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Brazil exploded with street parties as its soccer team won the World Cup's opening game on Thursday but scattered violent protests were a reminder that many locals remain angry over the billions spent to host the tournament. Millions of fans dressed in Brazil's canary yellow, green and blue home colors, cheered throughout Brazil's victory over Croatia in Sao Paulo and continued the revelry into the night, with a heavy backdrop of police and troops to maintain order. The country briefly fell silent when Croatia took an early lead, but fireworks, horns and drum beats reached a crescendo as Brazil rallied for a 3-1 win. Despite worries over traffic and the Sao Paulo stadium, which was completed six months late and wasn't fully tested before the game, there were no reports of major logistical before or after the game. Brazil's coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, after the game praised the stadium as "incredible" and "fantastic." The smooth first gam

Twitter Inc ( id="symbol_TWTR.N_0"> TWTR.N ) on Thursday announced the abrupt departure of two senior executives, including the chief operating officer who had been responsible for the social media company's efforts to revive flagging user growth. Ali Rowghani, once seen as an influential No. 2 who oversaw Twitter's product development, finances and dealmaking, departed after clashing with Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo over whether he should continue to oversee product innovation, a person familiar with the matter said. Hours later, Chloe Sladden, the vice president of media who reported to Rowghani, said in a tweet late Thursday that she had also resigned. Although Rowghani had been praised for orchestrating a series of financing deals for Twitter that culminated in a successful initial public offering in 2013, his ouster, which had the backing of Twitter's board of directors, underscores the tensions and rising pressure at Twitter to tweak its mic

The head of the junta that seized power in Thailand last month said on Friday that an interim government would be set up by August, the first time he has given a clear date on delegating any sort of power in the country. General Prayuth Chan-ocha, in an address to senior military officials, announced the date as part of a three-phase plan of reconciliation, formation of a government and elections to be rolled out by the ruling National Council for Peace and Order. "A government will be set up by August, or at the very latest September," Prayuth told a meeting devoted to the 2015 national budget. He did not say whether the government would be comprised of civilian or military types. The army took power on May 22 in a bloodless coup after six months of sometimes violent street protests pitting mainly rural supporters of ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra against her Bangkok-based, royalist opponents. Prayuth repeated in his address that a temporary constitution wou

By unlocking the once-obscure medical marijuana market, Canada has created a fast-growing, profitable and federally regulated industry with a distinct appeal to the more daring global investor. About a dozen producers of the drug will find themselves in the spotlight this year as they consider going public or prepare to so through share sales or reverse takeovers to capitalize on recent regulatory changes, investment bankers said. The Canadian companies are in a race to raise money to build facilities, attract patients and grab shares in a market projected to grow to C$1.3 billion ($1.20 billion) in the next 10 years. Despite facing considerable risks, they have the advantage of being in one of the few countries where medical marijuana is legal nationwide and where licensed operators can mass-produce it. In the United States, the drug remains illegal at the federal level. Some 20 U.S. states have legalized medical marijuana, but investors worry about the prospect, however remote,

- In Iraq, an al Qaeda splinter group is threatening Baghdad after seizing control of two cities. In Pakistan, the Taliban attacked a major airport twice in one week. And in Nigeria, the Islamist militant group Boko Haram was blamed for another mass kidnapping. A cluster of militant attacks over the past week is a reminder of how the once-singular threat of al Qaeda has changed since the killing of Osama bin Laden, morphing or splintering into smaller, largely autonomous Islamist factions that in some cases are now overshadowing the parent group. Each movement is different, fueled by local political and sectarian dynamics. But this week’s violence is a measure of their ambition and the long-term potential danger they pose to the West. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of al Qaeda and al Qaeda-related groups rose 58 percent and the number of "Salafi jihadists" - violent proponents of an extreme form of Islam - more than doubled, according to a report by the RAND Corp thin

Plagued by delays and opposition at home, the World Cup in Brazil might be a turning point for sporting mega-events, forcing soccer's governing body and the International Olympic Committee to accept less ambitious bids to reduce the risk of public backlash. Described by Brazil's government as "the Cup to end all Cups," the tournament kicked off on Thursday to a backdrop of controversy and concern. The world soccer organization, FIFA, is facing corruption allegations over how Qatar won the right to host the 2022 World Cup as well as match-fixing claims, fewer countries are keen to host big events and even some sponsors are starting to question the "halo effect" of associating with them. Ever since the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, which set the gold standard, large sporting events have been increasingly used to drive infrastructure projects and try to regenerate cities. Sports economists and sources inside FIFA say Brazil, the most expensive World

It's not a good sign when the leader of a G7 nation feels the need to state his country still matters. That is precisely what French President Francois Hollande did at a meeting of European Union leaders last month after his Socialist party's humiliating defeat by the hard right National Front in European Parliament elections. "France is not weakened ... It's a great country. It's the country that matters in Europe together with Germany," Hollande, the most unpopular French leader since opinion polling began, told reporters. An array of diplomats and officials involved in EU policymaking told Reuters France's influence, sapped by its persistent economic problems, has been hit further by the election, in which the Socialists came a distant third behind Marine Le Pen's far-right and the opposition conservatives. "Hollande is a devalued currency," a former European affairs minister from one member state said. "If we need something, we

Rising bond yields, mounting inflation and a weakening currency have taken the shine off Ghana, a country until recently hailed as a model for African growth. An oil boom helped fuel five years of GDP growth above 8 percent making Ghana an emerging market star, a stable democracy whose population of 25 million was moving steadily into middle income status. It is now, however, paying a steep price for not coming through with a new tranche of fiscal reforms. Political consensus is stymied, the public is dismayed by rising costs and the dream of new wealth is on hold. Analysts put the immediate difficulty down to a delay in announcing reforms, saying it makes it harder for the government to meet its 2014 economic targets and has increased the chance it will eventually need a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It has also created a perception of policy drift at a time of economic trouble rather than decisive action to shore up gains made during the boom years in whic

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's hopes of becoming Myanmar's president next year have been dealt a blow when a parliamentary committee voted not to change a constitutional clause that bars her from the post, two of the panel members said on Friday. The committee tasked with recommending amendments opted to retain the section that prevents anyone married to a foreigner or with children of foreign citizenship from becoming head of state. The two sources declined to be identified and did not say why the proposal was rejected by 26 of the 31 panelists. Most experts believe the clause, 59 (f), was written into the military-drafted 2008 constitution specifically to sideline Suu Kyi, who became a global icon for her fight against military rule, most of it from house arrest. Her late husband was British, as are her two sons. "Only five of the 31 committee members voted in favor of amending the section at the closed door meeting of the committee," said a member who req

Four months ago, Jean-Claude Juncker would have struggled to have his name recognized in much of Europe. Now he could be forgiven for wishing people would shut up about him. As the top candidate of Europe's largest center-right political group, which won the European elections last month, the former prime minister of Luxembourg is in pole position to become the next president of the European Commission. While Britain's David Cameron is adamantly opposed and The Sun tabloid has described him as "The Most Dangerous Man in Europe", Juncker remains on track to secure the powerful post, which has influence over policy from telecommunications to banking and trade affecting 500 million Europeans. Cameron's opposition is based on a belief that Juncker, 59, is an "old-school federalist" wedded to the concept of "ever closer union", not a modernizer who will shake up and refocus Brussels institutions regarded in London as bloated and opaque. After

South Korean on Friday police arrested the brother of a South Korean businessman linked to a ferry disaster in April in which hundreds of school children drowned, as the net appeared to tighten around the fugitive's family. But Yoo Byung-un, 73, a businessman and photographer, is still on the run, eluding one of the country's biggest and most bizarre manhunts for more than a month, centred on a huge church sect compound south of Seoul. [ID:nL4N0OT3MC] His elder brother, Yoo Byung-il, was arrested near the leafy compound in Anseong, where police are checking all passing vehicles and pedestrians. Yoo Byung-un's daughter, Yoo Som-Na, has been held in France since May 28 after Interpol called for her arrest "for fraud and embezzlement". She was denied bail on Wednesday Yoo Byung-un is wanted on charges of embezzlement, negligence and tax evasion stemming from a web of business holdings centred on I-One-I, an investment vehicle owned by his sons that ran the ship

French bank BNP Paribas was warned in 2006 by a high-ranking U.S. Treasury official and in three reports by legal experts that it risked being penalized for breaking U.S. sanctions, according to Le Monde newspaper. _0"> Since France's biggest bank flagged the risk of a big fine in February this year, sources close to the affair have said it ignored early warnings of the risks it faced. They pointed out that the alleged offending transactions being investigated by U.S. authorities continued until 2009. The French newspaper's report, written as talks accelerate towards a possible $10 billion fine and other penalties, said Stuart Levey, then the U.S. Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, made a visit to Paris in September 2006. The paper, drawing on the findings of its own investigation, said Levey met the bank's top officials, including Baudoin Prot, who has since become chairman, in its boardroom. Levey was there not to talk about t

Egypt has asked YouTube to remove a video showing a naked woman with injuries being dragged through Cairo's Tahrir Square after being sexually assaulted during celebrations for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's inauguration. _0"> Sunday night's assault took place as thousands of people enjoyed inauguration festivities, raising new worries about Egypt's commitment to fighting sexual violence. Authorities arrested seven men aged between 15 and 49 for sexually harassing women on Tahrir Square after the posting of the video, which caused an uproar in local and international media. It was not clear whether the men arrested took part in the assault shown on the video. "The Egyptian embassy in Washington DC and a number of Egyptian authorities, at the direction of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have requested the YouTube administration to remove the video of the sexual assault victim," Sisi's spokesman said. "This came in response to her wish,

A Chinese official said on Friday that China will never send military forces to the scene of an increasingly ugly spat with Vietnam over an oil rig in the South China Sea and accused Hanoi of trying to force an international lawsuit. A senior U.S. official in Washington dismissed the Chinese statement as "patently ridiculous" and said Beijing had been using air force and navy as well as coastguard assets "to intimidate others." Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have squared off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the Chinese platform was towed into disputed waters in early May. Vietnam has accused China of sending six warships, but Yi Xianliang, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, said that Beijing had never sent military forces. "I can tell you very clearly that from May 2 to today, including to when the (drilling) operations are comp

Some of the schoolgirls abducted by militant group Boko Haram may never return home, Nigeria's influential former president Olusegun Obasanjo said, in some of the most pessimistic comments yet on their fate from a member of the country's elite. Obasanjo said President Goodluck Jonathan's administration had taken too long to respond to the April mass abduction. Once Jonathan's mentor and one of his strongest political allies, Obasanjo turned against him last December. "I believe that some of them will never return. We will still be hearing about them many years from now," Obasanjo told the BBC's Hausa-language radio service on Thursday, in comments echoed in an interview with Nigeria's Premium Times website. The warning from Obasanjo, who stepped down in 2007 and nurtured Jonathan's own rise to power, will dismay parents who have now waited 60 days for any news of their daughters, taken from a school in the village of Chibok in northeast Nigeri

U.S. producer prices fell in May after two month of solid gains, but the decline was not enough to change perceptions that inflation pressures are steadily creeping up. The Labor Department said on Friday its producer price index for final demand slipped 0.2 percent after advancing in April by 0.6 percent, which was the largest gain in 1-1/2 years. Economists, who had expected producer prices to edge up, saw the decline as a correction after gains in March and April, and said it did not change their view that prices were firming. "The net result is a pick-up. The net strengthening makes the modest acceleration in the more important consumer inflation measures more credible," said Jim O'Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York. The government revamped the PPI series at the start of the year to include services and construction. Big swings in prices received for trade services have injected volatility into the series, making it

A breakthrough in the way energy is stored could lead to smaller class="mandelbrot_refrag"> electronics , more trunk space in a hybrid car and eventually clothing that can recharge a cellphone, according to researchers at the University of Central Florida. Nanotechnology scientist Jayan Thomas said in an interview he believes he has discovered a way to store energy in a thin sheath around an ordinary lightweight copper electrical wire. As a result, the same wire that transmits electricity can also store extra energy. "We can just convert those wires into batteries so there is no need of a separate battery," Thomas said. "It has applications everywhere."   true       The work will be the cover story in the June 30 issue of the material science journal Advanced Materials, and is the subject of an article in the current edition of science magazine Nature. Thomas's Ph.D. student Zenan Yu is co-author. Thomas said the process is relatively simple

Lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts more than 40 years ago contain evidence of a Mars-sized planet that scientists believe crashed into Earth and created the moon, new research shows. German scientists using a new technique said they detected a slight chemical difference between Earth rocks and moon rocks. Scientists said more study would be needed to confirm this long-elusive piece of evidence that material from another body besides Earth contributed to the moon’s formation some 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists believe the moon formed from a cloud of debris launched into space after a Mars-sized body called Theia crashed into young Earth. Different planets in the solar system have slightly different chemical makeups. Therefore, scientists believed moon rocks might hold telltale chemical fingerprints of whatever body smashed into Earth. Until now, evidence was elusive. “We have developed a technique that guarantees perfect separation,” of oxygen isotopes from othe

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University plan to anchor turbines in the Gulf Stream's fast-moving waters off the state's east coast to test whether ocean currents can be converted into electricity. The project will be carried out with the support of the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BEOM), which for the first time has leased out federal waters as a test site. "The Gulf Stream contains a tremendous amount of energy, and this technology offers exciting potential to expand the nation's renewable energy portfolio," BOEM Acting Director Walter Cruickshank said in a press release this week announcing the deal. Near the end of the summer, scientists will begin anchoring buoys equipped with a variety of sensors to the ocean floor, in about 900 feet (300 meters) of water some 12 nautical miles off the Florida coast near Fort Lauderdale. The equipment will monitor the strength of the currents around the clock. Scientists will then conduct additional test

Current theory about the shape of the human face just got a big punch in the mouth. Two University of Utah researchers proposed on Monday that the face of the ancestors of modern humans evolved millions of years ago in a way that would limit injuries from punches during fist fights between males. Their theory, published in the journal Biological Reviews, is presented as an alternative to a long-standing notion that changes in the shape of the face were driven more by diet - the need for a jaw that could chew hard-to-crush foods such as nuts. "Studies of injuries resulting from fights show that when modern humans fight, the face is the primary target," biologist David Carrier said. "The bones of the face that suffer the highest rates of fracture from fights are the bones that show the greatest increase in robusticity during the evolution of early bipedal apes, the australopiths." These are also the bones that show the greatest difference between women and men i

The hot question of whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded like birds and mammals or cold blooded like reptiles, fish and amphibians finally has a good answer. Dinosaurs, for eons Earth's dominant land animals until being wiped out by an asteroid 65 million years ago, were in fact somewhere in between. Scientists said on Thursday they evaluated the metabolism of numerous dinosaurs using a formula based on their body mass as revealed by the bulk of their thigh bones and their growth rates as shown by growth rings in fossil bones akin to those in trees. The study, published in the journal Science, assessed 21 species of dinosaurs including super predators Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus, long-necked Apatosaurus, duckbilled Tenontosaurus and bird-like Troodon as well as a range of mammals, birds, bony fish, sharks, lizards, snakes and crocodiles. "Our results showed that dinosaurs had growth and metabolic rates that were actually not characteristic of warm-blooded or even cold-bl

Eucalyptus leaves are the main food supply for Australia's koalas, but there is a lot more to the tree than that. It is native to class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Australia but has become the world's most widely planted hardwood tree. The eucalyptus tree is a source of timber, fuel, cellulose and medicinal and industrial oils, and scientists are looking to maximize its potential in biofuels. An international team of researchers this week unveiled the genetic blueprint of the tree species Eucalyptus grandis and identified among its 36,000-plus genes the ones involved in critical biological processes controlling tree growth and wood formation, flowering and other qualities.   true       "The main interest is understanding how these trees grow so fast and how they are able to produce such large amounts of cellulose," scientist Zander Myburg of the University of Pretoria's Forestry and Agricultural class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Biotechnology