Arafat grave dug up

Arafat grave dug up

ramallah, west bank

Eight years after Yasser Arafat’s mysterious death, his political heirs opened his grave Tuesday and let forensics experts take samples from his remains, defying strong cultural taboos in search of evidence that the icon of Palestinian nationalism was poisoned.

Palestinians have claimed for years that Israel poisoned Arafat, who died in a French hospital. Israel has denied the charges.

The exhumation marked the end of months of procedural wrangling but only the beginning of the testing.

Graph suggests Iran is working on bomb

vienna

Iranian scientists have run computer simulations for a nuclear weapon that would produce more than triple the explosive force of the World War II bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, according to a diagram obtained by The Associated Press.

The diagram was leaked by officials from a country critical of Iran’s atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. The officials provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country not be named.

Mass protest in Egypt

cairo

The same chants used against Hosni Mubarak were turned against his successor Tuesday as more than 200,000 people packed Egypt’s Tahrir Square in the biggest challenge yet to Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. The massive, flag-waving throng protesting Morsi’s assertion of near-absolute powers rivaled some of the largest crowds that helped drive Mubarak from office last year.

Clashes broke out in several cities, leaving at least 100 people injured.

20 killed as Syrian planes bomb factory

beirut

Syrian warplanes bombed an olive oil factory packed with farmers Tuesday, killing at least 20 people in the latest regime strike to rip through a crowd of civilians, activists said.

The bombing comes as the civil war takes a devastating toll on an already beleaguered population.

Family challenges ‘locator’ chips in IDs

austin, texas

To 15-year-old Andrea Hernandez, the tracking microchip embedded in her student ID card is a sacrilege to her Christian faith.

But to her budget-reeling San Antonio school district, those chips carry a potential $1.7 million in classroom funds.

Starting this fall, the fourth-largest school district in Texas is experimenting with “locator” chips in student ID badges on two of its campuses, allowing administrators to track the whereabouts of 4,200 students with GPS-like precision.

Hernandez’s refusal to participate has launched a debate over privacy and religion.

4 women file suit, seek combat service

san francisco

Four female service members filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the Pentagon’s ban on women serving in combat, hoping the move will add pressure to drop the policy just as officials are gauging the effect that lifting the prohibition will have on morale.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, is the second one this year over the 1994 rule that bars women from being assigned to ground combat units, which are smaller and considered more dangerous since they are often in battle for longer periods.

Associated Press