Three Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft successfully evacuated some 150 civilians of multiple nationalities from eastern Libya, according to a statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The civilians were retrieved from multiple locations in the desert south of Benghazi, said Liam Fox, the secretary of state for defense. Another 150 civilians were flown out by British forces in similar missions mounted Saturday, according to previous statements from the FCO
One plane was hit by small arms fire when it tried to land at an airstrip, according to a press officer with the Ministry of Defence, but the damage was superficial, and the plane was able to continue. All three aircraft have arrived in Malta, the officer said.
At a news conference Sunday, Cameron celebrated the successful return of the three C-130s. "Good work has been done today," he said. "I pay tribute to the very brave pilots and armed services personnel who've managed to help so many British citizens back to safety."
I think this is good for the Lybian situation because it would help to stop the violence in that country.
6.0-magnitude quake strikes Chile
-- A magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck Chile on Sunday evening, the U.S. Geological Survey said. It was centered 23 miles south of Concepcion in southern Chile.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
The quake, which struck at a depth of 10 miles (16 kilometers), occurred on the one-year anniversary of an 8.8-magnitude temblor that killed 521 people and left thousands homeless in the South American nation.
I think Chile is a very organized country and have been affected by the natural disasters but it have been resistant and in my opinion these had produce a better davelopment.
Iraq PM gives ministers 100 days to shape up:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave government ministers 100 days to deliver results and eliminate corruption or be fired, the government announced after an emergency cabinet meeting Sunday.
The announcement follows weeks of demonstrations across the country by protesters angry about unemployment, poor basic services, corruption and a lack of freedom. At least 13 people died in protests Friday.The prime minister said Sunday there would be investigations into the deaths to determine who started the violence.
The work of every ministry will be assessed after 100 days, al-Maliki vowed.
"Changes will be made based on these assessments," he warned.
Since early February, thousands of protesters have participated in a series of demonstrations across the country, apparently inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
Its a good proposal for this country to avoid violence and obligate people to stop producing it.
Opposition party ahead in Ireland elections:
The country's main opposition party is now the largest parliamentary seatholder, election officials confirmed Sunday, while Fianna Fail -- the party that has ruled for 60 of the past 80 years -- appeared headed for its worst election ever.
Although votes in Friday's election were still being counted Sunday, Fianna Fail conceded defeat.
The results appear to clear a path for center-right Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny to become Ireland's next prime minister.
Senior party members said he is likely to enter negotiations with the center-left Labour Party about forming a coalition government.
The Dublin government late last year negotiated an 85-billion-euro ($113-billion) loan package from the European Union, International Monetary Fund, and individual European nations as the crippling cost of bailing out its banks during the financial crisis took its toll on national coffers.
Many voters blamed Fianna Fail for the country's monetary woes, and Irish prime minister Brian Cowen was so unpopular he had to step down as leader of Fianna Fail before the election.
His likely replacement as prime minister, Kenny, had made it clear during the election campaign he would try to renegotiate the terms of the international bailout.
However, given the dire state of the country's public finances, the new government will have no option but to continue with austerity measures.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams said the election results represented "a new era" for Irish politics.
He gambled his political future by moving from Northern Ireland to stand in the Republic for the first time. He scored a significant victory, topping the poll in his constituency of Louth on the first count in the proportional representation election.
The opposition had been showing their goals in the last months and they pretend to take the government in Ireland.
High winds, dry weather spark fires across Texas Sunday: Heavy winds and dry weather helped set off a rash of fires across a wide swath of north, central and west Texas on Sunday, state forestry officials said.
The Texas Forest Service reported 15,000 acres caught fire across the state. The largest concentration of blazes broke out around the west Texas town of Midland and near the panhandle city of Amarillo, where meteorologists reported wind gusts of up to 69 miles an hour.There have been no fatalities, said Lewis Kearney, a spokesman for the forest service's Texas State Lone Star Incident Management Team. However, the high winds made it difficult for firefighters to use aircraft to contain the blazes.
Kearney said heavy winds are expected to blow across much of the state into Monday, thus making it more likely that firefighters could be many hours away from dousing the final flames spread by the winds.
Kearney said "numerous homes" have been burned in west Texas and that firefighters were continuing to battle the blazes as of Sunday night.
In Amarillo, the National Weather Service reported that as of 2:32 p.m. CT Sunday afternoon a mandatory evacuation order had been issued in northeast Potter County. A second evacuation order was issued for the city of Borger a half hour later.
Throughout the afternoon, fires consumed large swaths of land ranging from 30 to 800 acres in Haskell, Mitchell, Howard, Randall and Tom Green counties, among others.
Its gret for texas because it avoid an almost disaster
Shuttle Discovery docks with space station for 13th and final time:
Some 220 miles above the Earth's surface, the shuttle Discovery docked Saturday afternoon with the International Space Station for the last time.
Due to problems lining up with each other, the shuttle's "hard-mating" with the permanent orbiter threatened to push the six-man crew off schedule. The hook-up was finished around 3 p.m., yet NASA's Mission Control noted a possibility that the installation of an express logistics carrier would not be completed until Sunday, one day later than planned.Instead, the crew took a little longer to tackle the job -- getting permission from the space agency's mission control to sleep in an extra 30 minutes in return for the long day's work, according to NASA's Twitter feed.
Having been removed from the shuttle's cargo bay and attached to the station's truss, or backbone, the 8,235-pound logistics carrier will be used to stow spare parts, including an extra radiator that was brought up by Discovery's crew.
Overall, there were no major problems on the third day of the shuttle's 11-day mission, during which the crew is set to deliver a storage module, a science rig and spare parts to the space station and its six occupants.
Hatches to and from the shuttle and space station opened at 4:16 p.m. Saturday, followed by a brief welcome ceremony and safety briefing.
Originally scheduled for November, the shuttle's launch had been delayed to make repairs to the external tank's support beams.
I think the discovery was a very functional system that the Nasa used becuase almost never had problems and completes the missions with excellent results.
Navy police shoot one sailor in gut after chase at San Diego base:
Navy police shot one sailor in the gut and took another into custody early Saturday after their vehicle smashed into two police cruisers following a chase at San Diego's naval base, a military spokesman said.
The wounded sailor is in stable condition at the University of California San Diego Medical Center after undergoing surgery, said Brian O'Rourke, the Navy's public affairs officer for the southwest region. The other sailor was uninjured.
No charges have been filed against either the driver, who was shot, or his passenger. O'Rourke said that they had been stopped around 1:30 a.m. at a gate outside the San Diego Naval Base on strong suspicions of drunken driving.
A gate guard then called for assistance from Navy police units. But before a Breathalyzer could be given, the driver sped inside the base and was soon pursued by military police. The sailors tried to go through another gate, which had been shut down according to protocol, but instead slammed into the security vehicles, O'Rourke said.
The passenger then got out of the car, but the driver continued. Naval police officers then opened fire, eventually hitting that sailor in the abdomen.
In a statement, the Navy said its police decided to use "deadly force" after determining "the driver represented a threat to the lives of officers."
The passenger is being held on base, the biggest on the West Coast and home to 59 ported ships and thousands of sailors.
O'Rourke said police and others at the base just finished a week of security training, preparing them for an incident like this.
Formal charges -- which have not yet been specified -- are likely to be filed Monday against the car's driver and possibly its passenger, the spokesman said.
It`s really bad luck that the navy police have to act in this way.
676 arrested, tons of drugs seized in U.S. bust of Mexican cartels: U.S. law enforcement seized thousands of pounds of drugs and arrested hundreds of people in a synchronized bust targeting Mexican drug cartels and their associates, federal authorities said Friday.
The sweep involved several local, state and federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a statement from that organization.Together, they arrested 676 people and seized more than $12 million, 282 weapons and 94 vehicles around the United States. In addition, nearly 40,000 pounds of marijuana, 467 kilograms of cocaine, 64 pounds of methamphetamine and 21 pounds of heroin were captured in the operation, the statement said.
John Morton, the immigration and customs agency's director, said the effort showed what U.S. law enforcement could do when working together on the issue, while stressing that its work wasn't complete.
"Through our continued coordination and cooperation with Mexican law enforcement, ICE agents and officers will strike at the very heart of these organizations by seizing the drugs, guns and money that fuel their criminal enterprises," Morton said.
The joint operation began Wednesday, roughly a week and a half after immigrations and customs' agent Jaime Zapata was ambushed on a highway while working in Mexico.
Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Michael Sanders said the agencies are trying to send a message to cartel operatives in the United States. He described most of the targets as mid- to high-level dealers, the type who have day jobs but work in cells that distribute drugs and return drug money to Mexico.
A Houston police officer was shot Thursday as he tried to serve a narcotics warrant while taking part in the sweep. Officers returned fire, striking the suspect. The suspect's condition was unknown, police spokesman Kese Smith said.
It was a good effort from the United States authority and it helps to avoid the quantity od deads at the separation between Mexico and U.S.
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