Almost 10 per cent of Estonian voters cast their votes electronically in this year’s local councils’ elections, which is an absolute record in this tiny Northern European country.
104,415 people gave their votes electronically, using the country’s innovative ID-cards for voting. That is about 9.6% of the total voters in the local councils’ election.
In European Parliament election, in June this year, only 58,669 people gave their votes electronically.
Estonian electronic voting is possible thanks to the ID-cards …

Seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher supports his former boss at Ferrari, Jean Todt for FIA presidency, saying that Todt would not simply oversee a continuation of Max Mosley’s regime, ITV reports.
Now with just over a week to go until Todt goes up against Ari Vatanen in the FIA vote, Schumacher has written to the presidents of all the member clubs that will take part in the election to redouble the reasons for his …

A former army captain and senior intelligence officer Idelphonse Nizeyimana, who is one of the top suspects in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide pleaded not guilty on Wednesday during his first appearance at a UN court in Tanzania, Reuters reports.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha has charged Nizeyimana with genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity. He was arrested in Uganda on 5th October after entering the country …

Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested that Russia and its military allies set up a rival version of the Eurovision song contest, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Putin spoke out in favour of a new international modern song competition that he said should be called “Intervision”. He suggested the new song contest should be set up in the incongruous framework of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), a six-nation defence bloc that is more accustomed to conducting joint military …

At least 85,000 people lost their lives from 2004 to 2008 in Iraq’s violence, according to the first official report by the Iraqi government on the death toll since the war begun.
The report, released by the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry late Tuesday as part of a larger study on the country’s human rights situation, said 85,694 people were killed from 2004-08, and 147,195 were wounded during the same period, the AP reports.
The report was based …

California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new bill into law that will fine paparazzi for taking photos that invade a celebrity’s right to privacy, CNN reports.
The new law makes it a crime to take and sell unauthorized photos of celebrities in “personal or familial activity”. Violators face fines up to $50,000. The anti-paparazzi amendment takes effect in January.
In 1998, Schwarzenegger himself had his car swarmed by paparazzi while he was picking up his child from …

Oil prices jumped above $75 a barrel today for the first time in a year on investor optimism crude demand will improve ahead of the Christmas shopping season, FoxNews reports.
A weak dollar was also bolstering crude prices.
Benchmark crude for November delivery was up 85 cents to $75 by midday. The price reached $75.15 earlier in the day, the highest since October 2008.
The contract gained 88 cents to settle at $74.15 yesterday.
In London, Brent crude rose …

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today announced the deployment of 500 additional British troops to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Daily Telegraph reports.
He told MPs he had “agreed in principle” to send up to extra troops to Afghanistan so long as three conditions were met: an Afghan Government’s commitment to put forward sufficient new troops to be trained; that all units can be properly equipped for the task; and that the increase was part of …

A farmer has been fined £150 for keeping his cows in the dark – apparently, 65-year-old Ronald Nordcliffe failed to meet the “psychological and ethological” needs of the animals, the Daily Mail reports.
Under animal welfare rules farmers have to provide suitable shelter with either natural or electric lighting for livestock during winter, but Norcliffe, a farmer for more than 30 years, has no electricity on his smallholding in Scammonden, West Yorkshire. Instead, he intended to keep …

Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gave his backing today to the nomination of former Prime Minister Tony Blair for the future presidency of the European Union, AFP reports.
“Tony Blair has what it takes to become the EU’s first president,” Berlusconi said. “My government and I will do our best to ensure that a great political heritage built from courage, balance and prudence … will not dissipate.”
However, resistance is growing to Blair, notably in Belgium, Luxembourg and …

American singer Al Martino, who is widely known as the actor who played Johnny Fontane in “The Godfather”, died yesterday afternoon, NME.com reports.
The singer, aged 82, passed away at his childhood home in Philadelphia suburb Springfield, Delaware County. A cause of death is yet to be announced.
The singer has the distinction of topping the inaugural NME Chart in November 1952 – Britain’s first music chart – with the UK’s first ever Number One single “Here …

The internet connection for the whole of Sweden went down for almost an hour when routine maintenance broke every single .se address, the Daily Telegraph reports.
At 9:45pm local time (8:45pm BST) on Monday, every Swedish website went down, and no emails to or from Swedish domains could be received. Around 900,000 domains were affected.
The problem was caused by an “incorrectly configured script” in an update of the .se domain, according to Pingdom, a Swedish web monitoring …

Patrick Magee, the IRA terrorist who 25 year ago planted a bomb in Grand Hotel in Brighton says that he regrets the deaths of five people who died in the blast, but he would plant the bomb again, since according to him, there was no other way.
Last night Magee was a guest speaker in House of Commons, alongside one victim’s daughter. Before a largely sympathetic audience he spoke of sorrow and regret, and how he …

Google have launched software called Building Maker for Google Earth that will enable web users to transform 2D renderings of buildings in Google Earth in to 3D images, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Building Maker allows people to quickly and easily change a flat image into a 3D structure by aligning a series of squares and rectangles on an existing photo of the building using Google’s SketchUp modelling software.
Google said the new tool was fun and addictive, and …

Iraq’s Parliament passed legislation allowing the return of 100 British naval training personnel who were forced to leave the country earlier this year, The Times reports.
The Royal Navy was excluded from Iraq at the end of May, forcing it to move a frigate, an auxiliary ship and crew out of Iraqi waters towards Kuwait after parliament failed to approve a military co-operation agreement with Britain.
Trainers who were to help turn Iraq’s navy into a fighting …

The number of people out of work in the UK has risen to another 14-year high, the BBC reports.
Unemployment rose by 88,000 to 2.47 million in the three months to August, while the jobless rate stayed at 7.9%.
The number of people claiming unemployment benefit grew in September by 20,800 to 1.63 million. This was less than expected, and the smallest monthly rise in the claimant count since May 2008.
Nonetheless, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit …