The New Nation - Internet Edition

Highest surface temperature

TOKYO: The average global land surface temperature this year will be the highest since records began in 1880, partly due to greenhouse gas emissions, Japan's weather agency said on Thursday. Natural climate fluctuations contributed to the temperature rises, said the report by the Japan Meteorological Agency. The report coincided with the Dec. 3-14 international talks on the Indonesian island of Bali to discuss a new climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012, but it was not presented there.

Woman convicted in acid murder

LOS ANGELES: A biochemist who killed her husband by knocking him out and pouring hydrochloric acid on him was convicted Wednesday of first-degree murder. A Superior Court jury found Larissa Schuster, 47, of Clovis, guilty of murdering Timothy Schuster with the special circumstance that the murder was committed for financial gain.

China remembers Nanjing massacre

BEIJING: China has been holding ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing massacre. Survivors attended the reopening of a memorial hall, built to remember an act that has come to symbolise imperial Japanese aggression in China. Japanese soldiers carried out the killings in a six-week period after Nanjing was captured in December 1937. Beijing says 300,000 Chinese civilians were killed, but some Japanese historians dispute this figure. In the city, air sirens were sounded as people paused in silence to remember the victims.