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RAMADI, Iraq, Feb. 4 — In a palatial house replete with guns, flags and other manifestations of tribal power, America’s key ally in once-volatile Anbar province explained what he would do if the counting of votes in Saturday’s election failed to show his party as the victor. Read more
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BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rode a nationalist, law-and-order message to a decisive victory over the Shi’ite religious parties who previously dominated Iraq, preliminary election results showed on Thursday. Read more
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senators working to craft a massive U.S. economic stimulus package said on Thursday they had agreed it should be close to the $800 billion wanted by President Barack Obama, and Senate leader Harry Reid said he believed he had the votes to pass it. Read more
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US President Barack Obama has warned Congress that “the time for talk is over” on an economic stimulus bill. Read more
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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The International Monetary Fund warned Thursday that the US housing downturn may deepen and last longer than previously forecast, and the slump could spread to other countries. Read more
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BAGHDAD – The Iraqi prime minister’s allies finished first in races for ruling councils in Baghdad and eight other provinces during last weekend’s provincial elections, officials said Thursday — a strong endorsement of his campaign to restore order in this war-ravaged country. Read more
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Bernard Kouchner, France‘s popular foreign minister, was fighting last night to clear his name after a book depicted him as a fraud who earned money from unsavoury African leaders and served American rather than French interests. Read more
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SEOUL, South Korea (Feb. 5) – A woman in South Korea who has taken the written exam required for a driver’s license nearly every day since 2005 has failed again — but is hoping attempt No. 772 will be the charm. The aspiring driver took her first test in April 2005, according to Choi Young-chul, [...]
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Interest rates were slashed to a new historic low of 1 per cent today as the Bank of England took more drastic action to try and stave off the effects of a long and painful recession. Read more
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More than 10,000 people have jumped at the chance to become the caretaker of a tropical Australian island – including a prankster identifying himself as terror mastermind Osama bin Laden. Read more
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Why the Valentine’s Day party poopers? Valentine’s Day = St. Valentine = not an Islamic holiday. Plus, as an Islamic scholar told the Saudi Gazette, “As Muslims we shouldn’t celebrate a non-Muslim celebration especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women.” So in Saudi Arabia, the religious police — agents of [...]
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9:10am UK, Thursday February 05, 2009 Alex Crawford, In Colombo The Sri Lankan government has rejected calls for talks with the Tamil Tigers at what it calls “this crucial and final stage” of the fighting and has said nothing [...]
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K-9 is to make make a return in the third series of Doctor Who kids spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures. The canine companion has previously appeared twice in the spinoff series and was last seen in the Doctor Who series four finale ‘Journey’s End’. Now the character will appear in at least half of the [...]
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Despite the increasing chatter about the threat of trade protectionism, many foreign businesses are gearing up to win a piece of the stimulus package. Some are hiring staff in the United States. Others — from Japan, Germany, France and South Korea — are building American factories to make solar cells, lithium batteries, turbines or subway [...]
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Kids on both sides of the Atlantic are smoking less pot and going out less often with friends at night, a study of 15-year-olds in 30 countries has found. Read more
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That loud sigh rising over the state of California this week came from would-be candidates for governor, wishing that Sen. Dianne Feinstein would make up her mind already. Read more
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Iraq commentators go misty-eyed when they talk of the symbolic purple finger brandished by Iraqis after casting a ballot. But no one ever mentions the smelly orange nail.Had such an abominable side-effect been better public knowledge, then I would never have enthusiastically jammed by right index finger into a pot of indelible ink at a [...]
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In the most widely predicted weather event since St Swithin looked up to the heavens and said: “You know what, I think it might drizzle,” it snowed last night. It’s still snowing now at The Times HQ in London, and, judging from the half-empty train carriages as we diligently battled our way into work [...]
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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican, bowing to the growing furor over Pope Benedict XVI’s decision to accept a return to the church of a prelate who denied the Holocaust, made a dramatic turnaround Wednesday and demanded the bishop recant. Read more
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MOSCOW, Feb. 3 — The president of Kyrgyzstan said Tuesday that his government had decided to close the last remaining American air base in Central Asia, a move that could present a significant setback to U.S. plans to send more troops to Afghanistan and to open new supply routes that would allow NATO to reduce [...]