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 Los Angeles Police Department officials on Friday were
interviewing officers and scouring electronic records amid growing suspicion
that someone inside the department leaked or sold to a celebrity website a
photo of the singer Rihanna that depicted injuries to her face she suffered
during an alleged assault by her...
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 A report released this week by Gallup, Healthways and America's Health Insurance Plans suggests that reality is less grim in certain U.S. states as far as the recession is concerned. In these places, residents enjoy their jobs, express deep optimism about future prospects and even manage to stay healthy.In general, folks surveyed out...
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 The Nassau County Health Department has just reported the first childhood death attributed to influenza on Long Island in the five years since public health agencies have been required to report pediatric flu deaths.This weekend, a Levittown elementary school student, a 10-year-old, most likely died because of the flu, as preliminary...
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As many as 49 children, many of them less than a year old, died during clinical trials of new drugs and therapies at a premier Indian medical institute over the past two and a half years, news reports said Monday.
"A total of 49 deaths corresponding to 1.18 per cent mortality among the enrolled patients were recorded during the...
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 People with high blood pressure were advised by the American
Heart Association to have their own home monitor and to do regular pressure
checks. It was estimated that 72 million Americans suffer from this affection
and only a third of them have it under control.
An individual is considered hypertensive when his pressure
reaches...
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 Many baby and child care products contain the chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both of which have been blamed for cancer and various skin conditions but the labels don’t list them, according to a report from the Campaign for Safe Cosmetic Use.According to the Environmental Protection Agency, both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane are...
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 A new study found that only a small percent
of ex-inmates diagnosed with HIV filled a prescription for medicine to treat
the condition within the recommended 10 days.
According to the study conducted by researchers
at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, ex-inmates who discontinue the antiretroviral
therapy are at...
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 The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is one of the world's
largest private agencies that deals with philanthropies. It announced on
Wednesday that it would spend $600 million for inovative medical research in various fields.
The group stated that their investment would focus on high-risk
areas of research, where there is little chance...
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A report by the Commonwealth Fund analyzed overall
performance of health care system in caring for children in fifty states and
the District of Columbia. There
were taken into consideration factors such as access, quality, costs, equity and
healthy outcomes. The states were ranked afterwards on basis of this
investigation.
The...
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 A research study lead by Margaret Keyes, of University of Minnesota, found that adopted children
were significantly more likely to suffer from a psychiatric disorder, compared
to those who were not adopted.
Comparing a random sample of 540 Minnesota-born adolescents
who were not adopted with a representative sample of 700 adoptees...
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 Officials announced yesterday that an iceberg lettuce which comes from California is to blame for the E. coli outbreak that had sickened more than 36 people from Michigan. Jennifer Holton, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Agriculture, said that "illness dates, ship dates and delivery dates narrow the origin to...
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The Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that they will hold a public meeting about the chemical found in baby bottles and other products. The meeting will be held next month and the environmental groups say that the chemical, known as bisphenol A, could hurt little children and animals.Still, the U.S. Food and Drug...
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 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported
on Tuesday that a connection was established between the eruptions of E. coli
bacteria in Michigan and Ohio. Health officials in both states
believe the outbreak was set off by ground beef.
Health officials in Michigan
informed the press that more than half of the people...
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 According the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the World Health
Organization, the number of people living with HIV worldwide is declining.
The two organizations released a report November 20 that found a 6.3 million
drop in people living with HIV, from an estimated 44 million to 33 million. The
agencies attributed the...
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 According to reports, the calculator commonly used to
predict women's chances of getting breast cancer underestimates the risk for
most black women and should be adjusted to reflect new findings specific to African-Americans.
A new risk calculator for black women will be made available shortly to
researchers and clinicians, said...
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 FilmLA Inc., the nonprofit group that handles film permits and promotes the industry, has declared that the screenwriters strike might cost Los Angeles economy around 21 million dollars in direct losses for each day that it continues, if the strike would extend into December.FilmLA President Steve MacDonald reported for the Los Angeles...
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 After Citigroup Inc. engaged in a bidding contest with a
local businessman for control of the nation's largest carrier, Consorcio
Aeromexico SAB surged 17 percent, the most in almost three years.
The bidding may continue, as the government's bank deposit
insurance agency, the largest Aeromexico shareholder, today said bidders...
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 American leading provider of flu shots, Maxim Health System
has announced a $5 increase in price going from $25 to $30 per shot.
A Maxim executive said Tuesday the price increase was
necessary to catch up with the rising cost of influenza vaccine supplied by
pharmaceutical companies.
Maxim's pricing strategy may prove correct....
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Kathmandu - Nepalese politicians have decided to remove thousands of former Maoist combatants from camps and attempt to reintegrate them into society after they were disqualified from the combatant rehabilitation process by the United Nations, official reports said Friday.
The decision came during a meeting Thursday of the Army...
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It was a year of extremes, starting with the aftermath of the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and ending with a global financial crisis that engulfed millions across the world.
The year 2008 saw the eruption of the war in Georgia just as the Olympics opened with a glittering ceremony in Beijing....
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It was a year of extremes, starting with the aftermath of the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and ending with a global financial crisis that engulfed millions across the world.
The year 2008 saw the eruption of the war in Georgia just as the Olympics opened with a glittering ceremony in Beijing....
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Around 30,000 people fleeing battles between United Nations-backed Congolese troops and Tutsi rebels are pouring into refugee camps near the eastern city of Goma, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said Wednesday as fierce fighting continued.
UN helicopter gunships and armoured vehicles have been supporting Congolese troops north of Goma,...
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The Clinton County Sheriff’s Department issued an Amber Alert for two youngsters who went missing.14-year-old Christina Alley from Lathrop disappeared Friday, October 17th at approx 2:30 p.m. She was last seen while attending a high school football game in Lathrop, Missouri, said Maj. John Farmer, the chief deputy for the Sheriff’s...
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Russia's foreign minister added his voice to the controversy over South Ossetia's status hopes on Thursday. Georgia's separatist province, he said, has no intention of joining Russia, news agencies reported.
Sergei Lavrov interrupted a press conference in Poland, where he was discussing US missile defence plans, to clarify Moscow's...
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Five people, including an army officer, were killed Wednesday in India's Jammu and Kashmir state by suspected Islamic militants who had infiltrated across the border from Pakistan, police said.
Security forces had killed one of the militants who were holed up in a house in a residential area on the outskirts of Jammu city, the...
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A Russian court on Friday denied granting parole to former Yukos oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, news agencies reported.
Khodorkovsky, 45, once Russia's richest man, applied for parole having served over half of an eight-year jail term for large-scale tax evasion charges against his former oil empire Yukos.
"The court ruled...
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Pakistan's erstwhile strongman Pervez Musharraf resigned as president Monday, succumbing to pressure from the new ruling coalition to quit or face impeachment by parliament.
Born in Delhi on August 11, 1943 to educated parents, Musharraf came to Pakistan with his family after the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.
He...
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the 120th day of 2008 with 246 to follow.The moon is waning. The morning stars are Venus, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. The evening stars are Mercury, Mars and Saturn.Those born on this date are under the sign of Taurus. They include publisher William Randolph Hearst in 1863; bandleader and composer Edward Kennedy "Duke"...
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A British terrorist suspect in an alleged plot to blow up
trans-Atlantic commercial jetliners managed to escape from a mosque
when his police escorts allowed him to say prayers on their way back to
the prison, police investigators said Monday.
Rashid Rauf, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, escaped from
guards on Saturday...
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 According to a statement released on Thursday by the world’s
web search leader, Google, it was unlikely U.S. antitrust authorities would
seek to impose conditions on its $3.1 billion acquisition of advertising
company Double-Click.
David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer, told reporters
he did not expect the Federal Trade...
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Bishkek, Moscow - Kyrgyzstan's parliament approved on Thursday a government decision to shut down a US air base on its territory, which has been a crucial for supplying US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The decision was overwhelmingly passed with 78 votes for and 1 vote against, Russian news agencies reported.
The United States...
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Colombo - Security forces on Thursday declared a new safe zone for civilians fleeing rebel-held areas in north-eastern Sri Lanka as fresh fighting left at least 28 Tamil separatist rebels dead, a military spokesman said.
As hundreds of civilians remained trapped by the fighting, a 12-kilometre strip of land close to a lagoon in...
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Hanoi - Vietnamese media and consumers Thursday criticized government authorities over a food safety scandal in which milk products with falsified protein content were sold for months after inspectors discovered the fraud.
Health authorities in Ho Chi Minh City revealed Friday that dozens of Vietnamese-made and foreign dairy...
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Bangkok - Myanmar will need nearly 700 million dollars in international aid over the next three years for ongoing relief efforts in the Irrawaddy Delta, where Cyclone Nargis left 140,000 people dead or missing last year, the United Nations said Monday.
"This is a small requirement in proportion to the magnitude of the...
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Colombo – Government troops pushed Tuesday into the last few strongholds of the Tamil rebels in north-eastern Sri Lanka, the military said, amid growing concern over civilians caught in the conflict.
Troops were moving in the , Mullaitivu district, 395 kilometres north-east of Colombo, after capturing the main town in the area...
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The Pakistani government announced Thursday that it had closed down a number of suspected terrorist training camps and detained 71 people in connection with the Mumbai attacks, apparently in a bid to ease tensions with India.
The announcement came as India increased pressure saying Pakistan was not showing willingness to cooperate...
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Israel upped its pressure on Palestinian militants Thursday, with ground troops advancing close to the centre of Gaza City in one of the worst days of fighting since the assault began and amid growing signs that the offensive could be in its final days.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told a news conference in Tel Aviv...
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The central United Nations compound in the Gaza Strip has been hit in the fighting between Hamas and the Israeli military.
A nearby fire is spreading towards the compound, which houses large fuel reserves to allow the humanitarian agencies to carry out their work.
The UN has suspended all work in the area.
The Israeli military...
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The central United Nations compound in the Gaza Strip has been hit in the fighting between Hamas and the Israeli military Thursday, UN officials said.
A nearby fire is spreading towards the compound, which houses large fuel reserves to allow the humanitarian agencies to carry out their work.
A UN official said the compound, in...
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The Pakistani interior ministry's top official, Rehman Malik, said on Thursday some suspected terrorist training camps had been closed down and 71 people had been detained in a crackdown on organizations believed to be behind the Mumbai attacks.
"There are camps which were doing the relief work and few camps reportedly, though...
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The water and sewage systems are collapsing in the Gaza Strip, while hospitals were running on backup generators and access to the wounded remained very limited, aid agencies warned on the 13th day of fighting in the enclave.
"Nearly all sewage and water pumps are now out of operation due to lack of electricity and diminished...
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India Thursday criticized Pakistan for its "flip-flop" over the citizenship of sole surviving Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Qasab and its "recalcitrance" in failing to bring the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks to justice.
"He (Qasab) has told us quite categorically where he comes from, where he has received...
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Pakistan said Wednesday that information received from India about the Mumbai terrorist attacks was being "seriously examined."
"Pakistan remains fully determined in its investigations to uncover full facts pertaining to the Mumbai incident and is cognizant of the need for establishing legally tenable evidence,"...
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As prayers and candlelight vigils were held Friday to mourn the victims of the deadly tsunami that struck Indian coasts four years ago, survivors complained of unfulfilled promises of rehabilitation.
A total of 12,405 people lost their lives in the tsunami in India in the coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh,...
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The global financial crisis has hit Vietnam's traditional craft villages, an industry leader said Friday.
Many workshops have gone bankrupt or are on the brink of shutting down because of slowing international exports, said Vo Quoc Tuan, chairman of Vietnam's Craft Village Association.
"Of more than 2000 traditional craft...
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Security has been beefed up across Bangladesh amid threats by militants against prominent political leaders running in elections next week, officials said Wednesday.
"The forces have been ordered strictly maintain security across the country," said Police Chief, Noor Mohammad. Threats against two former prime ministers...
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United Nations forces operating in Lebanon have received warnings of a possible attack by al-Qaeda terrorists, Lebanese newspapers reported Wednesday.
The daily al-Akhbar, a pro-Syrian newspaper, said the United States had warned United Nations Interim Forces in southern Lebanon on December 10 of an imminent terrorist attack.
The...
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This year's holidays are looking gloomy for Japan's temp workers as the nation's manufacturing sector reduces its output due to the global recession.
Japan's exporters have suffered slowing demand, especially in the United States and Europe, as businesses have revised their earnings forecasts for the full year through March...
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In recent years, the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) has done more welfare work than many other national and international non-profit organizations in Pakistan.
But its suspected affiliation with the militant group Lahkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is believed to be behind November 26 Mumbai attacks, landed it Wednesday on the...
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Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that Pakistan was the "epicentre of terrorism" and the world needed to deal with it sternly, during a parliamentary debate Thursday on the Mumbai terrorist attacks which took place last month.
"We have to galvanize the international community into dealing sternly and effectively...
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India expects Pakistan to take serious follow-up action against elements it believes were behind the Mumbai terrorist attacks by dismantling their infrastructure, India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in parliament Thursday.
Making the first official statement after the Pakistani prime minister said two men named by India...
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A Hanoi court Monday convicted eight parishioners of a Catholic church of damaging property and causing public disorder.
The eight parishioners, ranging in age from 21 to 63 years, took part in vigils over the past year at Hanoi's Thai Ha church, which is involved in a property dispute with the government.
Protestors erected...
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US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called upon India Thursday to show restraint following last week's terrorist attacks, which New Delhi claims were carried out by some "elements" in Pakistan, while putting pressure on Islamabad to assist in the investigation.
"It is extremely important if something like that has...
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Pakistan must act with "urgency and resolve" and cooperate fully in the investigations into last week's deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai that claimed 171 lives, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday.
Rice, speaking after arriving in New Delhi, said the chief purpose of her visit was to "express...
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New Delhi - Indian forces continued their battle with terrorists in luxury hotels in the financial hub Mumbai where scores remained trapped on Thursday, nearly 24 hours after the gunmen fanned out to high-profile locations and indulged in shooting sprees that left 119 dead and more than 315 injured.
Among the terrorists' targets were...
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A group of nations dubbed the "Friends of Pakistan" agreed, in principle, Monday to throw a financial lifeline to Pakistan.
Specific sums to be committed were not named Monday. There will be another meeting of the group in January followed by a ministerial- level meeting in February that should set the specific amounts of...
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After dipping by over 3 per cent in early trade, India's stock indices staged a smart recovery on assurances by the country's federal bank that it was committed to ensuring adequate liquidity in financial markets.
The Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark 30-share Sensex saw a day of volatile trading. Beginning on a positive note, it hit...
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President Robert Mugabe's regime has promised it will repay an international donor organization 6.5 million US dollars that was meant for the country's anti-malaria campaign but which has mysteriously disappeared.
The money was part of a 103-million-dollar grant from the Geneva- based Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and...
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United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" over the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday and asked rebel General Laurent Nkunda to engage in dialogue.
During a visit to the Indian capital New Dehli, Ban urged Nkunda to stick to the ceasefire announced by the Tutsi rebel...
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At least 61 people were killed and 275 injured Thursday in nine bomb blasts triggered by suspected separatist and Muslim militants in India's north-eastern state of Assam, officials said.
There were nine blasts within 20 minutes, the first at 11:20 am (0550 GMT).
Three blasts took place in the state capital, Guwahati; three...
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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday it planned to provide food assistance to nearly 20,000 people left homeless by the deadly earthquake that struck Pakistan's north-western Balochistan province a day ago.
"We need to move fast, so we are going to start distributing food stocks from our warehouses in...
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Bombings claimed several lives across Iraq Wednesday as the Iraqi and US governments haggled over an agreement to keep US forces in Iraq. Without the agreement, the US government says, violence could increase in Iraq.
Washington is increasing pressure on Baghdad to sign off on the agreement without amendments, according to Al-Sabah,...
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Vietnamese authorities have ordered the South Korean-owned Miwon condiment company to suspend operations at one of its production lines for discharging pollution into the Red River north of Hanoi, provincial officials said Friday.
Miwon Vietnam, which makes about 30,000 tons of soy sauce and other condiments per year, is the second...
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Taiwan's property market, hit hard in the last few months by the global downturn and a drastic domestic stock plunge, is likely to enter a recession from next year, property dealers and analysts said.
"Beginning next year, the property market here is likely to see obvious slowdown, which could last two to four years,"...
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It's 7 in the morning and the Shwedagon Pagoda's gold-covered pinnacle in Myanmar's largest city, Yangon, slowly emerges from the mist and glitters in the sunshine.
Markets in the city formerly known as Rangoon have been busy for hours as women balance their purchases in woven baskets on their heads.
The damage done by...
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The United Nations' flash appeal for the survivors of Cyclone Nargis
remains 50 per cent unfunded, five months after the disaster, the group
managing the relief effort disclosed Tuesday.
"Total contribution now stands at 240 million dollars out of the
482 million required. Agriculture and early recovery continue to be...
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Authorities in India's eastern state of Orissa imposed a curfew in sensitive areas of Khandamal district Thursday after several houses belonging to Christians and a prayer house was set on fire, news reports said.
Curfew was imposed in nine sensitive areas of the district after the acts of arson late on Wednesday and in the early...
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China has approved Taiwan's request to send a delegation to China to investigate its tainted milk scandal because contaminated Chinese diary products have been exported to Taiwan, an official said Thursday.
Kao Kung-lien, secretary general of Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), told reporters that Li Yafei, secretary...
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Vietnam will suspend operations of a Taiwanese-owned Vedan condiment factory in southern Dong Nai province that was found to be emitting illegal pollutants, a senior government official said Wednesday.
"We will halt Vedan's operations until the company remediates its environmental effects," said Deputy Minister of Natural...
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The European Union on Friday reiterated its opposition to Taiwan joining international organizations which require statehood, such as the United Nations.
"The European Union reiterates its policy of One China. It does not support Taiwan membership in international organizations which require statehood," EU governments said...
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At least two suspected Islamic militants wanted in connection with recent bombings in Indian cities were killed by the police in national capital New Delhi on Friday, officials and news reports said.
The gunbattle erupted after the militants holed up inside a flat in the Muslim-dominated Jamia Nagar area in southern Delhi fired on a...
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At least 15 people were injured in a bomb attack in India's north-eastern state of Assam on Thursday, hours after the government said it was considering tougher laws to combat attacks by militant groups.
A bomb planted on a bicycle exploded near a government office in Assam's Chirang district, some 230 kilometres west of the state...
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Amid rising rumors of an imminent financial default, the government of Pakistan recently laid out an ambitious emergency plan to dispose of its multibillion-US-dollar energy assets to raise money.
Among the first in line is the sale of rich Qadirpur gas field in southern Sindh province, just 260 miles north-east from the port city...
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As Zimbabwe's newly united political leaders prepared to hash over the make-up of a unity government, aid agencies urged donors to quickly release aid to feed the country's needy.
President Robert Mugabe, prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai and deputy prime minister-designate Arthur Mutambara were due to meet later Thursday to...
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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the leader of an MDC splinter faction, Arthur Mutambara, on Monday formally signed an historic agreement to share power in a unity government.
The deal, which comes after eight weeks of negotiations brokered by South African President...
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Some 2,000 workers at two foreign-owned companies have gone on strike, demanding better pay and allowances, company and union officials said Friday.
More than 1,400 workers at Valley View Vietnam, a Taiwanese-owned garment company based in the central city of Danang, have been on strike since Thursday, demanding a monthly petrol...
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International human rights organisations have asked the new Nepalese government to prosecute those responsible for enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings and torture during Nepal's decade-long Maoist insurgency.
The United States based Human Rights Watch and Nepal-based Advocacy Forum in a joint report, Waiting for Justice:...
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Nepal's Maoist-led government Wednesday unveiled its first policy goals since the abolition of the monarchy, aimed at social reconciliation and economic development.
The policy platform was read out by President Ram Baran Yadav in the constituent assembly, which also acts as an interim parliament.
"Taking the peace process to...
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Several thousand Christian educational institutions will shut down to protest violence against the community in the eastern state of Orissa where several churches have been burnt and 11 people were killed in revenge for the murder of a Hindu leader, it was announced Thursday.
The Indian church network - including the Catholic Bishops'...
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Police found three more bodies Wednesday of people killed in clashes between Hindus and Christians in India's eastern state of Orissa, bringing the death toll to 11, news reports said.
A few fresh incidents of rioting and arson led authorities to impose shoot-on-sight orders in parts of the curfew-bound Khandamal district, where the...
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 Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, an Illinois senator, has asked Wall Street to temper its greed for the financial good of the country. He held an address at the NASDAQ Marketsite, warning that the public is losing trust in the markets and called for more transparency in the financial markets. He cited reasons for concern...
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 Mattel Inc. CEO Robert Eckert said Wednesday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that his company could have done a better job overseeing subcontractors in China that produced more than 21 million recalled toys. Other testimonies have pointed out loose Chinese standards and spotty U.S. enforcement that have contributed to a...
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 Following a two-day meeting on safety of consumer products, officials from the United States and China meeting in Washington DC have announced an agreement aimed at strengthening cooperation and improving safety of consumer products.Members of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and China's General Administration of...
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Eight people were killed and dozens injured in an explosion in the North Caucasus region of Ingushetia that destroyed an official building, Russian news agencies reported.
Rescue workers were still searching for people in the rubble of the three-story building late Tuesday.
"A total of 30 people were pulled from under the...
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Two major aid agencies in the Gaza Strip severely limited their operations in the territory owing to security concerns for their staff, as violence raged on and cash was running out, restricting residents' ability to buy even the most basic food supplies.
The United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), the...
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The European Union must put all hopes of building a closer relationship with Israel on hold until the fighting in the Gaza Strip ends, a group of leading aid agencies said Wednesday.
It would be "inconceivable" for the EU to work for closer ties with Israel at a time when the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has been...
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The death toll in Zimbabwe from cholera has continued to rise and at least 1,174 people have died in the latest epidemic, an official with the UN's Children Fund said Tuesday.
In all, some 23,712 cases of the disease have been reported, leaving the mortality rate at over 5 per cent, well above the acceptable 1 per cent during an...
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A Kremlin bill proposing a longer presidential term was overwhelmingly approved by Russia's upper house of parliament on Monday, in the final legislative step of amendment to Russia's constitution.
The bill extending the presidential term from four to six years was endorsed by all 142 members of the Federation Council, Russian news...
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Zimbabwe faces potential "catastrophic" results if humanitarian efforts against cholera are not provided soon, an official with the Red Cross said Tuesday, as the UN confirmed that at least 978 people have died of the disease since August.
The UN statistics are generally seen as the minimum number of deaths and it is assumed...
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The Czech Republic's largest carmaker, Skoda Auto, a unit of Volkswagen AG, plans to cut its working week to four days in the first half of 2009 due to falling demand in Western Europe, a company spokesman confirmed Friday.
The company agreed on the plan with trade unions late Thursday in a bid "to preserve employment,"...
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Opponents of the Turkish Ilisu dam seized rooms in the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG (OeKB) in Vienna on Wednesday, calling on the bank to pull out of the project on ecological and cultural grounds.
Austrian, German and Swiss export guarantees worth an estimated 450 million euros (577 million dollars) underpin the financing of the...
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Injury and violence were responsible for 900,000 children's deaths each year, 90 per cent of which were accidental, a United Nations report released Wednesday said.
The leading cause of death resulting from an injury was road traffic accidents, followed by drowning and fires or burns.
War made up only 2.3 per cent of child-injury...
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Olympic television broadcasts from 2014 onwards could be aired by private networks in Europe instead of the state-run stations which covered the Games for the last 50 years, a German television executive said on Wednesday.
Dieter Gruschwitz, the head of sports at the ZDF state network, said that such a scenario was not out of the...
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An organization representing 900 Swiss companies has signed an agreement to crack down on commercial child sex tourism, an official with the Swiss Federation of Travel Agencies said Monday.
"We want our members to inform their clients and partners in different countries about the protection of children there," Sandra...
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German experts compiling a brief for the G20 summit in Washington are to call for a revision of the way banking executives are paid and a worldwide loan registry, sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Friday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck commissioned the experts to rapidly draft a set...
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Russia supports the idea of holding a summit of the world's greatest powers in 101 days' time to debate the reform of the global financial system, a Kremlin official said Friday.
"As I understand it, we support" a proposal from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to hold a summit of the world's 20 greatest powers 100 days after...
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German experts compiling a brief for the G20 summit in Washington called Friday in Berlin for a revision of the way banking executives are paid and also called for a worldwide loan registry.
They handed a report to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck.
Otmar Issing, a former chief economist of...
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Continuing fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has prompted the UN to make plans to transfer 60,000 displaced people to a new camp farther away from the front lines, officials said Friday.
The new site is located about 15 kilometres to the south-west of the existing camps. Most of the transferees will have to make...
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The European Commission on Wednesday proposed tough rules designed to improve the functioning of credit rating agencies, which have been partly blamed for the global financial crisis.
The proposals, put together by European Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, are designed to "restore market confidence" by imposing...
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European Union leaders said Friday they were leading world efforts to reform global finance by agreeing on a common set of principles and on five specific recommendations to avert future credit crunches.
The common EU position, agreed after more than three hours of "intense" discussions over lunch in Brussels, is intended to...
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Eleven people were killed in a roadside bombing of a minibus on Thursday in the Russian capital of North Ossetia, news agencies reported.
The duty officer at the regional Interior Ministry said the crime looked to be a terrorist act.
An explosive hit the crowded minibus as it stopped outside the entrance to a movie theater and...
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At least five people were killed in the explosion of a mini-van on Thursday in the Russian city of Vladikavkaz, just across the border from South Ossetia where Russia fought a war with Georgia in August, news agencies reported
Another five people were injured in the blast outside the entrance to a movie theater and market on...
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The French presidency of the European Union has agreed to water down its proposals on how to reform the global financial system, diplomats said Tuesday.
The decision followed two hours of talks among EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said France agreed to make changes to the wish list...
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A detailed French set of proposals on how to reform the global financial system was at the top of the agenda on Tuesday as European Union finance ministers met in Brussels.
The plans "can still be better, but it's a good start ... I think we'll turn them into European plans," Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos said as the...
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Eurozone finance ministers Monday faced the unenviable double task of trying to lead efforts to reform global capitalism while seeking a fix for their troubled economies.
The evening meeting in Brussels was the first in a series designed to prepare a common European position ahead of global talks on the financial crisis taking place...
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Two Jesuit priests died of knife wounds in Moscow, Russian news agencies said Wednesday.
Igor Kovalevsky, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, said the priests bodies were found in their central Moscow apartment late Tuesday.
Kovalevsky called the incident a "brutal murder."
Police at the scene...
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Tuesday for early reforms of world financial markets as she met with a panel of German experts who have been appointed to draw up proposals.
"Time is of the essence," said Merkel in Berlin, saying she wanted to take details with her to the G20 summit in Washington on November 15. The...
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It is the job of David Smith to keep on top of his box of index cards marked "serious buyers."
But as tight loans and tumbling prices keep a stranglehold on Britain's once buoyant property market, hardly any of his clients bother to ring back.
Estate agents like Smith are nostalgic about the days of the property boom when...
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In the first budget since Ireland's economic crash, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is set to announce Tuesday 2 billion euros (2.7 billion dollars) in cuts aimed at tackling the "most difficult conditions in living memory."
Disappearance of state agencies, tax increases, child benefit cuts and increases in hospital charges...
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Changes in world financial rules will be "the second building block" of German moves to rescue the financial system, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday in Berlin.
Announcing the "first building block," a bank revival programme to cost 100 billion euros (135 billion dollars), she said it would be based on a...
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Germany's government is to mount a 480-billion-euro (650-billion-dollar) rescue plan for German banks, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in Berlin Monday.
She aimed to secure passage of the legislation by Friday, when the law on a "new constitution for the financial markets" would take immediate effect, she told a news...
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As Germany sought to calm the public with a "decisive" pledge about savings property lender Hypo Real Estate (HRE) came under pressure Monday from other banks and Berlin to sack its chief executive after HRE needed a vast bail-out.
Questions about the German government assurance of an estimated 1 trillion euros (1.4 trillion...
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The Austrian government is to raise guarantees on savings deposits to prevent funds from flowing to Germany but wants to coordinate with other European Union members on the issue, Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Wilhelm Molterer said Monday.
Molterer initially made his proposal on television late Sunday after similar moves by...
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A border guard was shot dead in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia on Monday, local agencies reported, while Russian troops said an explosion hit its convoy in a sign of ongoing violence in the EU-monitored border zones.
Abkhaz police chief for the Gali district, Laurens Kogonia, said border guard Mukhran Ashuba died in a shootout...
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The European Union's executive body on Wednesday called for tighter rules on bank security and supervision as the global financial storm showed no signs of abating.
"We have just approved a proposal for reform of the capital requirements of financial companies ... This important and far-reaching proposal will be followed very...
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European countries were Monday urged to step up cooperation and information exchange over threats linked to climate change such as floods, droughts and loss of biodiversity.
Vulnerable areas in Europe include coastal zones, mountainous regions, the Mediterranean and the Arctic, a new report said.
"This report makes strikingly...
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Russia's two leading stock exchanges will not resume trading until Friday, news agencies quoted Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin as saying.
The RTS and Micex markets remained mostly shut for the third day Thursday as stocks took their worst dive since the 1998 financial crisis.
Russian agencies quoted Kudrin saying on Thursday that...
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Russian prosecutors launched a flight safety inquiry on Tuesday into flagship carrier Aeroflot after a crash that killed 88 people, the general prosecutor's office said.
The Aeroflot Boeing 737 crashed near Russia's Ural mountains as it readied to land in the city of Perm on a flight from Moscow. Twenty-one foreigners and seven...
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The finance ministers of the 15 countries which share the euro gathered in Nice on Friday to find ways of avoiding a recession and to prevent a repeat of the turmoil seen on the financial markets.
Ministers were set to discuss the latest economic forecasts of the European Commission, which on Wednesday cut its 2008 growth forecast for...
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South Ossetia's leader denied reports Thursday that the separatist region of Georgia hoped to join Russia, news agency Interfax reported.
"Obviously, I was misunderstood," Edouard Kokoity said less than an hour after he was quoted by news agencies as saying "without doubt, we will become part of Russia."
But,...
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Two people were killed and at least three injured by an explosion on the beach in the Olympic host town of Sochi along the Black Sea, Russian agencies reported.
"At 10:35 am an unidentified device exploded at Loo beach, two people were killed," the head of the city's emergency situations ministry, Anatoly Sherbinin, was...
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Two people died in an explosion on a tourist beach in the Olympic host city of Sochi, drawing a strong reaction from authorities, Russian news agencies reported.
"At 10:35 am (0600 GMT) an unidentified device exploded at Loo beach, two people were killed and 13 injured including an 8-year-old girl," Interfax quoted an...
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Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia should restore Soviet-era alliances with Cuba, news agencies reported.
'We need to rebuild position in Cuba and other countries,' Putin said
during a meeting with his deputy Igor Sechin on his return from talks
in Havana. The head of Russia's federal security...
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Sergei Kislyak, Russia's deputy foreign minister, was named the country's new ambassador to Washington, news agencies reported Tuesday.
Kislyak, 57, has headed difficult negotiations with the United States
in recent months over Washington's plan to install parts of a missile
defence shield in Eastern Europe.
The countries'...
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Two Russian submersibles plumbed the depths of
Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia on Tuesday, diving a record 1,680 metres
(5,512 feet) in one of the world's largest lakes. 'It is a
world record for deep-water submersion in fresh water,' an organizer
told news agencies Itar-Tass on the barge fielding expedition that was
to last...
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Britain's Prince William played a key role in a major anti-drug smuggling operation involving a Royal Navy warship in the North Atlantic which resulted in the seizure of cocaine worth at least 40 million pounds (80 million dollars), it emerged Wednesday.The prince, 26, sat alongside the pilot of a Lynx helicopter which provided...
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 Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in Wednesday as Russian president
by his powerful mentor, Vladimir Putin, AFP reports. The inauguration of Russia’s new
president took place at midday in the Andreyevsky hall of the Kremlin palace.
The question is whether the 55-year-old ex-KGB officer, who
led Russia
for eight years, is willing to...
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 Trevor Rees, the only survivor of the crash which killed
Diana, Princess of Wales, said Wednesday that he is not involved in “any
conspiracy to suppress the truth.”
The former bodyguard, formerly known as
Trevor Rees-Jones, was sitting in the front seat on August 31, 1997 and
suffered serious head injuries in the car accident....
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 President Vladimir Putin upheld the candidature of First Deputy Prime
Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday to succeed him in office when his
presidency ends in March.
Putin meeting with party leaders Monday, including United Russia
which won by a landslide in the recent parliamentary election, said he
"fully and completely...
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 Kosovo topped the agenda at talks between German Chancellor Angela
Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi at Meseberg near Berlin
Tuesday.
"Here Europe will have a large responsibility but we are completely
of one view...that we want to push through a coordinated and united
European position," Merkel...
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 Prime Minister Gordon Brown has launched an international
campaign to help and improve the world’s poorest countries’ health problems.
The International Health Partnership (IHP) is trying to
re-enforce health systems in the developing world and make it easier for
struggling third-world nations.
"Our vision today is that we...
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 Google's new plan introduced Wednesday to track individual users' browser history to target ads was just the ticket for Democrat Rep. Rich Boucher, the newly-minted chairman of the House subcommittee on communications and the internet. The Virginia congressman said Thursday he's working on a bill that will put restrictions on how...
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 On Wednesday, during the Google I/O conference, VP Engineering Vic Gundotra emphasized the browser’s supremacy over all the other internet-related platforms. This was said right before the announcement that the 3D mapping technology of the company’s desktop application, Google Earth, was ported into the browser. The one thing users need...
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 Google and the UN High Comission for Refugees (UNHCR) unveiled a new technology, called "Google Earth Outreach," that uses Google Earth and Maps, imagery and several other features in order to allow UN and NGO workers to highlight conditions of refugees within their programs and projects. Agencies can now create multimedia...
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 During the RSA 2008 conference in San Francisco, Michael Chertoff, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, announced that the government is working on a project that will protect federal networks and national security interests from cyber-attacks. It seems that more and more attention is being directed towards this issue, that has remained...
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 Microsoft
announced recently that it was currently developing a highly innovative tool,
which will allow people measure the effectiveness of online ad campaigns. Called
Engagement ROI, the new reporting tool will be part of Microsoft’s online
advertising platform. The software maker said that Engagement ROI would really
be able to...
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 Although some of us might have
not even noticed yet, starting with Friday Google has started to host The
Associated Press’ news material on its own web site and has stopped to send
only readers to other destinations. Google has signed this deal not only with
The Associated Press, but also with Agence France-Presse, with The...
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 Charlie Sheen, 42, started his career at the age of only 9, when he appeared in a small role together with his father, Martin Sheen, in the television movie “Two and a Half Man.” Still, his film career began in 1984 with roles in “Red Dawn” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” The American actor won a Golden Globe and an Emmy……but things...
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 R. Kelly’s trial could officially begin next Friday, court officials say, six years after the trial was delayed in June 2002. He is facing multiple charges of child pornography.The 40-year-old Grammy-Award winning R&B singer was charged with more than 10 counts of child pornography. The last accusation was he allegedly videotaped...
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 The Lohan family members seem to be moving very fast and so far, within hours from her arrest, they all have publicly expressed their support and opinion towards what’s going on in the actress’ life. Stepping on her mom and dad’s footsteps, Ali Lohan, Lindsay’s 13-year-old sister, wrote an exclusive e-mail to 24/Sizzler and expressed her...
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 European Union proposed former French minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn as candidate for the leadership of the International Monetary Fund that will be changed in October.Portugal, country that holds the EU presidency said on Tuesday “the Economic and Finance Committee (ECOFIN) agrees to support Dominique Strauss-Kahn for IMF director.”...
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 IBM Corp. and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) are to pay a total of US$5.3 million to settle allegations that they companies solicited and provided improper payments on technology contracts with U.S. government agencies. The announcement was made by the U.S. Department of Justice.The settlements are the result of several lawsuits filed in...
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 On Wednesday, four international financial firms were indicted in Milan on charges relating to Parmalat SpA's 2003 bankruptcy. The Italian dairy and food corporation Parmalat SpA nearly disappeared altogether following accusations of financial wrongdoing against founder Calisto Tanzi, in December 2003.Now, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank,...
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Geneva - Nearly two months after Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe declared that the cholera outbreak in his country had been "arrested" the number of dead continues to climb, passing 3,000 this week, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
As of Tuesday, 3,028 people had died and...
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It was a year of extremes, starting with the aftermath of the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and ending with a global financial crisis that engulfed millions across the world.
The year 2008 saw the eruption of the war in Georgia just as the Olympics opened with a glittering ceremony in Beijing. It...
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A Ugandan government official on Friday confirmed that the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia will pull out should Ethiopia stick to its promise of withdrawing its troops before the end of the year.
"If the Ethiopians pull out ... the AU force will pull out because it will not have adequate numbers," James...
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The Zimbabwe government was backtracking Friday on remarks by President Robert Mugabe this week that there was "no cholera" in the country.
George Charamba, Mugabe's official spokesman, said that Mugabe's assertion was "sarcasm," meant to highlight "the absurdity" of what the regime sees as Western moves...
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Congolese rebels and government officials were in the Kenyan capital Nairobi Monday for talks aimed at cementing a ceasefire in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The talks mark the first direct conversation between the government and Tutsi rebel group the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which...
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Congolese President Joseph Kabila has sacked his military chief of staff in the wake of rebel gains in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
State television late Monday night said that General Didier Etumba Longomba, the navy chief, would take over from General Dieudonne Kayembe.
Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's...
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The Congolese army and Tutsi rebels have been involved in some of the worst clashes for a week despite rebel leader Laurent Nkunda telling a United Nations envoy that he supports peace in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN said Monday.
"Yesterday we had a lot of clashes in Riwindi (125 kilometres north of Goma, the...
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Emergency aid is not reaching many of the tens of thousands of civilians displaced by fighting between rebels and government troops in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Wednesday.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has provided food to the displaced living in refugee camps around Goma, the...
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A regional summit on the conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to take place in Nairobi Friday, a Kenyan foreign ministry official said Wednesday as small-scale fighting between rebels and pro-government militia continued for a second day.
"There will be a summit on Friday," Patrick Wamoto, Head of the...
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Nairobi/Goma (dpa) - A United Nations aid convoy taking supplies behind rebel lines in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo is not enough to meed the needs of hordes of desperate refugees, aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of civilians remain displaced after rebel Tutsi general...
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Calm has returned to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a spokesman for the United Nations peacekeeping mission said Thursday after four days of fighting that saw Tutsi rebels come close to taking the city of Goma.
General Laurent Nkunda, leader of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), Wednesday...
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At least 26 people have been killed in a wave of suicide car bomb attacks in Somalia, hospital and government officials said Wednesday.
Five near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks, including one on an Ethiopian embassy and one on a United Nations compound, rocked the breakaway northern state of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous...
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Five suicide bomb attacks, including one on an Ethiopian embassy and one on a United Nations compound, rocked Somalia Wednesday, witnesses and the UN said.
Witness Farhaan Omaye told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa that three near-simultaneous bombs went off in in Hargeysa, in the breakaway northern state of Somaliland.
The Ethiopian...
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At least 25 people have been killed in a wave of suicide car bomb attacks in Somalia, hospital officials said Wednesday.
Five near-simultaneous suicide bomb attacks, including one on an Ethiopian embassy and one on a United Nations compound, rocked the breakaway northern state of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous state of...
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Most of the estimated 30,000 children abducted by Ugandan rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) during its two- decade-long war with the government were sold to fight in Sudan's restive Darfur province, Uganda's Daily Monitor reported Wednesday.
The children were first forced by the LRA to fight and commit atrocities. Afterward,...
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Somali insurgents have said they will take their fight to Kenya if the neighbouring nation carries out a plan to train Somali government troops.
Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minster Moses Wetangula recently offered to provide training to around 10,000 troops currently taking a hammering in Somalia's bloody Islamist insurgency.
"We...
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Somali Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab, which last month ordered the closure of Mogadishu's main airport, said Thursday it may allow air traffic to once again land.
"Our decision to close the airport is not Holy Koran verse; we can change our decision to close the airport if the people come to negotiate," Sheikh...
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Tensions are rising at the sprawling Dadaab refugee camp complex in North-West Kenya as a massive influx of Somali refugees fleeing a brutal insurgency across the border stretches the facilities to breaking point, a UN official said Thursday.
The complex, made up of three separate camps stretching over 50 square kilometres, now hosts...
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Aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has shut down two offices in eastern Chad and evacuated its staff after armed robberies, the charity said Thursday.
MSF said that all activities in Ade and Goz Beida had been suspended indefinitely, leaving 70,000 people without access to health services.
"The fact that MSF is being...
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Somali pirates on Wednesday hijacked a South Korean cargo ship with 21 crew onboard but failed in an attempt to seize a Greek vessel in the Gulf of Aden, a maritime official said.
"Pirates attacked a fully loaded South Korean bulk carrier en route from Europe to Asia and successfully hijacked her," Noel Choong of the...
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The Red Cross on Wednesday issued an emergency
appeal to donors for 26.6 million dollars for food aid to Zimbabwe,
saying millions in the politically and economically unstable country
faced hunger. The International Federation of the Red Cross
and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Geneva the funds would help those
already in need...
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Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
was canvassing for support for his bid to lead the country Thursday as
the European Union sounded the alarm over ongoing political violence in
the southern African country. Tsvangirai was in the West
African state of Senegal to meet with President Abdoulaye Wade, who has
advocated in...
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 Over 6,000 Kenyans have fled to eastern Uganda from the on-going
violence after last month's disputed general election that saw
incumbent president Mwai Kibaki re-elected for a second term, UN and
government sources said Saturday.
Most of the displaced are huddled in camps around the border towns
of Malaba and Busia and aid...
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 The UN General Assembly held a minute of silence on Wednesday in
commemoration of those killed in the twin bombing attacks in Algiers,
which claimed more than 60 lives, including UN personnel.
The 192-nation assembly was called to pay tribute to its staff
killed in Tuesday's attacks, which UN officials now said totaled...
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 The International Labour Organization (ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development agreed on Tuesday to create global partnership which aims to reduce the huge number of children working in agriculture.The initiative was launched to mark the UN World Day Against Child...
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 Sony recently confirmed that their next MMO will be a cross-platform game that puts players into the shoes of high-profile spies working for rivaling factions.“The Agency” will be available for both PC and PS3 and will be produced by Sony Online Entertainment, the only division of the Japanese behemoth that has managed to stay on top and...
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US president-elect Barack Obama named former Clinton White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the CIA and nominated a retired Navy admiral to oversee the entire intelligence community.
Dennis Blair, the chief of US Pacific Command from 1999 to 2002, will become the director of national intelligence, a so-called czar for...
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 The Great Southern California Shake Out is a weeklong event that is meant to teach people how to act during a big earthquake. The education program starts today at 10 a.m. when 5.2 million residents of California will have to roll under the tables and spend two minutes holding its leg tightly. The organizers of the events say that it’s...
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It is a dramatic race against time - while Washington fights a battle over a mammoth rescue plan for the financial sector, the credit crisis is bringing down one US bank after another.
The latest victim was the country's once-leading savings bank, Washington Mutual Inc (WaMu). Federal regulators late Thursday shut down the...
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 On Monday, Hurricane Ike entered the northeastern Cuba and it could take over Havana on Tuesday morning, heading for the U.S. Gulf Coast during the coming week. Nearly 73 people in Haiti were killed by the heavy rains and the floods brought by Ike, leaving every place looking like hell itself.The officials evacuated the Florida Keys...
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 Tropical Storm Gustav headed toward Cuba on Wednesday after it had killed 11 people and caused a lot of floods and damages in the Caribbean. Louisiana and the Gulf Coast are also threatened by the tropical storm which could become a Category 3 hurricane.Evacuations are possible for residents in New Orleans. People living in the area were...
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 According to the Washington Post, officials are allowed to take and examine travelers’ laptops or other electronic devices to an off-site location for an undetermined period of time without suspecting them of unlawful activity, as part of boundary search policies the Department of Homeland Security lately disclosed.Furthermore, federal...
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 New York City will start offering services in six foreign languages most commonly spoken in the city besides English. These idioms are Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian and French Creole. The new program is designed to broadly enlarge the town’s translation and interpretation services.An executive order signed Tuesday by Mayor...
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Montana
is known for its big industry on cattle. Approximately 2.6 million cows place Montana as the sixth
largest state in terms of number of beef cattle. This industry provides more
than $1 billion annual for producers in Montana,
thing that makes it the largest component of agriculture.
At the time being, officials in...
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Federal Bureau of Investigation reported on Monday that not only violent
crimes but also property crimes in the United States have declined in 2007 compared
to the 2006 results. This comes as a big surprise since in the past two years
the statistics showed an increase of such crimes.
Therefore, the figures for crimes reported...
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 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Wednesday
that California
is in a drought after two years of below-average rainfall and the largest
court-order restrictions of water transfers in state history. This is the first
statewide drought in 17 years.
Schwarzenegger called for a 20 percent
reduction in water use statewide, urging...
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American federal law enforcement agencies have led the
number of criminal prosecutions of immigration violators to amazing levels. One
of the means by which they achieved this is filing minor charges against every person
caught illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Officials explained that the perspective of being...
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 The New York Governor, David
Patterson, has directed state agencies to recognize same-sex unions performed
in states or countries where these were legal. According to his spokesman Erin
Duggan, the governor’s indication for state agencies to revise their policies
and regulations accordingly is based on a May 14 memo.
The memo’s...
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 FBI agents created a “war crimes file” to
document accusations against US military personnel after the scandal related to
prisoner mistreatment at Guantánamo
Bay. But they were
ordered to close down the file, according to a Justice Department report disclosed
Tuesday.
The 437-page review prepared by the Justice
Department...
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 The FBI raided the office of U.S. Special Counsel Scott
Bloch in an investigation of whether he obstructed justice by having his computer
files erased, the Associated Press reports.
According to FBI officials, computers and documents were
seized from Scott Bloch’s office during the raid Tuesday morning. They also
mentioned...
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 Mortgage crisis, Americans who lose their homes in foreclosures, energy prices, food costs, farm legislation, student loans, President Bush planned to talk about all these subjects in a news conference aimed to address Americans' anxiety about issues affecting not only the economy of an entire country, but also their pocketbook. He...
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 Texas authorities are looking for evidence that Dale Barlow, 50, who lives in a polygamist religious community, is married to a 16-year-old girl and has a child with her, after the girl complained of physical abuse.
They planned to continue interviews Monday with some members of the religious community who lived there.
The retreat was...
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 Police evacuated more than 450 students from the University of California Davis dormitories after explosive materials were found in one of the rooms on Thursday, police and school officials said. The evacuated students were forced to spend the night in a nearby cafeteria. No injuries were reported.The student arrested by police for...
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 A man made flood will be set up in the Grand Canyon by federal agencies. Such controlled floods had been released before in 1996 and 2004 and their main purpose is to refresh the canyon’s ecosystem. The flood release will begin Wednesday morning as a three-day torrent of water will be released from Glen Canyon Dam on the Arizona-Utah...
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 Four people were arrested on Monday, for transferring important American secrets to China, CNN reports. The cases involved three Chinese nationals and one Defense official.
Kenneth L. Wainstein, assistant attorney general for national security, declared for the Washington Times that, of all 140 intelligence agencies that try to...
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 News reports say police
have discovered bags with human remains Thursday in Ormond Beach right at the
entrance to a local park, which has launched a new mystery for police who say the
remains appear to be of a Caucasian adult male.
A fisherman on Thursday the found human remains in a bag on
the bank of the Tomoka River in Ormond...
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 A 38-year-old woman had the worst surprise she could have ever
dreamed of. Just as she was going into her bathroom, she found herself face to
face with a 7-foot python.
The New York Daily News is reporting that Nadege Brunacci
was washing her hands when she glanced at the toilet and saw a 7-foot python
staring back at her....
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 Broncheolitis obliterans, also known as “popcorn lung
disease” is apparently a new kind of medical illness.
The first consumer case of “popcorn lung” was discovered in Denver, Colorado,
where a 53-year-old man who has been eating three bags of microwave popcorn a
day for the past 10 years was rushed to the hospital after...
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 The mayor of New York City, Michael R. Bloomberg, and about 85 members of his staff have to relocate temporarily in the headquarters of the city’s Office of Emergency Management while the City Hall space undergoes repairs.“Somebody’s going to kill themselves with all of the rips in the carpet,” the mayor said. “They fixed the leaks in...
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The California Department of Water Resources plans to fire up its pumps near Tracy on Sunday at reduced flow. Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said that the pumps will operate at 10% of their capacity:"We will be pumping at bare minimum levels and tweaking our delivery system to meet the...
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Four men have been charged with conspiring to bomb Kennedy International Airport. Their plot was apparently led by an imam, Abdul Kadir, who also recruited a former airport worker. Kadir is a United States citizen of Guyanese descent and a former member of the Guyanese parliament.“Once again would-be terrorists have put New York City in...
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 Cape Canaveral, May 31 – Saturday morning found NASA supplying the space
shuttle Discovery with 500,000 gallons of fuel in order to prepare it for a
late afternoon launch to the International Space Station (ISS). The tank will
be entirely filled at about 10:38 a.m.
The weather was forecasted by the Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy...
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 NASA announced that it would extend the international Cassini mission for an additional two years. The unmanned Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, after the seven years it needed to get there, has been touring Saturn and its moons since 2004 and was supposed to end its activity in July 2008. The extension of the program, which will cost about...
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 It seems like Saturn’s smallest moon, Enceladus, offered scientist the most surprising data retrieved by the US space agency’s Cassini spacecraft, as it has identified water, warmth and, most important, organic material, the three basic ingredients for life, on the surface of the tiny celestial body.The organic data was obtained during a...
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 The American
government is trying to develop a system through which animal and human cells
will replace animals used for testing. Robots will be used to predict the
degree of toxicity of various products.
Three U.S. agencies
have united, in order to accomplish a very noble and ambitious goal: the end of
animal testing. The...
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 A US intelligence satellite that has lost power could hit
the Earth late next month or early March, government officials said.
Specialists are carefully monitoring the satellite’s
trajectory, but the exact location where the out-of-control object might crash has
not been determined yet.
Authorities monitoring the situation say...
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 The Indonesian forest minister called for an international recognition
for the protection of tropical forests, on the Forest Day of the UN
Climate Change Conference in Bali on Saturday.
Indonesia expected an international agreement which would create
incentives for sustainable forest management via market mechanisms,
Malam Sambat...
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 The US Congress recently adopted a law that will protect water bodies and their adjacent wetlands from pollution only if they are big enough to allow sailing, while at the same time neglecting the smaller bodies.The Clear Water Act or the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments was voted in 1972 and established the basic structure...
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 Michael Griffin, head of NASA, declared recently that global warming might not be such a big of a problem, intriguing both scientists and the media.Griffin said that he is not sure whether global warming is “a long-term concern or not”, despite heavy criticism from the media and the ecologists, who are accusing NASA’s policy of cutting...
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A pipe bomb exploded early Thursday morning next to the home of a prominent Israeli political scientist and critic of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, lightly injuring him.
Some hours later police found leaflets offering over one million shekels (290,000 dollars) to anyone who kills a member of the dovish Peace...
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With finite reserves of oil and gas, Iran is
desperately looking for alternative revenues to fuel, which makes up
more than 80 per cent of the country's income. Iran believes it has found the perfect solution in tourism and is therefore planning huge investments in the travel industry.
The aim is easier said than done,...
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Israel's anti-corruption unit has said Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert's announcement that he will step down in September
will not affect the ongoing corruption probe against him, Israeli media
reported Thursday. Police detectives probing a string of corruption allegations against Olmert
are due to question him again on Friday over some...
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German judges gave 10 years jail Tuesday to
the chief plotter in a failed attempt to assassinate a prime minister of post-Saddam Iraq during a visit to Berlin four years ago.
Ata R, aged 34, was convicted of membership in a foreign terrorist
organization, the radical Iraqi Muslim organization Ansar al-Islam.
His fellow plotters,...
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Pakistani authorities said that a suicide bomb attack has
killed Saturday at least 18 people and wounded at least 25 people at an
election rally in northwestern Pakistan,
the Associated Press reports.
North West Frontier province, bordering Afghanistan, is
a region where Islamic extremists operate and has been the scene of...
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 Talks between US President George W Bush and Saudi King Abdullah
Abdel-Aziz in Riyadh, during the penultimate stop in Bush's Middle East
tour, are to focus on common policy against Iran and the Middle East
peace process, according to a US official.
Bush flew into the Saudi capital on Monday for a two-day stay in the Islamic...
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Two expelled diplomats working with the United Nations and the European
Union Mission in Afghanistan left the country on Thursday morning after
the Afghan government accused them of having held a meeting with the
Taliban, officials said.
"I can confirm that one of our staff members left the country,"
Aleem Siddique, a...
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 Iran resumed its atomic weapons programme in 2004 after dismantling its
main facility for developing nuclear arms the previous year, an Iranian
dissident said Tuesday.
Alireza Jafarzadeh said the Iranian government dismantled the main
facility for its nuclear weapons activities and decentralized the
effort into several locations...
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 Iran's foreign ministry spokesman on Sunday denied claims by US
intelligence agencies that Iran had a military nuclear programme before
2003.
"Iran has had no military nuclear programme at any stage, not
before and not after 2003, and any claims in this regard are solely
baseless assumptions," Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said...
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 Dozens of people were injured on Monday when riot police used tear gas and baton-charged hundreds of lawyers who were holding protest rallies in several Pakistani cities against the weekend proclamation of a state of emergency by President Pervez Musharraf.
"The police harshly beat us up with the batons and more than a dozen...
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 Pakistani Taliban veteran Abdullah Mehsud (real name Noor Alam) blew himself up to avoid capture. Javed Iqbal Cheema, an interior ministry spokesman, told press agencies that Meshud used a hand grenade to kill himself after he realized he was surrounded by Pakistani forces near Afghanistan."Intelligence reports pointed out his...
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 The ceasefire is no longer respected in northern Lebanon, as the army and militants began to exchange heavy fire Thursday afternoon, army officials confirmed.According to witnesses, heavy machinegun and rocket fire was heard and seen from the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, prompting speculations that the Lebanese troops prepare...
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 The federal officials have asked doctors and state health agencies to be more careful when they diagnose children because many of the kids aged under 5 can now be infected with the Haemophilus influenzae type B. This can happen because of a vaccine shortage which could only be resolved next year. Haemophilus influenzae type B is a...
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 The massive precipitations in the West Nile area may favor the apparel of a virus spread by
mosquitoes. Agencies that try to deter the so-called West Nile Virus from
becoming a real human threat set free 450 “sentinel” chickens to act against
the insects and prevent the outbreak of disease.
Since there is no strong
certainty that...
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 According to the World Health Organization, Iraqi has been
confronted with more than 7,000 cases of cholera in its northern region in past
weeks.
The most affected provinces are Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk and Irbil.
Provincial authorities have chlorinated public water supply systems and
undertaken other measures to contain the...
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 Heal the Bay released this year’s Beach Report Card, revealing Los Angeles County with 7 of the 10 most polluted beaches in California and the Long Beach area as the one most affected by pollution. Help the Bay (www.healthebay.org) is a non-profit organization based in Santa Monica that releases a study each year assessing California’s...
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 On Monday, microprocessor giant Intel Corp has signed a multi-year contract with supercomputer maker Cray Inc.; the goal of this collaboration is to develop a new range of HPC systems and technologies. A specific launch date hasn’t been officially made public yet, but the first Intel-Cray supercomputers are expected to be ready around...
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 HP, which has this year dethroned Dell from the position of largest computer manufacturer in the world, reports another victory over its rival: a $5.6 billion contract with NASA.During the 7 year contract, the Palo Alto, CA-based giant will provide NASA with “a wide range of technology […] needed by U.S. federal government agencies.”HP...
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An Australian cleric and five of his followers Monday were found guilty of forming a terrorist cell and face possible life terms when sentence is passed.
Four of the group of 12 Melbourne Muslims were declared innocent and two have yet to receive a verdict on the terrorism-related charges against them.
Algerian-born Abdul Nacer...
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 David Hicks, the Australian man who became the first to be convicted of terrorism-related crimes by the U.S. military tribunals at Guantanámo Bay, Cuba, was flown to Australia. He is to be transferred to the Yatala Labor Prison, where he will be confined in a high-security block for the remainder of his sentence, which ammounts to nine...
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 The Obama Administration is planning on spending $7.2 billion on broadband networks, but that’s pretty much all we know about it. The funds that have been allocated however say little about how they will be spent, as the stimulus plan unveils very little details about it.U.S. Department of Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack said in a statement...
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 According to local sources, in the helicopter crash that happened last night at the Lake of the Ozarks, there were five people involved. Out of the four children and one adult, a nine-year-old boy, Zachary T. West, is still missing.Once the helicopter touched the water at around 7:15 p.m., it began to sink quickly. The causes of the...
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 Bush
administration’s recent initiative regarding a cyber security plan has started
to raise concerns among lawmakers, as new details about the largely classified
plan have emerged recently. House lawmakers raised concerns yesterday related
to the connection between the new cyber security program and its privacy
implications. Bush...
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 Nokia, the Finnish cell-phone company, is collaborating with
the University of California, Berkeley,
in order to test if traffic can be predicted and monitored through cell phones.
The test lasted all day Friday and 100 Berkeley
students were involved, Cnet News reports.
Each student’s car was endowed with a Nokia N95 phone...
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 President
George W. Bush signed earlier this month a directive that allows the National
Security Agency (or NSA) and other intelligence agencies to snoop on the
states’ federal agencies. Practically, the National Security Agency was given
the right to access and monitor the federal agencies’ Internet traffic.
According to analysts,...
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 Spy satellites might be harmful!
Especially if they fall out of nowhere directly on your house or car… A smart
spy satellite might smash your cat in just a second, or even worse, it could
even kill you! Well, this in fact a sci-fi scenario; satellite do fall on
Earth, but we usually don’t realize it, as they disintegrate while...
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 The bidding in the US Federal Communications Commission’s auction for wireless spectrum licenses in the 700MHz band went over 3.7 billion dollars on Friday, after only four rounds.The bidding topped the 2.78 billion dollars on Thursday and the federal government hopes that it would raise 10 billion dollars until the end of the auction...
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 The people flying with British
airlines might be able to use their mobile phone while on planes, if the United Kingdom’s telecoms regulator Ofcom’s
proposal will be accepted by the Civil Aviation Authority, U.K.’s air
transportation regulator. Ofcom has made this proposal on Thursday, asking for
the people to be allowed to use their...
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 The University of Missouri has been for the second time this year the victim of a serious data theft that affected the accounts of more than 22,000 individuals associated with the University.The University is unable as of this moment to comment upon whether there was a single attacker or a group of hackers that have accessed one of...
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 Joost, the disruptive Internet video start-up of veterans Niklas Zelstromm and Ianus Friis (the guys behind Skype and Kazaa), announced content deals with new media giants.Among them are CBS, Sony Pictures and Turner Broadcasting and Heavy.com is also expected reach an agreement later on Monday with Joost.After signing distribution...
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| Currency |
USD |
EUR |
GBP |
YEN |
| USD |
------ |
0.757 |
0.701 |
97.307 |
| EUR |
1.320 |
------ |
0.926 |
128.479 |
| GBP |
1.426 |
1.080 |
------ |
138.794 |
| YEN |
0.010 |
0.008 |
0.007 |
------ |
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