobel physics prize on Tuesday for three astronomers whose observations of exploding stars transformed our view of the world, and of how it may end.Honouring two global teams of stargazers who shook cosmology to its foundations in 1998, the Nobel Committee said Americans Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess had shown how the universe that emerged from the Big Bang may fly apart so far, cooling as it goes, that it "will end in ice... Read on

European finance ministers are considering making banks take bigger losses on Greek debt and have postponed a vital aid payment to Athens until mid-November, setting up a moment of truth in the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the country had enough cash to cope until then and insisted that euro zone ministers are not preparing for a Greek default, despite the ominous delay."There is no discussion of default," Venizelos told a news conference on returning to Athens on Tuesday.European bank shares tumbled for the second day, leading a broader stock market retreat, after the 17 finance ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, called for a review of a July 21 debt swap agreement with private holders of Greek bonds... Read on

AN ITALIAN court cleared 24-year-old American Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend of murdering British student Meredith Kercher in 2007 and ordered them to be set free yesterday after nearly four years in prison for a crime they always denied committing.Seattle native Knox and Italian computer student Raffaele Sollecito, had appealed against a 2009 verdict that found them guilty of murdering 21-year-old Kercher during what prosecutors said was a drug-fuelled sexual assault four years ago.Looking pale and tense as the sentence was read out in a packed Perugia court room, Knox was led away in tears and close to collapse by police officers... Read on

 A SCIENTIST who won the Nobel prize for medicine yesterday for work on fighting cancer died of the disease himself just three days before he could be told of his award, and after using his own discoveries to extend his life.Canadian-born Ralph Steinman, 68, had been treating himself with a groundbreaking therapy based on his own research into the body's immune system but died on Friday after a four-year battle with pancreatic cancer. His colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York called it a "bittersweet" honour... Read on