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 Hannah Montana created a franchise through the series released worldwide. And everyone would want to see Miley Cyrus live, but what about when it comes to play next to her in the Disney series? Obama’s daughters have received an invitation to the set of Hannah Montana, but it’s still not clear whether the new president of America will...
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 The conservative talk-radio host has signed
an estimated $400 million deal with Clear Channel Communications through 2016. Next
month, Rush Limbaugh will celebrate the 20th anniversary of his radio show, “The
Rush Limbaugh Show,” which is broadcast in more than 600 stations.
His $225 million, none-year contract was
due to expire...
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 Along with Disney and Time Warner, Lehman
Brothers lowered its ratings on News Corp and CBS Corp fearing the television
and film industry could suffer the negative consequences of the transition to
digital broadcasting, according to Reuters.
“To be clear, our fear is that the damage
that digital distribution inflicted on the...
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 A lot of things were said after Jeff Archuleta, David‘s
father, was banned from participating at his son’s rehearsals. But, apparently
things were misunderstood. As any lovable child, the all-time favorite of the
seventh season of “American Idol” wanted to clear things out about his father. According
to him, Jeff is not the monster...
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 For
any man in this world the moment of the marriage proposal is the hardest of
all. But think about loving two women at a time and having to choose one of
them to spend the rest of your life with! Pretty tough, isn’t it? I thought so,
too. But the moment has come for “The Bachelor: London Calling” star Matt Grant
to choose his...
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 Jimmy Fallon appears to be closer to the role of successor for
“Late Night” host Conan O’Brien’s chair on NBC in 2009, sources said. Published
reports showed on Thursday that Fallon has signed, or soon will sign, a deal
with NBC.
O'Brien, whose show airs at 12:35 a.m., is moving into the
11:35 p.m. slot next year after...
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 This Thursday night is a special date for Jimmy Kimmel. No,
he is not releasing another funny ‘love’ video featuring him and Ben Affleck,
it’s something more, more remarkable. It’s the 1,000th episode of “Jimmy Kimmel
Live.”
His show made its debut on January 26, 2003 and even though
it proved a success, nobody expected it to...
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 Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll reveals more than
150 interviews and thousands of documents in “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family
in the American Century,” an exciting history of bin Laden’s siblings, the
famous villain who orchestrated the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The book is a family biography and not...
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 America voted Wednesday night, and two things became clear: Voters were not nearly as charmed by "American Idol" wannabes Nick "Norman/Normund Gentle" Mitchell and Megan Joy Corkrey as we were. But 25 million of them voted, and they did like up-from-nowhere 16-year-old firecracker Allison Iraheta, who was the first...
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 Mickey Rourke might not have won the Best Actor statue, but
the actor was still the talk of the town after the awards show. The subject,
however, was his next role.
According to some Hollywood
inside sources, Rourke is on a very short list for a lead role in “Iron Man
2.” Apparently he managed to prove
himself a sentimental...
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 troubled singer Britney Spears has finally obtained the
permission to visit her children. The 26-year-old pop star spent Saturday
almost three hours with 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden
James. The visit comes after a two-month break, as Spears had previously
seen her children on January 3rd.
According to People...
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The 2008 Formula One season reaches its thrilling conclusion with the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos this weekend when Lewis Hamilton of McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari's Felipe Massa battle it out for the drivers' world championship crown.
Hamilton needs just a fifth place finish to ensure he goes into the record books as the...
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 According to the announcement by the International Olympic Committee on Sunday, the lighting of the Olympic flame is set to take place in the Greek sanctuary of Olympia, but not all could go well and as planned, since protesters angered by China's crackdown in Tibet might disrupt the high-profile event.In order to keep that from...
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 South African double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius will not be
allowed to compete at the Beijing Olympics because the prosthetics he
uses give him an advantage over able-bodied athletes, the ruling body
IAAF said on Monday.
The IAAF said in a statement from its Monte Carlo headquarters that
Pistorius is not eligible to compete...
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 Olympic three-time gold medalist Marion Jones on Friday was sentenced
to spend six months in jail for lying about using steroids and a
check-fraud scam, media reports said.
Jones, the first woman to claim five medals in an Olympics, could
have faced up to 10 years in jail for the offences, and even under a
plea deal faced up to 37...
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Cairo - International Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair has called for "a new strategy in Gaza," in remarks made in Cairo on Wednesday, and admitted that the international community's approach to the Palestinian territory had not worked.
"We need a new strategy for Gaza," Blair told reporters after meeting with...
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Zimbabwe has received agricultural inputs from the South African government worth over 300 million South African rand (about 30 million dollars), Zimbabwean state media reported Monday.
The Herald newspaper quoted Zimbabwe's Agricultural Minister Rugare Gumbo as saying Pretoria had sent, among other items, maize and sorghum seed,...
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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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After sparking outrage among Israel's Arab citizens, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni clarified Friday her remark that the solution for their national aspirations lay in the future Palestinian state.
Livni told Israel Radio that she had not been hinting at "transferring" or "moving" Israel's Arab citizens to...
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Piracy in Somalia cannot be defeated by military means alone, and dialogue with pirates is needed to address the root causes of the problem, a Kenyan maritime official said Wednesday as an international conference on piracy got under way.
"Piracy can't be solved by a military solution," Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenyan...
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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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Somali pirates have demanded 25 million dollars for the release of a Saudi-owned supertanker seized at the weekend, reports said Thursday.
Mohamed Said, one of the pirates, gave a deadline of ten days for the ransom to be paid, threatening "disastrous" consequences otherwise, Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera...
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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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Animal rights activists and a renowned conservationist on Thursday slammed the sale by South Africa of 47 tonnes of ivory, calling four recent auctions of tusks to Asian buyers "irresponsible" and a "disservice to conservation."
The ivory trade has been banned since 1989. However, the 171 members of the UN-backed...
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Nigerians were jubilant Wednesday after Barack Obama was declared the 44th president of the United States of America.
Many Nigerians stayed glued to their television sets to monitor the election.
The moment Obama was announced to have won Ohio and Pennsylvania, cheering erupted in beer parlours and homes across Africa's most...
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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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A ceasefire agreement between the Somali government and parts of the Islamist opposition is set to take effect on November 5, after the warring parties reached an agreement Sunday evening in Djibouti.
The agreement, negotiated under United Nations auspices, also laid the groundwork for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. Those...
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Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Monday its leader Morgan Tsvangirai would not travel to Swaziland for a regional security meeting on the impasse in Zimbabwe and demanded instead a full regional crisis summit on the issue.
Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe were expected in Swaziland on Monday to explain the...
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A Cambodian court Tuesday found four former Khmer Rouge guerillas guilty of the 1996 kidnapping and murder of a British deminer and his Cambodian translator and sentenced them to 10 to 20 years in prison.
Judge Iv Kim Sri of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court acquitted a fifth man because of a lack of evidence.
Briton...
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Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Tuesday expressed regret that the party signed a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, without having first agreed on the composition of a unity government.
Speaking on South African radio about the three-week delay in the implementation of the landmark agreement, MDC...
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Confusion struck Zimbabwe's financial system Friday after the central bank stopped electronic transfers, following the currency's crash to a new record low.
State radio quoted Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono as saying that electronic transfers had been suspended because they were "being used for illicit foreign...
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During Ramadan, many Egyptian families tend to settle in front of the television after the iftar or fast-breaking meal at sunset, switching from channel to channel, to take in their favourite local dramas.
This year, several local comic sitcoms that run in 20-minute episodes, have drawn viewers away from the traditional 45-minute...
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A powerful explosion rattled a mosque in north-western Yemen on Friday, killing a worshipper and injuring five others, witnesses said.
Witnesses told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that the blast took place after the weekly prayers in a village mosque in the Mahabesha district of the north-western province of Hajja.
It was not...
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One person was confirmed killed after a six-storey building collapsed in the Egyptian capital on Friday.
It was not immediately known how many people were in the residential building, situated in northern Cairo's densely populated Shobra district.
Rescue workers were sifting through the rubble. It was not clear why the building...
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Fighting has broken out between rebels and the army in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations said.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo (MONUC) said that rebels aligned with rebel General Laurent Nkunda and government soldiers exchanged fire for around eight hours in the North Kivu province on...
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Pirates have hijacked a Malaysian tanker with over 20 crew members on board in the Gulf of Aden, the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre said Wednesday.
The body said that the ship, which is carrying crude palm oil, is thought to be heading into Somali coast waters.
A ransom demand is expected to be issued...
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Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai were due to resume talks Tuesday on a powersharing deal after the difficult negotiations were adjourned for a second time Monday without any sign of agreement.
The talks were due to resume after Defence Forces' Day celebrations in Harare that Mugabe was...
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Hundreds of African refugees and asylum seekers who were displaced by a spate of xenophobic violence in South Africa in May were evicted Monday by police from the roadside camp they have occupied for days in protest over their treatment.
The group of around 415 mostly Congolese, Burundians and Ethiopians,
among them large numbers...
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Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
was in South Africa Tuesday for talks with negotiators from his
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on the suspension of talks with
President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Tsvangirai's spokesman
George Sibotshiwe confirmed that the MDC leader was in South Africa,
where multi-party talks...
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The official levelling of war crimes charges
against Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir has been
welcomed in many quarters, but fears remain the decision could cause an
escalation of violence in Darfur and more misery for millions of
long-suffering displaced Darfuris. International Criminal
Court (ICC) Prosecutor Luis...
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Construction on Durban's King Senzangakhona
Stadium, which will host a 2010 World Cup semi-final, is running ahead
of schedule, the city planner for Durban's World Cup projects has said.
'We are eight weeks ahead of schedule, the stadium is
65-per-cent complete,' said Julie-May Ellingson, who is also
responsible for the building...
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The Zambian government is extremely dissatisfied with the
fact that the South Africa’s
media made public the supposed death of President Levy Mwanawasa in a hospital
on Thursday. The government states that reports, which are unprofessional and
deplorable, are triggering torment and worry among Zambian people, says Voice
of...
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 According to Zimbabwe’s
opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), its leader Morgan
Tsvangirai won the presidential election with 50.3 percent of the vote. However,
the official results have not yet been released.
MDC general secretary Tendai Biti claims that the result
shows that there is no need for an...
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 Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged
Kenyan rival leaders to put aside their divergences and end the bloody conflict.
The Ghanaian diplomat outlined that the fierce conflict has evolved beyond
initial protests and threatens to grip other parts of the African country.
Annan visited the conflict-ridden Rift...
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 The United States on Saturday said all sides must recognize "serious flaws" in the vote-counting process of Kenya's disputed election, and urged ruling and opposition leaders to meet immediately and "without preconditions" to break the cycle of violence.
Jendayi Frazer, assistant secretary of state for African...
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 The newly-elected head of South Africa's ruling African National
Congress (ANC), Jacob Zuma, on Thursday sought to quell fears of
political tensions caused by the emergence of two centres of power in
South Africa and ruled out a dramatic leftward shift in economic
policy.
"There is likely to be anxiety regarding the existence...
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 Protests erupted in the Sudanese capital Khartoum Friday, with
thousands of angry demonstrators calling for the death of a British
teacher who was convicted of blasphemy for allowing her students to
name a teddy bear Mohammed.
The protestors poured out of mosques following Friday prayers, some
carrying knives and clubs, just a day...
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 A British teacher has been charged by Sudanese authorities with
insulting religion and inciting hatred for allowing her pupils to name
a teddy bear Mohammed, the Foreign Office in London confirmed
Wednesday.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "surprised and
disappointed" at the charges, while Foreign Secretary David...
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 According to local media reports, security forces were patrolling Senegal's
capital Thursday, where streets were reopened to traffic a day after hundreds
of young men protesting a move to clear the city of hawkers clashed with police
throughout Dakar.
The government late Wednesday agreed to allow vendors back onto certain
streets,...
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Car sales slumped 22 per cent in November as Australians postponed purchases for fear of losing their jobs in a recession, figures released Thursday showed.
Around 20,000 fewer vehicles were sold last month than in November 2007. It was the fifth consecutive monthly drop.
"It's clear that people are being more cautious with...
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Australian sports fans expecting a river of gold in Beijing were Tuesday warned to brace for a disappointing haul of Olympic medals.
"We said 42 to 48 medals. I think it's going to be between 40 and 42," Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates said.
"We didn't know coming into these games how much China,...
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 An Australian jury proved to be quite a disappointment for
both the judge and the lawyers who have been dealing with a drug trial for the past three months. It
turned out that five members of the jury in case were playing Sudoku during the
hearing while everybody thought that they were taking notes. As a result, Sydney
District Court...
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 Two anti-whaling activists taken hostage by Japanese whalers in
Antarctica earlier this week have been freed and are now on the
Australian ship the Oceanic Viking, the Sea Shepherd protest
organization said Friday.
Australian Benjamin Potts, 28, and Briton Giles Lane, 35, were
detained since they risked their lives boarding a...
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 A court ruling Friday cleared the way for an Indian doctor held briefly
on terrorism charges to return to his job in an Australian hospital.
In a further boost for Mohamed Haneef, Immigration Minister Chris
Evans said the Indian doctor was free to return to Australia under his
original visa.
Lawyers for Mohamed Haneef were...
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 Opinion polls Saturday showed Kevin Rudd's Labor Party maintaining its
clear lead over Prime Minister John Howard's ruling coalition with just
a week to go before Australia's November 24 general election.
Support for Labor is steady at 54 per cent with the conservatives
on 46 per cent, according to an opinion poll in The...
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Nothing, it seems, can stop Tiger Woods when he really wants to win.
The world number 1 went into the US Open at Torrey Pines with a
dodgy knee, eight weeks after surgery, and was confronted with an
inspired opponent in Rocco Mediate.
Woods had needed a birdie at the last on Sunday to force the 18-
hole playoff and again found...
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 The well known tennis champion Martina Hingis, who has won five Grand Slams, announced her retiring in the same time as she was found positive for cocaine in a drug test occurred at this year’s Wimbledon.In a press conference, the 27 Swiss athlete has denied the accusations, saying that while A and B urine test turned out positive for...
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 In a statement made on Friday, the McLaren- Mercedes Formula One team has declared that the double world champion, Fernando Alonso, will leave the team, as a decision agreed by both parts, after only one year out of his three year contract with the team.McLaren stated that they have reached a mutual agreement that it would be in the best...
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 Two executives from NBC told the Associated Press that Lipstick Jungle and My Own Worst Enemy will be kicked off the channel. Christian Slater and Brooke Shields have just passed on the failure list of actors as their most recent projects will be stopped from airing. The shows are the youngest NBC’s projects and apparently, they both...
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 “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” is the third movie released by Disney which gained a total of $1 billion and created an entire franchise on its subject. Besides the money, the movie gained million fans worldwide because of the clear vision of teenage school life. Teenagers from Cairo to Canberra seem to love this drug, love and...
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 Max Payne opens on Friday nationwide. Maybe all action games fans have heard about the character that inspired John Moore to create a stylized new action movie based on a video game story. Well, critics say it’s bad because the movie doesn’t catch any real action figure. It all starts in New York City, where everybody has wings tattooed...
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 Friday brings the release of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” an
American comedy film written by Jason Segel and starring Segel, Kristen Bell, Russell
Brand and Mila Kunis.
Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) and Sarah Marshall (Kristen
Bell) have been living together for six years. She is a popular TV actress in an
obvious send-up of the...
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 Anyone who has watched the previous seasons of Sci-Fi
Channel’s “Battlestar Galactica” would agree that this series is a highly
complex one through its story. Moreover, it would be extremely hard, if not
impossible for anyone who hasn’t watched the story from the beginning to
understand it. The ending of the third season, apparently...
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 When it comes to children’s movies, the range is so wide that Zach Helm should have thought twice before initiating his directorial career with “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.”Probably hoping some success resembling Roald Dahl's “Charlie and The Chocolate factory”, Helm promised wonder from the very title that isn’t that magical itself....
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 If you ever find yourself in the position of rescuing
yourself and the beloved, friends or neighbors from really hungry vampires, it
might help to have seen David’ Slade’s 30 Days of Night. That only that will
provide you the necessary means of getting rid of the nasty creatures, but also
it will accustom you with the danger and will...
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 As unfair for some of the biggest names in the recording industry as it sounds, the Pirate Bay is already running good, after only 48 hours into its trial in Stockholm, Sweden. Half of the charges against the popular bit torrent-based file-sharing service were dropped on Tuesday. Now, its four defendants are on trial for “assisting...
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 Opera software, a small Norwegian maker of Web browsers, announced on Thursday that it had challenged the Microsoft company before the European Commission over charges that the Seattle-based software titan is abusing its position on the market by selling its Windows operating system together with its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.Only...
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 Microsoft declared on Tuesday that it would disable the so- called kill switch from its Vista operating system, which had the role of hobbling the pirated versions of the top-selling software.The move comes after the company had several complaints from legitimate users that had problems with the kill switch that was restricting the use...
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 After Microsoft has eventually
acknowledged that confusion has been created around its plan of patching a bug
in its Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems, the famous company
has decided to publicly explain this plan. So, Microsoft has tried to clarify
on Thursday that it has plans of fixing a bug that has appeared...
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 Apple targeted Microsoft in the latest round of the Mac versus the PC. Steve Jobs’s company came up with two commercials tweaking Microsoft’s marketing strategies. Even if the commercials were released for that sedentary audience to ponder in between kickoffs this weekend, both ads missed their objective, because it looks like they are...
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 As already expected, Apple Inc. has
just released the first update for its famous ultimate smart phone, the iPhone.
The update that has been released today by the American company for its
ultimate gadget has included the solutions for fixing several critical bugs, as
well as brand new features, such as the ability of buying tracks...
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 Seventeen babies at a Texas hospital had taken an overdose of the blood thinner drug. One has passed away, although it is not clear yet if heparin had a contribution in the infant’s death, reported CNN, which got the information from Corpus Christi Hospital officials. Nurses allegedly used 10,000 units of the medicine instead of 10, and...
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 Pilots or air traffic controllers will no longer be allowed
to use the anti-smoking drug Chantix. This appeal of the Federal Aviation
Administration is argued by the side-effects of the drug, which have been
discovered and announced in the last months. These negative influences on the
human body may be a threat to the safe operation...
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 California has said that it has delayed measures to track all prescription drugs. The previously set date was the next Jan. 1st, but it was delayed by two years as a response to complaints from drug manufacturers, distributors and retail pharmacists. The industry said it needs more time to set up the system, otherwise they could be...
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 Medical researchers are on the
right way to find a cure for one of the deadliest and widely spread forms of
cancer, the cervical cancer. They have already designed a vaccine which is most
effective when administered to girls between 9 and 26, especially before
becoming sexually active.
The researchers are intending to...
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 According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Chantix,
Pfizer’s prescription drug for smoking cessation, may cause suicidal thoughts,
according to a statement issued yesterday by the federal agency.
Shares of New York City-based Pfizer Inc., which has about
2,000 employees in New Jersey, were down $0.30, or 1.3 percent, to...
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 According to a recent study conducted by a team of European
researchers that was recently published on Tuesday in the Archive of Internal Medicine
journal, the "Sunshine Vitamin," also known as Vitamin D could prolonge your
life. Until recently, the vitamin was known only for its bone and teeth
strengthening...
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 According to recent research, vitamin D could add valuable
years to our life span, lowering one’s risk of death from any cause
considerably.
The researchers looked at 18 previously published articles
and wrote a report, which appears in Archives of Internal Medicine
(JAMA/Archives), September 10 issue.
People with vitamin...
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 Martina Hingis faces another round in her legal battle to clear her
name of positive drug-test charges after the independent Anti-Doping
Tribunal on Friday confirmed a 2007 verdict against the Swiss former
number one.
Hingis took her battle public last November, contesting what the
International Tennis Federation said was a...
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 Former world no. 1 Serena Williams showed an ungraceful, disrespectful side of herself on Wednesday after she lost 7-6 6-1 to Justine Henin. After taking the beating, she showed disrespect for the media and her adversary at the mandatory press conference. Players are required to appear for post-match news conferences or face fines from...
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Vietnam's stock market dropped Tuesday for a third straight day as local investors dumped shares on concerns that a large number of new companies will list before the end of the year and dilute prices, a securities analyst said.
The VN-Index fell 7.22 points, or 1.36 per cent, to close at 525.49, the lowest level in two...
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Germany could be on the brink of a major shakeout in its fragmented banking industry with investors betting Monday on an announcement this week of an 8-billion-euro (12 billion-dollar) merger between two of the nation's leading banks.
Indeed, shares in Allianz SE jumped more than 1.0 per cent in early trading Monday on speculation...
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 The oil prices went down steady at below 95 dollars a barrel, on Tuesday, making an effort to recover from the early losses. This comes before the very important meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which will take place in December, in Saudi Arabia.According to calculations of the Vienna-based OPEC...
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 Sun Microsystems Inc. announced it is about to change its stock symbol from "SUNW" to "JAVA". The change will occur on August 27 and is supposed to reflect the heightened role of the company's Java Web technology. However, the decision was met with skepticism by some, who said the move is nothing but a pathetic PR...
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Two years after the biggest hazardous waste scandal on the African continent, the International Human Rights League plans to institute legal proceedings.
Those responsible for the incident had still not been identified, the organization said in Paris on Thursday.
In August 2006, Dutch oil company Trafigura off-loaded around 500...
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 Keith Kennedy, the 25-year-old autistic man
was found alive Sunday night after spending seven days lost in the wilderness
south of Grantsburg, Wis. A group of St. Paul
and Maple Grove
firefighters found him at about 7 p.m. a mile west of Trade Lake Camp, lying
next to a stream, Burnett County Sheriff Dean Roland said, according to...
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 On Wednesday president Bush gave the year 2025 as deadline for halting the growth of greenhouse-gas emissions. According to Mr.Bush, new technologies are "the key" for resolving the soon-to-be delicate issue of climate change. One of the more specific aspects the president went into was this: power plant emissions should peak...
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 Latest satellite images have shown out-of-control wildfires
that have been polluting Southern
California skies with acrid smoke and falling ash for a third
straight day,as public health officials urge the elderly and people with
breathing problems to stay indoors.
The images showed thick smoke from more than a...
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 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that common household flame retardants cause a significant increase in the occurrence of cat thyroid disease. The culprit is a class of substances known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, according to a new study published in the Aug. 15 online issue of Environmental...
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 Bernard Hopkins successfully defended his light-heavyweight world champion title wining by a unanimous decision over Winky Wright on Saturday. He protected his Middleweight title 20 times, more than any middleweight in history.Judge Glenn Hamada scored 116-112 for Hopkins with Glenn Trowbridge and Dave Moretti agreeing on a 117-111 score...
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 A panel of experts has issued a report against the Food and Drug Administration, criticizing the agency for having overlooked significant evidence about bishpenol A safety."When we looked at the draft report, we felt that it was incomplete in a few very important aspects," said a member of the scientific advisory board, Dr....
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Authorities in Hong Kong told Beijing to start an inquiry on how melamine got in Chinese eggs, the media reported on Monday. Hong Kong food inspectors have found chicken eggs tainted with melamine, the industrial chemical at the heart of the enormous scandal related to Chinese infant formula. The eggs were imported from northeastern...
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 Who would’ve thought that alcohol intake is linked directly to brain volume?
That the size of the brain decreases by roughly 2 percent per decade, and that
drinkers’ brains may shrink more rapidly?
Well, this is what researchers from Wellesley
College in Wellesley, Massachusetts
claim, based on the results of a study they had...
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 Combining Tarceva and Avastin drugs for treating lung cancer don’t seem to work as expected. Roche Holding AG stated on Monday that these drugs don’t show any decrease in the death caused by this type of cancer. Both Tarceva and Avastin are used as “smart bomb” drugs. They track the sick cells and kill them while leaving the healthy...
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Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker, is planning an advertising and public-relations campaign, as a response to announcements about its antismoking drug Chantix and its already known negative effects on the users' health.Alarm signals were pulled as regards this drug, after studies have revealed its potentially dangerous...
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 Capt. John Cota, the pilot whose cargo ship crashed into the
San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, dumping tens of thousands of gallons of oil
into the San Francisco
Bay, was convicted on
drunken driving in 1999.
Later on, it became very clear that he was suffering from
serious medical issues. It was demonstrated that he should...
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 The American Cancer Society and other health groups
recommend that people should be routinely screened for colorectal cancer with
more sensitive and less invasive tests that detect precancerous lesions and
malignancies in their early stages.
These recommendations refer to genetic tests on the stool
and virtual colonoscopy....
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 The Pentagon can continue its policy of compulsory anthrax
vaccinations, federal judge Rosemary M.Collyer decided Friday.
Judge Collyer said that the Food and Drug Administration
made no mistake in approving the vaccine as safe.
"The FDA applied its expertise and found the vaccine is
effective. The FDA did not act...
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 House leaders from both parties and the White House agreed
yesterday on a bill that would triple in size the Bush administration’s global
AIDS program, which is considered to be the most successful and popular
initiative aimed at fighting a disease in US history.
The bill authorizes $50 billion over five years to...
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 Public health officials say people should be aware of the
latest microbe that’s been getting suite a buzz lately, a drug-resistant
bacterium known as MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Heath
officials say people should and take it seriously, but should not be overly
concerned because it’s not a new bug and is usually...
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Smoking bans in public places have recently come into effect in several European countries and Germany is set to join their ranks this August.
There has never been a better time to kick the habit, but smokers should be warned - without professional help the task is likely to be much harder. Statistics show that only between 1 and 2...
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 A person with a toothache usually touches his cheek where he feels the pain, while someone with a bellyache instinctively soothes it by putting a hand on his tummy. Just about everyone would agree that laying a hand on a part of the body that's not well can have a calming effect.
This is a principle of Reiki, an esoteric treatment...
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 Car makers are building a range of mini SUVs (Sports Utility Vehicles) in apparent reaction to growing criticism that 4x4s are too heavy and thirsty for driving conditions in big cities.
"The big and heavy 4x4 is no longer in. The SUV is shrinking to the size of the average compact class with less consumption, emission and space...
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Ferrari's Felipe Massa believes all the pressure is on title rival Lewis Hamilton ahead of the final Formula One race of the season, Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos.
The McLaren-Mercedes driver Hamilton holds a seven-point lead over Massa following his victory in Shanghai on October 19 and will be crowned the youngest F1...
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Lewis Hamilton was "too optimistic" in overtaking Kimi Raikkonen in the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, Raikkonen's Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa says on his website.
Massa, who was awarded the race on Sunday after Hamilton was penalised for the manoeuvre, said the McLaren-Mercedes driver should have waited before attempting...
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 Saturday was Jamie McMurray’s day, who he ended his five-year or 166-race winless streak over Kyle Busch. McMurray reached the finish line just 0.005 seconds before Busch in the final lap of the 400-mile race of the 18th round of NASCAR's Nextel Cup in Daytona.The bumper-like margin of victory equaled the second-closest finish since the...
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London - Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has dampened speculation that he is about to resign from his job, saying he is hoping to sign a new contract sooner rather than later.
The Spaniard, whose contract runs until the end of next season, was the subject of a flurry of betting activity on Wednesday, causing a number of bookmakers to...
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London - Hull City's hopes of avoiding relegation suffered a blow on Tuesday when the club confirmed that midfielder Jimmy Bullard will have surgery on his knee.
The 30-year-old, who joined the club from Fulham in the January transfer window, has suffered a tear to the cartilage.
"Jimmy Bullard will be having an arthroscopy on...
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European champions Spain remain top of the world football rankings issued Wednesday by the world governing body FIFA while Turkey jumped three places to move into the top 10.
Spain finish 2008 well clear of Euro 2008 finalists Germany while the Netherlands leapfrog World Champions Italy into third spot.
Brazil remain fifth,...
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Glasgow (dpa) - Diego Maradona has dismissed suggestions that his Argentina team struggled to a 1-0 friendly international victory over Scotland in his first game in charge.
Maxi Rodriguez scored the only goal of the game Wednesday evening after eight minutes at the end of a slick passing move involving Carlos Tevez and Jonas...
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Liverpool moved clear at the top of the table, for a few hours at least, with a 2-0 win at Bolton Wanderers in the English Premier League table.
Dirk Kuyt and Steven Gerrard scored the goals to put Liverpool three points clear of Chelsea, who play away to bottom side West Bromwich Albion later on Saturday.
Liverpool dominated the...
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Brazilian football legend Pele made clear his scepticism as to the likelihood that Diego Maradona might be successful as coach of Argentina's senior team.
"Great stars, great players do not usually make good coaches. And sometimes a footballer that was not so brilliant in his career becomes a great coach," Pele noted, in...
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A good showing in the Champions League may have signalled the end of a bad run for struggling giants Juventus ahead of a city derby they play late Saturday with Torino.
The injury plagued black-whites beat guests Real Madrid 2-1 in mid-week despite a massive injury list that includes top-notch players like goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon,...
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The future of Olympic football is still up in the air, pending a meeting between IOC President Jacques Rogge and FIFA President Joseph Blatter.
"We still have not discussed the issue with FIFA. We have not scheduled a meeting, but we will schedule one in the future," Rogge said in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur...
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UEFA's decision is final that Poland and Ukraine will host Euro 2012, the head of Poland's football association Michal Listkiewicz said on Friday after UEFA decided to keep the two nations as co-hosts of the football championship.
"This ends any speculation on the possibility of taking this tournament away from us,"...
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German Football Federation (DFB) president Theo Zwanziger Monday called for end to a dispute between captain Michael Ballack and team manager Oliver Bierhoff.
The dispute has been simmering since the Euro 2008 final in Vienna at the end of June after an altercation on the pitch following the 1-0 defeat to Spain.
Zwanziger told...
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Some of Europe's biggest teams will be seeking to secure passage into the lucrative group stage of the Champions League in the return legs of the third qualifying round on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Spanish and Italian giants Barcelona and Juventus look well placed to advance after comfortable 4-0 wins at home two weeks ago.
Barcelona,...
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Angel Di Maria scored the only goal of the game Saturday as Argentina successfully defended their Olympic football title, beating Nigeria 1-0 in the gold medal match played in Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium.
A near capacity crowd of 89,000 saw Benfica's Di Maria latch onto a defence-splitting pass from Barcelona star Lionel Messi on 58...
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The Football Federation of Cambodia is up in arms over widespread reports of hairy-legged, mustachioed players taking the field in the first nationwide under-15 championships, the federation's secretary general said Tuesday.
Cambodia has been named one of the most corrupt countries in Asia by the Berlin-based watchdog group...
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Two recent European champions in Liverpool and Spanish giants Barcelona face tricky opponents as they attempt to negotiate their way safely through the last qualifying stage of the Champions League in first leg matches on Wednesday.
Barcelona, who won the title in 2006, come up against Polish champions Wisla Krakow while Liverpool,...
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 The Chicago Bears decided it’s in their best interest to let Tank Johnson go after his latest scrap with the law. Not even Tank had a hard time understanding that his former team did what they had to do."I want to thank the Bears organization and fans for their support during this difficult time," Johnson said in a statement...
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Operation Checkmate was a success. Colombian military troops managed to rescue Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages from the jungle controlled by the extreme left-wing FARC guerrilla movement.General Freddy Padilla de Leon, Colombia’s most senior military officer, had his troops in position along the Apaporis River, in the wilderness...
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 A new Indian tribe that hasn’t had contact with civilization was discovered in the Amazon. Brazil’s National Indian Foundation said in the statement it spotted a group of Indians, six huts and a large planted area near the Envira River, close to the Peruvian border in the Brazilian state of Acre in the western Amazon rainforest.“We put...
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 Three high profile hostages being held by left-wing rebels in Colombia
could be released as early as Saturday as a complicated process
involving multiple countries in the region has begun.
The expected release is the latest twist in the mediation efforts
of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been a key figure in
trying to...
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 Brazilian police cracked down on drug dealers in poor neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, at least 18 being killed in the ensuing gunbattles.Brazilian authorities decided it was time to root out drug trafficking in one of the country’s largest cities, putting on an impressive display of force, as a number of 1,300 security...
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 Incumbent Nestor Kirchner remains the strongest candidate ahead of the Argentine presidential elections in October, but he has recently shown signs of a weakness that he had managed to avoid since being elected in 2003.
"The right wing established a beachhead in the capital," the left-wing daily Pagina 12 said...
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It's been hard times for Thailand's former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the man who dominated the country's politics between 2001 to 2006 and continues to be the central character in the kingdom's on-going political drama.
Even with his brother-in-law, Somchai Wongsawat, in place as prime minister and the current cabinet packed...
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Lehman Brothers' collapse rattled European markets just as the continent struggles to avoid recession and the US-spawned credit crisis shows no sign of ending.
While investors awaited the 158-year-old US investment bank's bankruptcy Monday, Germany's main stock index hit a nearly two-year low. The European Central Bank and the Bank of...
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Surprise package Hoffenheim will be aiming to keep their place at the top of the Bundesliga when they visit Bayer Leverkusen on Saturday.
The newly-promoted village club are the only side with maximum points following two victories without conceding a goal, and Leverkusen coach Bruno Labbadia warns that the good start is no...
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North Korea said Tuesday it had stopped disabling its nuclear facilities in protest of the United States' failure to remove the country from its terrorist blacklist.
The foreign ministry in Pyongyang accused Washington of not having kept its side of a deal struck to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.
In response,...
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Police in Zimbabwe detained two members of parliament from Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Monday after they turned up at parliament to take part in a swearing-in ceremony, the MDC said.
George Sibotshiwe, spokesman for MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, said Shua Mudiwa, MP for Mutare West, and Eliah Jembere,...
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Twelve people died from their injuries Friday, the day after twin suicide bombings at Pakistan's largest arms and ammunition factory, hospital authorities said, as investigators interrogated at least a dozen suspects.
The latest casualties raised the death toll to 78 in the two synchronised attacks at the gates of the Pakistan...
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Bayern Munich expect new coach Juergen Klinsmann to deliver a 22nd German league title when the Bundesliga season begins for the league and cup winners at home to SV Hamburg on Friday.
Bayern start the Bundesliga's 46th season as clear favourites but the change of coach from the experienced Ottmar Hitzfeld to 44-year-old Klinsmann,...
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Seven civilians were killed Thursday in fresh
clashes between government forces and Taliban fighters in Pakistan's
troubled Swat valley, media reports said. One mortar round
missed its target in the Deolai area of Swat and hit a house, killing
seven members of the same family, including five children. The house
was completely...
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A woman suffering from a psychiatric disease died on the
floor, inside Kings County Hospital
Center in Brooklyn,
on June 19. A video tape that recorded the tragic event was handed over to the
attorneys of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The death of Esman Green, 49, was graphically revealed
yesterday when the...
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Three Iraqis and a Jordanian filed a lawsuit against United States military contractors, accusing
them of torture while they were detained at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad
in 2003 and 2004.
The men were
released without any charge and have brought individual lawsuits in four
different United States
courts: Seattle,...
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 Indian and Pakistani foreign ministry officials met on
Tuesday to review the peace process that has been held up because of the
internal political tensions that burst in Pakistan last year. Both countries
intend to continue the dialogue that began four years ago under former military
strongman, President Pervez Musharraf.
Some of...
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 U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown is due to meet the three U.S. presidential candidates Thursday before
holding talks with President George W. Bush in Washington. As British newspapers pointed
comparisons between the premier’s three-day visit in the U.S. and the chronicled trip of Pope
Benedict XVI, a British official said that the...
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 In a new five-minute audio message broadcasted by the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera late
Wednesday, Osama bin Laden warned Europeans they will deal with a “severe
reckoning” due to siding with the United States in Afghanistan and for publishing
cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in magazines and newspapers, which is
considered...
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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 local media reports on Monday, eight Turkish
soldiers who were released by the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) last
week after being taken hostage in an ambush were arrested and charged on Sunday
by an order of the Van Military Court.
The eight soldiers will now face
trial in custody based on "the...
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 American tourist Gertrude Zint, 90 this year, is unimpressed with the scenic splendour of Kakadu and the other national parks that stud Australia's far north.
"Gorges - they are quarries filled with water. Gorges, gorges, gorges!" she rants. "You drive for hours in a coach and see a gorge - sand and water. I've seen it...
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 After the recent interoperability frenzy started by Microsoft, which engulfed the likes of Novell, Xandros or Linspire, many have asked how much is going to take the Redmond giant to convince the remaining important Linux vendors, Canonical and Red Hat, to join its boat.However, according to Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and...
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 Three Californian environmental groups announced on Thursday that they have reached a historic deal with Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) under which would reduce the existing oil and gas operations offshore Lompoc and the Gaviota Coast."The cornerstone of this agreement is the requirement that oil and gas...
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 Health insurance premiums have risen 6.1 percent in 2007, "down" from a 7.7 percent increase a year earlier, which has created a record gap between rises in wages and those in health insurance premiums. The cost for family coverage has risen a staggering 78 percent since 2001, according to the annual survey of about 2,000...
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 The House of Reps passed 225 to 175 with strong bipartisan support a new bill which reforms the U.S. patent system, seeking to reduce the mounting number of patent infringement cases. The bill significantly changes the ways patents are awarded and challenged and somewhat favors the targets of patent infringement lawsuits, rather than the...
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 Thailand
makes a first step towards reducing pollution by compelling 10,000 gas stations
to provide customers with biodiesel fuel by April 1, 2008, Thai Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand told
media representatives on Saturday.
Thailand
made clear its intentions to cut greenhouse gas emissions along with oil import
by reducing...
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Artists have recently received some very
good financial news. Following the decision of a New York rate court, thousands of music
composers and writers may receive as much as $100 million for the online
coverage that their work has recorded.
The online services affected by the court’s
ruling are Yahoo Inc., AOL and RealNetworks...
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 November, 4, 2007 is the 50th celebration of the first living creature to orbit the Earth. On November, 4, 1957, the Soviet Union has launched the first ever living creature into the cosmos. It was a female dog of a Russian breed that left the Earth’s atmosphere aboard the artificial space satellite Sputnik II, which was projected into...
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 Last November, Microsoft and Novell stunned the open source world with an interoperability partnership that was supposed to ensure peaceful compatibility of Windows apps on SUSE and viceversa.No matter how strict or exigent the open sourcers started to become with other major Linux vendors after this unnatural union, despite the recent...
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 David West was unstoppable on Saturday night as he scored 32 points to help his New Orleans Hornets in a clear 102-78 victory against the San Antonio Spurs.Despite the fact that the Hornets were trailing 43-42 at the break, they managed a 28-6 run and finished the fourth quarter by 30-14. The New Orleans recorded their eighth consecutive...
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 After speaking with Phil Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers’ coach, Kobe Bryant backed off his trade request. On Wednesday he said he would like to be transferred believing he had been misled by the club’s officials.''I don't want to go anywhere, this is my team,'' Bryant declared for KLAC radio. ''I love it here. I called Phil, man, he and I...
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 The US Preventive Services Task Force is strengthening advice on aspirin therapy for middle-aged men and women.The recommendation, published in the annals of Internal Medicine, says that men ages 45-79 should use aspirin to reduce their risk for heart attacks when the benefits outweigh the harms for potential gastrointestinal bleeding....
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Several states have reported salmonella Saintpaul bacterial infections
thought to be linked to sprouts from SunSprout Enterpises Inc. of Omaha,
Nebraska.
Although, laboratory testing did not confirm sprouts as the
source, as a precautionary measure, the company voluntarily recalled its
alfalfa, onion and gourmet...
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 It seems that the multitude of studies on the negative
effects of bisphenol A on the human body and pressure from authorities have
finally had an echo among producers of baby bottles containing the
above-mentioned chemical. Six of them announced that they will stop selling
items containing bisphenol A.
The companies who stopped...
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Washington - President Barack Obama convened a summit of US politicians, economists and industry groups to discuss health care reform on Thursday, vowing to tackle a critical issue that has confounded many past administrations.
Spiralling health care costs in the United States have threatened "the very foundation of our...
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 Starting April 1, this year, Salmonella Saintpaul has sickened 1, 440 people and about 242 were hospitalized. The Food and Drug administration has tried to discover the produce infected since then.At first, tomatoes were accused to contain the virus. Certain raw tomatoes were got off the market on June 7. The FDA groceries and...
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 The Bush administration will soon begin telling consumers whether the local groceries stores will bring contaminated meat or poultry. This decision is part of food safety policy and was announced on Friday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Still, even if the department announces food recalls or sources, doesn’t tell the beef buyers...
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 Six people have died between May 22 and May 28 after being
injected with human immunoglobulin, proteins with features of antibodies. The
cases were registered in east China's
Jiangxi Province,
according to statements local authorities made on Sunday.
The immunoglobulin was produced by Jiangxi Yabo
Bio-pharmaceutical Co at a...
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 A national report released Tuesday showed health insurance
coverage is increasingly difficult to secure, as private health insurance has
become more and more expensive. Fewer companies can afford to offer private
health insurance now, compared to the period at the beginning of the decade, according
to the Robert Wood Johnson...
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 Somewhat unexpectedly, a new study has found that hypertension drugs dramatically lower overall mortality in the elderly. Previously, it was thought that while treating hypertension had clear benefits, such as a reduction in the risk for stroke, it may actually increase the risk of death due to other problems.The new research presented...
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 The Alzheimer's Association has released yesterday its yearly report on the disease. The 2008 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures details in 43 pages both current figures and forecasts. The Association has found that as many as 5.2 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease, which now is the seventh-leading cause of death in...
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 Baxter International Inc. declared yesterday that it was
recalling all of its remaining heparin products, after the officials at the
Food and Drug Administration said there was sufficient capacity from other
suppliers.
“We have assurance from the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration that there is an adequate supply in the market...
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 U. S. health
authorities suspect that the Chinese factory where Baxter International
produces heparin might be the source of the recent problems reported by the
patients who used the blood-thinner. The Food and Drug administration has never
inspected the factory, but they plan to do that as soon as possible.
"While no FDA...
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 Baxter International announced
yesterday that it would temporarily stop the production of the blood-thinner
heparin in multi-dose vials. The decision was taken after hundreds of people
became ill after using the medication and four patients even died.
The United States’ Food and Drug
Administration also confirmed that since the...
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 The Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday that there's
no evidence that so-called "bio identical" hormones mixed by
individual pharmacists to treat menopausal symptoms in women are any safer than
prescription hormones made by drug companies such as Wyeth.
The FDA warned seven pharmacy operators about...
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 A study revolving around middle aged and older people living in Norfolk, UK, has suggested that not smoking, being active, eating enough fruit and vegetables and drinking only moderate amounts of alcohol can increase lifespan by an average of 10 years compared to people who do none of these things.The study is published in the online...
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 Health experts have warned cases of the winter vomiting
virus could rise this week as offices and schools fully reopen after the
festive break.
Five more wards in Scottish hospitals were closed to new admissions
yesterday, bringing the total number affected by the norovirus bug to 24 north
of the border.
Businesses and schools...
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 Concerns regarding whether a chemical called Bisphenol A and
whether it is harmful to humans are ever so growing considering the fact that
the chemical is used to harden plastic in consumer products including baby
bottles, food containers, cling wrap, toys, CDs, sunglasses, and thousands of
other products.
A number of...
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 U.S. researchers reported on Monday that circumcision may
reduce a man's risk of infection with the AIDS virus by up to 60 percent if he
is an African, but it does not appear to help American men of color.
Black and Latino men were just as likely to become infected
with the AIDS virus whether they were circumcised or not, Greg...
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 The link between high cholesterol and heart disease is clear
to most in the medical community, but a new British study finds the connection
between cholesterol levels and stroke is a bit more murky.
In fact, for people in their 70s and 80s, the review found
that high cholesterol actually lowered stroke risk, even as it boosted the...
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 According to a report released by the International Agency
for Research on Cancer on Friday, shift workers and firefighters have a higher
risk of cancer than the general population and such work should be classified
as probably or possibly carcinogenic.
A team of 24 scientists who sifted through the evidence said
more studies must...
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 U.S. researchers are reporting that biology and
genetics appear to influence how black
women fare after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
One new study found discrepancies in survival rates between
black breast cancer patients and their white counterparts, indicating that
cancer screening guidelines may need to be...
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 Triathletes are not the only people who go in for the classic endurance sports of swimming, running and cycling. Swimming in particular is considered good for your health. It is also good for those who want to lose weight.
"Swimming after handball, water polo and ice hockey is the sport that expends the most energy," noted...
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 The World Health Organization is asking for a ban against smoking indoors in public buildings and at work, on a global level.
This is the UN health agency’s strongest recommendation yet as to controlling tobacco use, urging all countries to issue a ban against smoking in enclosed public spaces.
“The evidence is clear....
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Tata Motors Ltd said Monday that it would continue the suspension of work at its factory in eastern India manufacturing the world's cheapest car, the Nano, even though farmers called off their protests over farmland acquired for the plant.
Farmers at Singur near West Bengal's state capital, Kolkata, halted protests late Sunday after...
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 It seems that MySpace wants to take advantage of its leading position within the existing social networking sites, since this Thursday, MySpace Music was unveiled by MySpace officials. The new music service joins iTunes on the online music market, as it is said that it will offer much of what iTunes does and even more. “They have a huge...
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 Boeing Corporation is likely to file a protest against the Republican presidential candidate John McCain over the loss of the 40 billion dollars US Air Force tanker contract in favour of a joint venture of rivals Northrop Grumman and Airbus.Boeing supporters in the Congress said that McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting,...
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 Following the letter issued by Yahoo in which it officially rejected Microsoft’s offer on Monday, giving as the main reason the fact that it under evaluates Yahoo’s real worth, the software giant’s financial chief Christoper P. Liddell released a statement, which hinted that the fight to acquire the California based company.Microsoft...
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 Alcatel- Lucent posted a net loss of 3.52 billion euros (5.12 billion dollars), or 0.20 per diluted share during 2007, its first year as a merged entity, after the French telecoms equipment group Alcatel acquired Lucent in 2006.For the full year 2007, Alcatel-Lucent’s revenue was 17.79 billion euros, 2.5 percent lower than 2006 at...
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 Stakeholders of Germany's ailing WestLB were forced Monday to mount a
bailout for the lender after it flagged a 1-billion-euro
(1.47-billion-dollar) loss and possible writedowns in the wake of the
US mortgage market crisis.
The owners of the state-backed WestLB - regional savings banks and
the state government of North...
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 Following Teva Pharmaceuticals USA’s announcement that it would launch a pantoprazole tablet, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth, said that it would pursue a patent infringement claim for lost profits and other damages against Teva.While Teva rose its 2008 estimate earnings forecast based on the launch of its version of Wyeth's...
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 Boeing and India's state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited Thursday
signed a 10-year pact for aerospace manufacturing in India worth over a
billion dollars, officials said.
"Under the agreement, Boeing and HAL will explore business
opportunities aimed at transferring work packages to India with an
initial value of 10 to 20...
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 Google Inc announced on Monday it will buy Web security company Postini for 625 million dollars, a move that is designed to challenge the popularity of Microsoft’s applications.Postini provides security and encryption technologies for e-mails, instant messages and other communications to over 10 million users worldwide. Through this...
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 Germany’s largest airline, Lufthansa announced Wednesday another code-sharing agreement with Grupo TACA, a group of five Latin American airlines.The deal comes just a day after Lufthansa announced another similar agreement with TAM Linhas Aereas, Brazil’s largest airline. It is clear that the German carrier tries to widen its area of...
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 Motorola announced on Monday the launch of Motozone ZN5, its new phone, exclusively for T-Mobile customers in North America. The Motozone was created in collaboration with Eastman Kodak and it’s the first mobile phone to combine Motorola’s ModeShift technology and KODAK Imaging Technology. The new phone will be available online at...
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 On Thursday, the new Aliph Jawbone was made available in AT&T retail and online stores for the price of US$129.99. When compared to the previous model, it presents several improvements, some focused on size and design. It is 50% smaller and comes in gold, silver, and black. Hosain Rahman, CEO and cofounder of Aliph, said that people,...
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 According to Fortune, AT&T is well on its way to offering a $200 subsidy for those who will purchase the next-generation of iPhones, which is most likely to be made available this summer. The release date may be chosen at the end of June, in order to mark the one-year anniversary of the first iPhone generation’s launch (June 29,...
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 In Apple stores all throughout the United States, there is a shortage of iPhones. Some say this is a deliberate move from the company’s part, in the attempt to clear out the existing stock, as the new 3G networks seem to be just around the corner. Others feel differently. "In our view, the most likely explanation for this unusual...
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 Nokia will run Microsoft's Silverlight cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in on select phones which use its Symbian OS platform. This comes as a large surprise mainly because Microsoft and Nokia are the biggest competitors in the mobile phone OS market: Microsoft tries to push its Windows Mobile while handset leader Nokia promotes...
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 Panasonic introduced the first compact camera that boasts with an amazing number of mega-pixels (no less than 12.2) and with industry’s first (for a 12MP camera) 28-mm wide angle.The new Lumix DMC-FX100 combines 1/1.72-inch large 12.2-megapixel image recording with a superb, 28mm wide-angle Leica DC lens that features a 3.6x optical zoom...
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At a weekend meeting with economic experts, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung agreed the country needed to shore up macroeconomic problems, but postponed recommendations on cutting back wasteful government investment, an economist who was present said Monday.
The roundtable discussion with 19 prominent economic experts and...
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 The famous actor Wesley Trent Snipes was found guilty on three misdemeanor charges for failing to file tax returns by a jury, but was acquitted on some more serious charges of conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and fraud regarding the tax payment."The jury's conviction of Wesley Snipes today represents the...
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 The troubled British bank Northern Rock is apparently collapsing after shareholders have joined savers in creating trouble for the financial institution. It seems that a domino effect was started which can only lead to the bank's collapse, if not for a miracle -- from the government. That's not entirely impossible:While British finance...
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 Online banking pioneer NetBank will sell all accounts including their Personal Finance and Small Business Checking, Certificates of Deposit, Money Market and IRA accounts to EverBank Financial Corp. The Atlanta-based company also announced it will shutdown its third-party mortgage origination business, NetBank Funding, and incur costs of...
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 There is much tension among executives and shareholders at Apple, as Steve Jobs will not participate at the annual meeting of the investors at the company. Questions and rumors are floating around the computer giant, as this is the first time when Jobs is missing, since his comeback at the company in 1997.The meeting has traditionally...
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 Microsoft announced on Sunday that it has created a website, Elevate America, which is aimed at improving access to job training tools. The site provides resources to help individuals gain the technical skills needed for acquiring jobs. This comes after the economy has shed 3.6 million jobs since the recession that began in December...
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 Intel has always tried to go out of the microprocessor market, and has tried its hand in several other realms, but only as a sort of tourist who ends up making his bags and eventually heading back to his home market. Andy Grove, the well-known charismatic co-founder of the company, former chairman and CEO, has a brand new semi-unofficial...
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A NASA spokesman told the media yesterday that the repairs
of the Hubble Space Telescope are going well and that they expect the telescope
to be back in business on Friday. Hubble’s computer crashed last month,
entering “safe mode”. Even if the technicians could still communicate with the
telescope, photos could not be sent back...
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 It seems that the United States’
largest and most popular retailer decided to join the Blu-ray camp too. Wal-Mart
Stores announced on Friday that it had picked Sony’s Blu-ray over Toshiba’s HD
DVD format. Is this enough to declare the war ended? Blu-ray is the winner of
the high def format war and there are enough proves to show it....
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 FLAG Telecom announced on Friday
that it was an abandoned anchor that cut the undersea Internet cable in the Persian
Gulf, between the United Arab Emirates
and Oman, 35 miles north of Dubai. The company said
that the anchor weighed more than 5.5 tons and that it was pulled to the
surface. However, FLAG Telecom hasn’t yet explained...
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 The U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the British Antarctic Survey, which form a NASA team, brought to light a new extremely detailed map of Antarctica on Tuesday. The new Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica is expected to bring another perspective to the frozen continent research.The map was made thanks to...
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 Some people are just too strange
to be understood! This is also the case of an 18-year old boy who is now facing
prison after he has used his computer to hack the 911 emergency response
system. The teenager is from Mulkiteo, Washington State, and he has accessed
through his personal computer Orange County, California’s 911...
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Russia’s
recent announcement seems crystal clear: the United States’ old (ideological and
more) rival is preparing to engage in the space race again. Russia’s space agency has recently
announced a plan that has surprised most of us for a few seconds: the Russians
are preparing to send a man to the Moon by 2025 and few years later...
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 After unveiling this week its first true quad core platform for high-end PCs (codenamed Barcelona), AMD also announced its plans for the mobile platform during a press conference in Tokyo.Just as the quad core Barcelona is focused on improved performance in the ever-increasing and ever-demanding video domain, so is the newly announced...
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 Has Beyonce lost her identity? She says she hasn’t, but we still have a doubt about it. We know that every artist wants a change once in a while. Sometimes people get tired of listening to the same type of music or they just get tired of the artist, so the ones who produce their music and their image must come out with something new.And...
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 Just as he promised, Jon Bon Jovi sang “nothin’ but the hits, baby, nothin’ but the hits” under the clear evening sky in the heart of Central Park. The free concert was a delight for tens of thousands of fans who sang along with the lyrics. Many of them had come from around the country six hours before the event. There were an estimated...
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 British singer Amy Winehouse had a performance on Saturday,
in front of 80,000 music festival fans at the Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England,
which included a bit of violence on her part.
At the end of her show, which lasted one hour, she climbed down from the stage
and threw a punch on one of the festivalgoers.
It is not...
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 Alanis Morissette’s new album includes 11
songs about the sunset of love and the pain of separation. Last year, the
34-year-old singer and songwriter split with her fiancé, actor Ryan Reynolds,
after a relationship that lasted for more than 4 years. Reynolds is now engaged
with Scarlett Johanson.
But the broken relationship...
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After almost 30 years of absence from the stage the legendary British hard-rock band Led Zeppelin had its first major live performance, as the three surviving members and Jason Bonham, the replacement drummer for his late father, gathered together on London’s O2 Arena.The band sang their most loved songs, including Dazed And Confused,...
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 A lawsuit against Miley Cyrus Fan Club, Hannah Montana’s fan club, was filed on Tuesday over the charges that they could not get tickets for her concert, even if the club promised that members would have priority for seats.Miley Cyrus is the Disney sweetheart that plays the role of Hannah Montana in a hit TV series. The 14 years old is...
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 Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated Mexican singer and actress Paulina Rubio gave the press details about her upcoming U.S. tour, the largest of her career, which will consist of 27 concerts over seven weeks, beginning in Houston on Thursday night.Stops on the first leg of the tour also include Dallas, Chicago, Denver and Boston and it...
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 Manchester United made it to the Champions League final, as Paul Scholes scored the goal of his life after he had missed Sir Alex Ferguson’s team’s victory over Bayern Munchen in the 1999 final because he was suspended.Scholes made up for all his sins on Tuesday with a sublime long- strike, leading his team to a 1-0 triumph over...
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 Manchester United’s star forward Wayne Rooney will probably miss the next two months of competition after breaking his left foot on Sunday in the match played against Reading."It will be two months out," United manager Sir Alex Ferguson said at the press conference held on Monday. "To be on the safe side, we would say it...
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 Iraq defeated Saudi Arabia 1-0 on Sunday to win its first ever Asian Cup title. The Saudis were attempting to become first four-times winners of the tournament, but the Iraqi team drawn together in ad-hoc circumstances from all parts of the Gulf, and with its players straddling the bitter and violent ethnic divides prevailed. "This...
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 Bob Bradley has been appointed head coach of the United States national soccer team becoming the 33rd coach in the national team history.The contract he signed will keep him in the position through the 2010 World Cup in South Africa."I'm proud today," Bradley, said at the news conference. "I'm excited. I'm honored to be...
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 The Harvard University Library was one of the first to sign Google’s academic book scanning project, but it was also the first to say it won’t take part in the copyright portion in response to Google’s $125 million settlement with authors and publishers. Even so, the library might still take part in the settlement if the terms are more...
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 On Friday, at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, Matt Cutts, Google engineer, head of Google's Web spam team, kept a very informative speech ("What Google Knows About Spam") on spam and ways to go around it. Keyword spam, widely covered by the session, represents the use of words, oftenly having to connection what so ever with...
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 AT&T said on Wednesday that it plans to broaden its third-generation wireless broadband footprint, while it would complete the upgrade of its network to the fastest 3G technology available.The company announced the main features of its 2008 wireless network expansion plans, which include the deployment of third-generation (3G)...
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 The largest retailer in the world, Wal-Mart, decided to shut down its online offer for downloading films and TV shows, due to the fact that Hewlett- Packard, its partner, stopped operating the site by withdrawing its software, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman declared on Friday.The service, which started less than a year ago, was stopped on...
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 Google’s plan of buying the online advertising firm DoubleClick was given the green light by the US Federal Trade Commission on Thursday, as they approved that the 3.1 billion dollar deal poses no threat to internet ad competition.The deal was voted four to one, but admitted that its impact on consumer privacy was not part of the scope...
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 China has recently become a real
phenomenon: in real life and also on the Internet. The extra-protective
Communist country has started to simply block any web site that seems to be
hurt the Communist party’s feelings. The Chinese people are protected by all
means not to be harmed by the evil outside world that believes in that...
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 According to what the security
researchers have said, the reported assassination of an alleged Russian spammer
has been nothing else than a hoax! This report has started to flow here and
there on the Internet on Thursday, when a blog post from the web site
Loonov.com has claimed that a Russian spammer called Alexey Tolstokozhev...
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 Joe Hewitt and Blake Ross have
become famous for their Firefox project. They are the co-creators of the
browser that has been really competing against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer
ever since it was born. Although Internet Explorer is still heavily used by
people, Firefox has been said to remain the safer browser on the web....
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 A substitute teacher accused of exposing children in her class to pornographic materials has obtained a new trial, in the light of new evidence.Julie Amero, a substitute English teacher, faced 40 years in jail for unwillingly and unknowingly exposing kids in her class to pornographic materials. She allegedly left the classroom to go to...
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 Following the beta-testing issues reported by Crackdown owners yesterday, Bungie recently reported that the public beta-testing will be prolonged with no less than 4 days.When Halo 3 public-testing sessions debuted on May 16, a lot of fans who had purchased the $60 Crackdown game (which ensured them a place among Halo 3 multiplayer...
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Hong Kong - Hong Kong appeared to buck tourism trends worldwide by recording an 11 per cent increase in visitor numbers in January, official figures released Thursday showed.
Almost 2.8 million people visited the former British colony in January compared to 2.5 million in January 2008, according the Hong Kong Tourism Board...
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Bangkok - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva admitted in an interview with CNN Friday that there had been instances of authorities pushing Rohingya boat people back to sea, contradicting earlier denials by the Thai military that abuses had been committed.
"It's not exactly clear whose work it is," Abhisit told...
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Beijing - Chinese officials have appealed for calm ahead of several sensitive anniversaries in Tibetan areas and claimed that life has returned to "normal" after violent protests by Tibetans in March, state media said Wednesday.
"Everything is back on track," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Nyima...
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New Delhi - A top al-Qaeda commander in Afghanistan warned India in a videotape broadcast Tuesday of "Mumbai-style strikes" if it tries to attack Pakistan.
Mustafa Abu al-Yazid said in the video shown on Indian news channels that Indians suffered "humiliation" in the November assault and more was in store if...
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Hamas may accept an Egyptian ceasefire plan as the basis for a temporary halt to fighting in Gaza, a senior Hamas leader hinted on Thursday.
Speaking to the Dubai-based satellite news channel al-Arabiya by telephone from Damascus on Thursday, Hamas' deputy political leader, Moussa Abu Marzouq, said the group would announce the...
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Prodded by Egypt, Israel and Hamas appear to be stumbling toward a ceasefire to bring an end to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, which on Thursday entered its 20th day.
But the task is not as simple as it sounds. The Hamas leadership is divided between the political leaders in the Gaza Strip, the military leadership in the...
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A Mandalay court has sentenced a student activist to 104 years in jail for attending a meeting marking the first anniversary of the "saffron revolution" on the Thai-Myanmar border, a prisoner support group said Wednesday.
According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), Bo Min Yu Ko, in his early 20's,...
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The Sri Lankan government sharply criticized comments made by the German Ambassador Jurgen Weerth at the funeral of a slain newspaper editor, a foreign ministry official said Wednesday.
Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona on Tuesday summoned Weerth to express the government's "displeasure," the official said on condition of...
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Dozens of journalists have set up camp on the hilltop in the sand dunes of southern Israel, overlooking the Gaza Strip.
They watch large, grey clouds of smoke and dust billowing in the clear blue sky over nearby Gaza City, each time an explosion rocks the relative morning calm. A correspondent for an American television network fixes...
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Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri announced Tuesday that his country had agreed to participate in any Arab summit on Gaza.
At a press conference after a cabinet meeting, Mitri said "Lebanon's stance regarding an Arab summit had been clear since the onset of the Israeli attack on Gaza, adding that President Michel Suleiman...
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday condemned the reported killing of 17 civilians, including women and children, in a US-led coalition operation in eastern Afghanistan, the presidential palace said in a statement.
The US military said on Wednesday that their forces killed 32 Taliban insurgents, including an armed female...
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Afghan and US-led coalition forces killed at least 50 Taliban militants in separate attacks and operations in Afghanistan, while 11 civilians including eight women were killed in a Taliban rocket attack in southern region, officials said Wednesday.
US-led coalition forces claimed Wednesday their forces killed 32 insurgents, including...
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Iraq's Prime Minister Wednesday called on all Arab and Muslim countries to cut their ties with Israel, calling the Israeli military attacks on Gaza "a dreadful crime," according to a press statement.
Nouri al-Maliki said that "we ask Arab countries and all Muslims to cancel their diplomatic relations and stop all...
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Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday formally requested that the European Union send observers to monitor the flow of gas from Russia.
In a letter sent to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barrasco, Yushchenko suggested the EU could deploy energy technicians to Ukraine so they could independently evaluate the...
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Communist rebels in the Philippines on Tuesday released an army lieutenant after two months in captivity, the military said.
Lieutenant Vicente Cammayo was turned over to a local official in Kausagan village in Loreto town in Agusan del Sur province, 900 kilometres south of Manila.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel...
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Governments should not abandon women and children who need their help most, even as tax revenues shrink because of the global financial crisis, the UN children's fund warned Tuesday.
Key East Asian and Pacific leaders met in Singapore to discuss how best to protect children by maintaining or scaling up social spending despite...
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Vietnamese workers found an unexploded bomb believed to have been dropped by the US Air Force during the Vietnam War, a military official said Monday.
The bomb, estimated to weigh 250 kilograms, was 1.2 metres long and has a diameter of 30 centimeters. It was found Friday in front of a house on central Hai Ba Trung street.
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Rescue workers in Ukraine had recovered three more bodies by Friday morning from the rubble of a block of flats that collapsed in an explosion on Christmas Eve, bringing the total number of dead in the accident to 27, the Interfax news agency reported.
No survivors were found during the night, when temperatures hovered around zero,...
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Israel on Friday gave Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions in the Gaza Strip 48 hours to reduce ongoing rocket and mortar attacks from the salient or risk an Israeli military operation into the strip.
Attacks from the salient continued Friday, but on a relatively smaller scale than in the middle of the week. Gaza Strip...
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Taiwan prosecutors said Friday that they will probe money laundering charges against ex-president Lee Teng-hui.
Prosecution spokesman Chen Yun-nan said that former president Chen Shui-bian, who is charged with corruption and pending trial, provided information about Lee's alleged money laundering.
Lee was Taiwan's president from...
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Palestinian militants showered southern Israel with rockets Wednesday, causing Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak to reverse a decision to open Gaza Strip crossing points to allow an aid convoy to enter the salient.
Hamas said the barrage - which saw Israel hit with 68 rockets and mortars shells by late afternoon - was to avenge...
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Security forces battling an Islamist insurgency in Pakistan's troubled north-west killed 27 militants and lost two soldiers in fierce clashes overnight that also left seven civilians dead, media reports and officials said Tuesday.
Fifteen pro-Taliban rebels were killed and several injured when troops backed by helicopter gunships...
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A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in front of a government building on Monday, killing himself, his driver and an 8-year-old boy, while a British soldier was killed in a separate blast in the same region, officials said.
The suicide attack took place in front of the Information and Culture Department and the Governor's...
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Hamas will not extend its truce with Israel after it expires on Friday, a spokesman announced.
"There is no room for extending the calm with Israel, which ends on Friday," Fawzi Barhoum said in a statement sent to reporters.
"After the truce ends, it will be our legal right to respond to any Zionist aggression...
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Taiwan plans to apply for world heritage status for the complex Chinese characters that China stopped using after 1949 but Taiwan continues to use today, a newspaper said Thursday.
Taiwan plans to set up a task force in February to prepare for making the application to UNESCO, the United Daily News quoted Premier Liu...
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A radical Palestinian faction, the Islamic Jihad, intensified its rocket attacks at southern Israel, as a six-month truce brokered by Egypt in June between Israel and militant groups active in Gaza entered its last day Thursday.
Palestinian militants fired at least four Gaza-made rockets and four mortars shells at Israel, hours after...
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Pakistani authorities on Thursday summoned a senior Indian diplomat to lodge a formal protest over last week's alleged airspace violation by Indian fighter jets.
According to a statement by the Foreign Ministry, Indian Deputy High Commissioner Manpreet Vohra was handed a diplomatic note "conveying the concern of the government...
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Police in the port town of Ha Long City have identified and are pursuing several suspects who they allege killed six people and wounded one this week in a dispute over coal smuggling, a police official said Thursday.
The victims were shot early Monday in Ha Long City harbour. Police spokesman Nguyen Trinh Dong said police had not...
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Ukraine's parliament formed a new ruling coalition on Tuesday, allowing the legislature to take up long-stalled legislation for stimulating the economy.
Leaders of three centrist parties, the senior Block of Yulia Tymoshenko (BYut), Our Ukraine National Defence (OUND) and the junior Block of Litvin (BL) signed the coalition agreement,...
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A bus carrying foreign tourists plunged into a gully near the Israeli resort of Eilat on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 20 people, and injuring 28 others, rescue officials said.
Most of the injured were said to be in serious condition, and were evacuated to hospital in Eilat, on the shores of the Gulf of Aqaba.
Some 55 people...
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A bus carrying Russian tourists plunged into a gully near the Israeli resort of Eilat on Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 20 people, and injuring 32 others, rescue officials said.
Some 16 of the injured were said to be in serious condition.
Some 55 people were on the bus when the accident occurred and seven people were still...
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On May 28, a currency analyst at Morgan Stanley released a report that hit Vietnam's financial community like a smack in the face.
With Vietnam's inflation and trade deficit soaring, the analyst wrote, its currency was under threat. Twelve-month futures on the Vietnam dong had "gapped" to 23,000 to the dollar, a 50 per cent...
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If they are too unhealthy for US consumers to stomach, should fast food chains be allowed to continue serving up products laden with harmful fats in Asia?
That is the question raised by the closure of the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts franchise in Hong Kong and the discovery that it was keeping the controversial ingredient, trans-fats,...
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More than 1,000 people confronted at least 300 Chinese riot police on Friday after they were angered by alleged vote-buying in a village election, a rights group reported.
About 50 villagers were injured and police detained some 200 protestors after the riot on Friday morning in Pingyao county in the northern province of Shanxi,...
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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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A 79-year-old New Zealand woman euthanasia campaigner had the words "Do not resuscitate" tattooed on her chest Thursday.
Paula Westoby, 79, of Dunedin, who was filmed by the TV3 televsion network being tattooed, said that because of her age she would not want to be revived if she had a heart attack.
Westoby, who...
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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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The future of international negotiations on a verification system for the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme was in doubt Wednesday after diplomats failed to reach agreement.
"We have not achieved our goal," US chief negotiator Christopher Hill was quoted as saying by South Korea's official Yonhap news...
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Pakistani security personnel have arrested the alleged planner of the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks in a raid on a suspected militant camp, media reports and officials said on Monday.
Scores of troops stormed the camp on Sunday just outside Muzaffarabad city, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, arresting at least half...
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Envoys from North Korea and five other nations began a new round of talks Monday in Beijing to persuade North Korea to quit its nuclear weapons programme, Chinese officials said.
The chief negotiators of the United States, China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea met for a first round of talks at Beijing's state guest house, a...
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Pakistani security personnel have arrested the alleged planner of the November 26 Mumbai terrorist attacks in a raid on a suspected militant camp, media reports said on Monday.
Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhwi, who was named by Indian officials for planning the Mumbai siege, was captured near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered...
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Envoys from North Korea and five other nations began a new round of talks Monday in Beijing to persuade North Korea to quit its nuclear weapons programme - but amid little optimism.
The talks, which had been on hold for five months, were expected to develop into difficult negotiations, various delegation sources said.
The chief...
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Pakistani soldiers have seized 20 people connected to a disbanded militant group accused of orchestrating the Mumbai terrorist attacks, media reports said Monday.
Troops made the arrests Sunday afternoon after storming a camp used by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity wing of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which India blamed for the November 26...
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Ismail Haniya, the leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, said Friday his movement remained interested in its informal truce with Israel, which had held for nearly five months, but has been jeopardized by renewed violence over the past two weeks and more.
Israel meanwhile kept up a near-total closure of the Gaza Strip Friday for the...
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Major international media organizations protested against Israel Thursday because it has prevented journalists from entering the Gaza Strip for nearly two weeks now.
The media organizations sent a letter to caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying they were "gravely concerned" about the denial of access to the Gaza Strip...
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Major international media organizations protested against Israel Thursday because it has prevented journalists from entering the Gaza Strip for almost two weeks.
The media organizations, including ABC news, the BBC, CNN, the Associated Press, Reuters and the New York Times sent a letter to caretaker Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, saying...
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At least 24 Islamic militants, including al-Qaeda-linked Uzbek fighters, were killed as Pakistani jets and artillery pounded their hideouts in the restive north-western tribal district of Bajaur, an intelligence official said Thursday.
The shelling that started late Wednesday and continued Thursday in four areas of the district,...
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Cathay Pacific Airways said Wednesday that it has scrapped the traditional end-of-year bonus for all its Hong Kong staff in a cost-cutting measure sparked by the global economic crisis.
Chief executive Tony Tyler blamed the move on the difficulties the airline was facing because of fuel price hikes earlier this year and the...
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A House of Councillors panel on Tuesday postponed deliberations on a bill to extend a counterterrorism refuelling mission that Japan is conducting in the Indian Ocean as the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) boycotted a vote.
Because deliberations on other bills were also postponed, the parliamentary session might be...
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Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu called on British Foreign Secretary David Miliband Monday to stop Iran from obtaining an atom bomb, which he warned would "change the face of" the Middle East.
Miliband, who arrived in Israel Sunday for a two-day visit, met Netanyahu, a leading candidate to win Israeli elections...
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 Chrysler LLC sought to overturn the criticism for Bob Nardelli's appointment as CEO with a surprise new executive: the U.S. automaker has managed to snatch a top executive from its archrival Toyota. He is James Press, the former president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motors North America, who has been with the Japanese carmaker...
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 Advanced Micro Devices' chief executive of sales and marketing, Henri Richard, will leave the chipmaker in September. It's still unclear what triggered the leave, but it appears that he is to go of his own will. AMD has some financial problems following its merger with then smaller ATi, which may have put pressure on Richard."After...
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 As expected former trade representative and versed diplomat Robert Zoellick is the new head of the World Bank, after receiving the approval of most members.The Bank's Board of Directors gave its thumbs-up on Monday for the only candidate, after US President George W Bush proposed Zoellick, 53 to be Paul Wolfowitz’s successor.Wolfowitz is...
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 The long expected nomination for World Bank president has finally
been announced Wednesday by US President George W Bush and is Robert Zoellick, a
former trade representative and versed diplomat.
If the board of the international organization will approve with
Bush’s option, Zoellick will succeed Paul Wolfowitz in a five-year term...
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 A final decision regarding the fate of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz failed to be pronounced several times, as the leader’s drama continues.Wolfowitz has been accused of breaking the ethic and staff rules of the international organization when he secured a substantial pay rise for his girlfriend, soon after he became president of...
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 Having both Sony and Microsoft fighting for sales of their gaming consoles, the Xbox and the PS3, you may observe that, in many cases, their statements don’t even name Nintendo’s Wii as a direct competitor. Instead, they try to ignore (at least when they speak to the media) that the Wii even exists, or it has the abilities to compete...
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 According to a study released by Greenpeace, it seems that for the making of video game consoles, several toxic chemicals are being used. These substances do not have a good recycling potential and may even cause harm to players.As found in information provided by the International Association of Electronics Recyclers (IAER), the U.S....
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 On Thursday, a jury established that Nintendo would have to pay East Texas company Anascape no less than $21 million, as the first was found to have indeed infringed on the latter’s technology. Everything began back in July 2006, when Anascape filed suits against both Nintendo and Microsoft, claiming that several patents used by the two...
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 Kotaru editors launched a rumor yesterday about the possible
presence of Def Leppard, for the first time ever, in a music/rhythm game,
namely Guitar Hero 4. It’s still considered a rumor, as no official statement on
this has been released yet, but during a radio interview with the band on the Rockline
show, guitarist Phil...
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 Nintendo is readying for school with the recent addition of Donkey Kong Jr. Math to the Wii Shop Channel, promising that “it'll help you get those math skills back in shape after their summer slumber.”The recipe goes on with some fighting with bad guys (you know, to help you cope with bullies in school…), while you also search for some...
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 Prominent magazine Financial Times recently interviewed Sir Howard Stringer, Sony CEO, who dropped the bomb everyone expected: the PlayStation division is trying to “refine” how much it can afford to reduce the price of PlayStation 3.Some may say this is good news. It depends from what point of view you’re looking at: from consumers’...
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 Entertainment and Devices President at Microsoft, Peter Moore, recently declared that a re-orientation towards casual gamers (moms, dads, grandpas or grandmas) is needed in order to boost the Xbox business to acceptable levels and to avoid further losses.Casual gaming has been the basis upon which Nintendo built its huge success with...
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 Soul Calibur, Namco Bandai’s successful fighting franchise, will get a sequel that will be ported solely on Nintendo’s Wii console.From Soul Blade on the PlayStation to Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast and Soul Calibur III on the PlayStation 2, the Soul Calibur franchise has traditionally been a one-console type of fighter-multiplatform...
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Gaza City - An explosion in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia killed a Palestinian man and wounded five others, hospital officials told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Monday.
The cause of the explosion in the al-Atatrah neighbourhood was not immediately clear. Some residents said it was caused by an Israeli tank shell, while...
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Tel Aviv - The upcoming Israeli elections are crucial for the Middle East peace process.
Yet that process, revived little more than one year ago after a seven-year freeze, is hardly on the mind of the average Israeli voter.
With Tuesday's poll scheduled less than one month after Israel ended a ferocious offensive in Gaza, it is...
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Tehran - Iran expects US President Barack Obama to adopt a fair and rational approach toward the Islamic state, former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said at a Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran.
"Repeating the policies by [former US president George W] Bush would not solve anything, but the new administration...
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Kabul - Afghan government said Wednesday that it would seek a "national decision" on what to be done with international military operations in the country if the NATO-led alliance does not respond to a draft agreement that calls for an end to civilian casualties within the period of one month.
The government sent an...
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Palestinian militants showered southern Israel with rockets Wednesday, causing Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak to reverse a decision to open Gaza Strip crossing points to allow an aid convoy to enter the salient.
By Wednesday evening, more than 70 rockets and mortar shells were launched from Gaza, causing no injuries but damage...
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Tehran - Iran on Monday did not rule out using force to free its cargo vessel which was last week hijacked by pirates off the Somalia coast.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said Monday that Iran would rather continue negotiations with the pirates.
He said in a press briefing that Iran preferred the problem to be...
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Israel will have to withdraw from the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, if it wanted peace with its Arab and Palestinian neighbours, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in remarks published Monday.
"We need to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, in which the significance is a...
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The military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement Saturday called on all armed Palestinian groups to capture Israeli soldiers.
"Capturing Israeli soldiers is an open option for all military wings of the Palestinian factions," the al-Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad movement said in a statement.
The statement referred to a...
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Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
has said that no deadline had been set for Iran by world powers
regarding the ongoing dispute over the Islamic republic's nuclear
programme, Tehran media reported Thursday. 'The terminology
of deadline is not clear us as we have presented the world powers our
standpoints and now await...
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Released prisoner Samir Kuntar accused Israel
late Thursday of fabricating the story of how he killed the
four-year-old daughter of an Israeli man in 1979. 'Israel has
fabricated the story about how I killed the child during the attack I
carried out in 1979,' Kuntar told the Hezbollah- run Al Manar
television. He said that he...
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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
joined the chorus against making concessions at nuclear talks with the
major powers over the weekend. 'Nuclear technology has been
achieved by our own local experts and belongs to the whole nation and
no power can block us from pursuing this technology,' the Iranian
leader said in a...
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The latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) asserted yesterday that the purposes of Iran's
research into the development of nuclear weapons were still not clear enough and needed
further investigation. The report consisted of a review of eighteen documents regarding nuke plans that Tehran has.
Although...
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 Pakistan’s
newly elected parliament convened a special session Wednesday to elect its
first female speaker of the National Assembly, or lower house. The Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP) nominated Fahmida Mirza, a businesswoman and lawmaker from
Sindth province. The PPP had won most seats in elections last month and it...
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 A new scientific review of medical studies on the chronic Gulf
War syndrome finds a strong association between the illness suffered by many
veterans and the exposure to a group of chemicals known as acetyl cholinesterase
inhibitors. According to a recent study, it appears that the chemicals were discovered
in pesticides used around...
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 A long-expected report on Israel’s second war with the Lebanese
Hezbollah militia was released Wednesday, both the military and government
being heavily criticized for several flawed decisions.
Although Ehud Olmert’s government is blamed for entering the
conflict before deciding “which option to select and without an exit...
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 Egyptian forces moved in Friday to close the border with Gaza after thousands of Palestinians entered the country through the Rafah border crossing.Soldiers began installing barbed wire and fences to prevent more Palestinians from entering Egypt. The move comes after militants destroyed a part of the border wall on Wednesday and tens of...
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 US Army Maj. Gen. David Rodriguez said Wednesday that progress
in the political and military fields is visible in eastern Afghanistan, even if
challenges continue to exist.
The senior commander said security has been beefed up in the
area and insurgents focused on other regions in nearby Pakistan, where instability
has increased....
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 Israeli security officials said Monday evening that the military would
allow industrial diesel fuel to enter the Gaza Strip for one day only
on Tuesday, allowing the enclave's sole power plant to resume
operations following a four-day Israeli lockdown.
"On a one-time basis, Israel will allow in industrial diesel,"...
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 Israel launched three more airstrikes Friday, targeting also Gaza
City's Hamas-run Interior Ministry, in response to three days of
escalating violence during which Palestinian militants fired at least
130 rockets and mortar shells at the Jewish state.
A 52-year-old woman was killed and at least 46 people were injured
in the strike...
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 Five Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed in two Israeli Israeli
airstrikes Thursday, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that Israel
will not continue to "suffer unending Qassam rocket fire" from the
salient.
The second airstrike, in the evening, killed three people,
including a mother and her son, as well as a...
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 In a widely expected move Wednesday, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister
Avigdor Lieberman said he was pulling his party out of the government to
protest the start of peace talks with the Palestinians, but Premier
Ehud Olmert said negotiations would continue.
The exit of the 11-seat Yisrael Beitein (Israel Our Home) faction
leaves...
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 US President George W Bush arrived Saturday in Bahrain, the third stop
during an eight-day tour of the Mideast region to promote the peace
process and review security issues in the Gulf.
The US president arrived from Kuwait and was received at Sakhir
Palace by Bahraini King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. On Sunday,
before...
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 Admitting that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Premier
Ehud Olmert faced some "tough choices," US President George W Bush
nonetheless expressed optimism Thursday that the sides would be able to
reach a peace deal by the year's end.
"I believe there will be a signed peace treaty by the time I...
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The Pentagon released a video Tuesday showing small Iranian boats
speeding around three US naval warships in the Gulf and a voice over a
radio that warned the US sailors "you will explode."
At one point one of the five Iranian boats came within less than
200 metres of a destroyer, the USS Hopper, despite requests by...
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 Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met
Thursday afternoon, in the shadow of a row over Israeli settlement
building which has prevented progress in two rounds of talks between
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
An Israeli official said the two men would attempt to find "common
ground" in...
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 The United Nations said Wednesday that it is seeking to clear up the
expulsion of two high-ranking diplomats from Afghanistan, blaming the
incident on a "misunderstanding."
Nilab Mobarez, press officer for the UN Assistance Mission in
Afghanistan, said one of the diplomats was a UN official and he would
leave the country...
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 Turkish security forces continued Tuesday their fight against militant
Kurdish rebels, with another set of strikes into northern Iraq and
lethal clashes in the southeastern Turkish city of Sirnak.
Five people were killed in a clash between rebels of the Kurdish
People's Party (PKK) and the Turkish military in Sirnak,...
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 Turkish fighter planes renewed strikes on Tuesday against Kurdish
rebels based in the mountainous border area of northern Iraq, a source
from the border guard forces in the northern Iraqi town of Duhuk said.
According to the Voices of Iraq news agency, Tuesday's strikes hit
an uninhabited area called Jum Juhi only four kilometres...
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 Saudi Arabia's security forces have arrested a number of militants
"with foreign ties" who planned to carry out terrorist attacks inside
the kingdom, news reports said Sunday citing local authorities.
The newly announced arrests bring the total number of those
recently detained to 28, according to the Saudi News Agency...
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 French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd arrived in Kabul on Saturday and reiterated their governments'
long-term commitment to war-ravaged Afghanistan.
While Sarkozy held talks with his Afghan counterpart in Kabul,
Rudd, who took office earlier this month, flew to southern province of
Uruzgan and...
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 Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday ruled out Israeli
negotiations with Hamas, and dismissed as "pathetic and misleading" an
announcement by the Islamist group that it was prepared to discuss a
ceasefire with the Jewish state.
The ceasefire call by Hamas leader Ismail Haniya was nothing more
than "an attempt...
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 Defence ministers from the eight countries involved in the
international coalition fighting in southern Afghanistan have agreed a
"strategic plan" on how to go forward, Australian Defence Minister Joel
Fitzgibbon said Friday.
Fitzgibbon, speaking after a one-day ministerial meeting just
outside Edinburgh, Scotland, said...
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 At least four people died and more than 30 were injured Friday when a
grenade exploded during a funeral procession in Gaza City, prompting
Fatah to accuse Hamas and again raising tensions between the two rival
Palestinian movements.
The heightened tensions come a day before Hamas is to mark 20 years
since the radical Islamic...
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 At least 35 Iraqis were killed and scores wounded in separate bombings,
raids and shootings in Iraq Saturday, local authorities said.
Bayji, 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, experienced the worst
violence with two intense bombings. In one incident, 11 were killed,
including seven policemen, and 44 wounded when the house of...
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 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that plans by Israel
to build 300 apartments in a disputed east Jerusalem neighbourhood did
not help build confidence between Israelis and Palestinians, at a time
in which peace talks were entering a crucial phase.
"I have made it very clear (to the Israeli government) that we...
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 Iranian president termed a US intelligence report as a victory for
Iranian nation in nuclear battle against the Washington, which has been
charging Tehran of actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
A US intelligence released a report on Monday verifying Iran had
halted its atomic weapons programme in 2003 and seemed less determined
to...
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 The UN Security Council said Friday it supported the Middle East peace
conference held in Annapolis, Maryland, earlier in the week, but
stopped short of adopting a formal resolution of support submitted by
the United States.
The US withdrew the resolution during a closed-door session after
it was circulated to the council's 15...
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 The US military in Iraq on Saturday announced the arrest of four
members of a Shiite militia with ties to Iran who were allegedly
involved in the bombing of a Baghdad market the previous day, pan-Arab
broadcaster al-Jazeera reported.
"In raids overnight, Iraqi and coalition forces were able to
identify and detain four members...
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 Fronts were hardened in the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme at
the year-end meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
in Vienna on Thursday.
Iran insisted it was cooperating fully with the United Nations
nuclear watchdog in resolving questions about its nuclear activities
and that its peaceful intentions had...
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 At least eight people were killed and 11 injured in separate attacks in
Baghdad Tuesday while 43 people, including three foreign guards, were
arrested in connection with the killing of an Iraqi woman.
In a spate of attacks in Baghdad, two people were killed and seven
injured by a car bomb targeting a police patrol in Baya...
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 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Thursday passed a
mixed verdict on Iran, saying the country was generally telling the
truth, but lacking full transparency.
Cooperation was sufficient to clear up questions regarding past
aspects of Iran's nuclear programme, an IAEA report released in Vienna,
Austria said.
But...
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 According to local reports, the fights between Sri Lankan
military and Tamil Tiger rebels seem to have intensified over the past weeks,
especially in the northern parts were they have seeded fear in civilians.
The Sri Lankan
military and Tamil Tiger rebels seem to be gearing up for a major confrontation
in the north of the...
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 After further looking into the incident in which Blackwater
security guards opened fire a few weeks ago on unarmed Iraqi civilians, Iraqi
prime minister’s office said Sunday that the government’s investigation had lead
to the belief that they committed “deliberate murder” and should be punished
accordingly.
Iraqi investigators,...
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The United States have finally decided to scratch out North Korea
from the terrorist countries list.
North Korea
says the United States
has agreed to remove it from a list of countries that support terrorism.
Washington has taken N
Korea off the list after a meeting in Geneva
this weekend between nuclear envoys from both...
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