Islamic militants seize Somali coastal town

A heavily armed Islamic group has taken control of Haradheere, a coastal town used as a base for pirates situated in northern Somalia.

Fighters from Hizbul Islam gained control of the town Sunday morning. It is believed they entered the town unchallenged and have pledged to take over more towns in the region.

Senior officials of the group have stated their intent to build a local government in Haradheere to entrench their power.

Sheikh Mohammed Osman Arus, a Hizbul Islam spokesman, denied claims that the group entered the town to engage in piracy.

However pirates said the group had approached them to demand a share of their plunder, but they refused. It is believed at least three hijacked vessels are being held in the town.

Hizbul Islam say the are restoring law and order but the allure of highly lucrative pirate trade could have been too hard to ignore.

The fundamentalist group has vowed to topple the UN-backed government in Mogadishu, which is protected by 3,000 African Union soldiers.

I cannot help but guess at the complaints circulating Haradheere at the moment. Perhaps something along the lines of: 'Bloody Islamic militants, coming here and taking our jobs.' I assume many other hardworking pirates agree.

Astrophysicist Brian Cox reveals the third greatest threat to humanity: the supernova

Channel 4's Alternative Election 2010 was a great way to pass the first three hours of election night, especially because during this period absolutely nothing happens. Unless you count Labour's victory in its stronghold Sunderland as a surprise.

At one point Jimmy Carr interviewed Brian Cox, the former band member of D:Ream which was responsible for the New Labour 'Things Can Only Get Better' back in 1997. He's also a highly respected particle physicist who spends a lot of time in the Large Hadron Collider and making documentaries about our solar system.

One thing I was surprised and slightly disturbed to learn about him was how excitable he sounded about the several ways nature could wipe out our species. Asked to list the top five threats to humanity he reeled off in ascending order supervolcanoes, plague, supernovas, asteroids and finally our own stupidity.

As he was outlining why a supervolcano in Indonesia, which erupted 70,000 years ago leaving India coated in ash and our species' breeding population at a measly 1,000, could well be set to blow again, the glint in his eye made me wonder whether how keen he was to witness the event in his lifetime.

When he got to the Bettlejuice supernova , which he said would wipe out all life on earth if it was pointing towards us at the time it imploded, I decided to do a bit of further research (ie. scan a few paragraphs on wikipedia). I then understood the glint in his eye: this stuff is simply fascinating.

A supernova is when a large star explodes unleashing a burst of radiation so bright it outshines the entire galaxy before fading from view over several weeks or months. Such an explosion is so powerful it can release more energy than our sun is expected to emit over its whole life span. They occur on average every 50 years in the Milky Way galaxy, which in astrophysical terms is very rare.

So how would these exploding stars threaten our existence down here on comfy and warm planet Earth? Well it's only 'near-Earth' supernovas - sorry, supernovae - that we have to worry about, although this translates as anything up to 3,000 light years away. Oh dear.

One such candidate is red giant Betelgeuse, a mere 640 light years from Earth. It is only a few million years old, a spring chicken for a star of its size, but has evolved rapidly because of its high mass. As a result it could well supernova in the next millenium, if it hasn't already.

If it does it would release a torrent of Gamma rays which would destroy our precious ozone layer, leaving us at the mercy to harmful cosmic and solar radiation. Thankfully Betelgeuse should fire off its lethal Gamma rays in a safe direction due to the angle of its axis. I hope it stays that way.

Economic blunder could cause North Korean regime to implode

The North Korean regime has proved a stubborn one. It refused to disintegrate following the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, its main financial backer. It has declined from following China's state managed implementation of capitalism. And despite being the world's only communist dynasty, it doesn't interpret the hereditary principle in the most conventional way. This year Kim Il Sung can celebrate his 62nd year as the country's head of state alongside the 16th anniversary of his death.

All of the above and more have led analysts to predict the collapse of North Korea, the world's most isolated country. The 1995-98 famine caused a million deaths and stunted the growth of two million children through malnourishment. The floods of 2006 and 2007 once again left its population reliant on external aid.

The North Korean regime continued to tell its people they lived in a paradise unequalled anywhere else on earth. So what if the capital Pyongyang only gets two hours of electricity a day? In America they only have two hours of electrcity a week! It's hard to prove them wrong with no internet, mobile phones, radios, foreign TV stations and any access whatsoever to the outside world.

But now the 'Dear Leader' may have at last made a fatal error. In November 2009 the North Korean government implemented a currency revaluation, which wiped out the hard won savings its citizens had made from the black markets that have appeared throughout the country in recent years.

The state's heavy handed response to the intrusion of capitalism has created political and economic instability at a time when it is suffering a succession crisis, which could shatter the fragile stability North Korea has enjoyed for decades.

Pyongyang is desperate to groom Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to replace his father, who is believed to have suffered a stroke two years ago.

However the currency misstep has worsened the internal power struggles of the North Korean regime, potentially jeopardising the transition.

Seoul University Professor Kim Byung-Yeon says there are now two kinds of people within North Korea's elite, those who benefit from the market, and those who benefit from restraining the market. He believes the tension between these two groups could lead to a "meltdown".

Pyongyang is also losing its ability to control information. North Koreans are increasingly able to get their hands on mobile phones, radios and foreign DVDs. The currency crisis, so obviously inflicted by the ruling elite and not a foreign power, has fuelled the people's hunger for information about the outside world.

The stability of North Korea is so uncertain even China is talking about its demise, with at least one Chinese expert warning Beijing not to bail out the country.

So what would a North Korean collapse involve? Andrew Lankov, a scholar at Seoul's Sookmin University,said: "I don't believe there is going to be a peacful, gradual end of the North Korean regime. It will be dramatic, and probably violent."

Neither China nor South Korea want the North Korean regime to collapse. Although China no longer needs a communist buffer state between it and the capitalist world of South Korea, it doesn't find the prospect of millions of refugees flooding its northeastern regions particularly appealing. It still has a policy of deporting refugees back to the North.

South Korea faces a more existential threat. The North Korea's regime has justified its existence by protecting its people from the American imperialist aggressors and their puppets in the South. Its people are taught that it was the Americans who started the Korean war in 1950 rather than the other way round. The country's military, the fifth largest in the world, is hotwired to launch an invasion of the South, with thousands of missiles aimed at the capital Seoul.

The prospects of reunification are slim. South Korea has enjoyed an enormous economic boom that has lifted it from the status of a third world country to an economic powerhouse in the space of a generation. Its highly westernised youth know that their lifestyles would certainly fare for the worse should the two Koreas be united.

With the new generation lacking the feeling of brotherhood that still fills many older people with the desire for reunification, the prospects of a unified Korea seem to diminish with the passage of time.

US military warns of oil shortages in just five years

THE US military has warned demand for oil could outstrip supply as soon as 2015 and cause significant political and economic impact.

Known as 'peak oil', the consequences of oil shortages could lead to a slowing of economic growth at a time when the globalised economy is struggling to get back on its feet.

The warning has become starker after the BP oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico on 20 April. The accident has forced President Obama to reverse the decision he had made the previous week to allow oil drilling off the US coast.

The Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command states: "By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015 the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10m barrels per day.

It adds: "While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds.

"Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both India and China."

The report contrasts sharply with the message of the Wick's report on UK energy policy, released last summer, which dismissed fears of peak oil in the foreseeable future.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) also denies there is any short-term risk of oil shortages.

However senior officials in the IEA admit in private that there is considerable disagreement about this optimistic outlook.

The US military is thought to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world, making the procurement of future supplies a high priority. However with a moratorium on offshore drilling in place the US armed forces are likely to rely on oil from the politically unstable Middle East for some time to come.

The Joint Operating Environment Report provides a bleak historical precedent for the possible future we face: "One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest."

13-year-old Yemeni bride 'bleeds to death'

A 13-year-old girl has bled to death in Yemen three days after her marriage to a man in his twenties, a human right group says.

The Arab Sisters Forum (Saf) said a medical report by the hospital where she was treated revealed the girl had suffered a tear to her genitals and severe bleeding after intercourse.

There was no confirmation of the death from Yemeni officials.

More than a quarter of Yemeni brides are under 15.

Last year a law setting the minimum age for brides at 17 was repealed by lawmakers whon claimed it was 'unIslamic'. A final decision is due this month.

Kyrgyzstan's overthrown president makes an appearance

Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has surfaced in the south of the country to claim he is still in control.

He was forced to flee as a popular uprising overwhelmed government security forces and protestors ransacked the presidential building.

Riots erupted in the capital Bishkek on Wednesday as anger and resentment about government corruption and high electricity prices boiled over into violence.

Security forces opened fire but found themselves outnumbered and soon lost control. 75 people were reported killed.

It marked an ironic end to the 'Tulip revolution' that brought Mr Bakiyev to power five years ago. Then, as now, the grievances were corruption, nepotism and a faltering economy.

The opposition, led by former foreign minister Roza Otunbayeva, formed an interim government that stated it will govern until fresh elections are held in six months time.

Ms Otunbayeva claimed Thursday that calm had returned to Bishkek and that her self-appointed government had filled the power vacuum.

She then received a round of applause when she pledged to immediately cut electricity prices.

Rampant looting has left much of the city in ruins and has damaged its already struggling economy.

Kyrgyzstan is one of the poorest former Soviet republics but is plays an important role in the geostrategic power play of the world's superpowers.

Both the US and Russia have military bases there and China is keen to quell any signs of unrest, fearing it could lead to similar violence in its northern provinces that border the country.

Kenya ends Somali pirate trials

The Kenyan government has refused to try any more Somali pirates in its courts citing a lack of international support.

A Kenyan government official said the country had received little help with the 'burden' of prosecuting and imprisoning pirates.

"For the last two weeks we have declined to accept captured pirates from some of our friendly countries and told them to try it elsewhere," Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula told reporters.

"We discharged our international obligation. Others shied away from doing so. And we cannot bear the burden of the international responsibility," he said.

Kenya originally agreed to the EU brokered deal because the fight against piracy was damaging its economy.

Higher insurance costs for both cargo and tourist ships have reduced traffic in Mombasa's port.

Pirate attacks have become increasingly audacious despite an international effort to patrol one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

In 2005 the furthest attack took place 165 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.

As of March 2010 that maximum distance now stands at 1,100 nautical miles, with the southernmost and easternmost attacks taking place in that month.