SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- North Korea has escalated its military and diplomatic confrontation with America, responding to US military drills with a bellicose declaration that its rockets were ready to hit American bases in the Pacific. In the latest of a volley of military threats and purple rhetoric, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, warned that "the time has come to settle accounts with the US imperialists in view of the prevailing situation". The official KCNA news agency…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- AT WORK, as in life, attractive women get a lot of the breaks. Studies have shown that they are more likely to be promoted than their plain-Jane colleagues. Because people tend to project positive traits onto them, such as sensitivity and poise, they may also be at an advantage in job interviews. The only downside to hotness is having to fend off ghastly male colleagues; or so many people think. But research by two Israelis…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- An hour before her colleagues gathered for their first vote of a new Congress, Senator Kelly Ayotte slipped into an empty Senate chamber to savor the grandeur of her legislative home. As Ms. Ayotte, a freshman Republican from New Hampshire, sat down at the wooden desk where generations of lawmakers from her state had cast their votes, a doorman marched toward her with purpose. Ms. Ayotte’s induction that January day in 2011 into the most rarefied…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The new archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has highlighted the challenge faced by the Anglican church over gay relationships ahead of his enthronement on Thursday, saying he has friends who are in long-term gay relationships of "stunning" success. The 105th archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the worldwide Anglican community, who will become the first holder of the office to be enthroned by a woman at the afternoon ceremony, has written to Peter Tatchell offering to…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The men jumped at the Craigslist ad for work on an Ohio cattle farm. In tough economic times, it was a job they desperately needed, a chance to pick up some needed cash. Instead, it cost them their lives. A Summit County jury opined Wednesday that the man responsible for their deaths -- 53-year-old Richard James Beasley -- should meet the same fate. After convicting Beasley last week on 26 counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping,…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Fiqh     www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- The brutal gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old medical student on a moving Delhi bus last December sparked a wave of protests across India, and inspired a newly-strengthened set of laws on rape, street harassment and other forms of violence against women. But ongoing reports of sexual violence, and news of yet another gang rape in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, is proof that — in India and everywhere else — there is…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- IT IS not a fudge, but it is still a failure. The euro zone’s bail-out of Cyprus, which was sealed in the early hours of Saturday, did get the bill for creditor countries down from €17 billion to €10 billion, as had been rumoured. But the way it did so was somewhat unexpected. Almost €6 billion of the savings for taxpayers in euro-zone countries came from losses imposed on depositors in Cyprus’s outsize banks.…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- In an ideal world, our jobs wouldn’t require multitasking. We could singlemindedly focus on one thing at a time and get them done. Alas, the real world isn’t quite so accommodating.  Most of us have jobs that require us to handle several tasks at once. And oftentimes, we’re not that good at multitasking. Fortunately, if you have trouble multitasking, it turns out that there may be a solution: playing first person shooter video games. That,…

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Figh (Pat 2) www.shafaqna.com/English