Obama defends abuse photos U-turn
admin @ May 13, 2009 # No Comment Yet
US President Barack Obama has said the release of more photos of prisoner abuse by US soldiers is “of no benefit” and may inflame opinion against the US. Read more
US proposes new regulations on derivatives (AFP)
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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US administration Wednesday proposed new rules to tighten supervision of derivatives, the complex financial instruments believed to be a key element of the global financial crisis. Read more
EU fines Intel record $1.45B for sales tactics (AP)
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The European Union fined Intel Corp. a record euro1.06 billion ($1.45 billion) on Wednesday and ordered the world’s biggest maker of computer chips to stop illegal sales tactics that shut out Silicon Valley rival AMD. Read more
EU admits it’s unsure of fish stock levels
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Scientists are unaware of the state of nearly two-thirds of Europe‘s fish stocks, the European Commission admitted yesterday. Read more
Fake Wikipedia Post Fools Some in Media
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DUBLIN (May 12) – When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news. Read more
First picture of boy, 2, killed by rollercoaster after parents lost him in fairground crowd
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Victim: Two-year-old Erjon, pictured with his mother Migena Hyseni, died after being hit by a children’s rollercoaster at a fairground in North London Read more
Australian stocks: Market weaker in light trading
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Australian stocks: Market weaker in light trading Page 1 of 2 View as a single page 7:38PM Wednesday May 13, 2009 MELBOURNE – The Australian share market closed weaker in light trading as investors showed caution after recent gains and the digestion of Tuesday’s federal budget. At 1615 AEST, the benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was [...]
France's Worst Serial Killers?
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The trial of Michel Fourniret — who reportedly enlisted his wife’s help to seize virgin girls to rape and kill — began March 27, 2008, with Fourniet refusing to speak unless court went into closed session and refusing to let the press take his photograph. The Times of London reported the gory details: “The couple [...]
Pakistan Strikes Back at Taliban
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As expected, the peace deal between the government and the Taliban in the Swat valley didn’t last long. As U.S. lawmakers ponder House and Senate versions of massive aid bills for the Pakistani government to fight extremists, and as President Asif Ali Zardari visited Washington last week to make his case for that aid, Islamabad [...]
TV news and the truth about crowds
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Ever notice how TV news camera operators always try to shoot gatherings in order to maximize the illusion of the size of a crowd? I see this all the time — rallies, news conferences, parades, speeches and so on shown not with wide angles but in a series of quick-cut close-ups designed to fool the [...]
More Die As War Zone Hospital Hit Again
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11:11am UK, Wednesday May 13, 2009 At least 15 people have been killed after the only hospital in Sri Lanka’s war zone has been shelled for the second time in two days, said a doctor working there. [...]
UKTV Food to become Good Food
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UKTV has licensed the brand of BBC Worldwide cookery magazine Good Food for the rebrand of UKTV Food. BBC Worldwide, which owns 50% of UKTV with joint venture partner Virgin Media, will continue to operate Good Food’s magazine and website on an independent basis. “We are thrilled to mark our tenth and final channel rebrand [...]
Russian president Medvedev awards WWII veteran who was thought to be dead for half a century
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invited a distinguished Azerbaijani World War II veteran to Moscow to attend an event dedicated to the 64th anniversary of the victory over fascism. Aghadadash Samadov is the only person to have received a personal invitation from the Russian president. He is due to visit Moscow May 7 together with [...]
84 AFGHAN GIRLS HOSPITALIZED
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MUHMUD RAQI, Afghanistan — At least 84 Afghan girls were admitted to a hospital Tuesday for headaches and vomiting in the third apparent poison attack on a girls school in as many weeks, officials and doctors said. Read more
Feinstein gives reluctant support to two ballot measures
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Sen. Dianne Feinstein finally surfaced today to announce her support for Props. 1A and 1B in Tuesday’s special election, but don’t expect to see her trading high fives with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on the campaign bandwagon any time soon. Read more
Staying at the Basra ‘B&B’
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It is jokingly dubbed ‘the most expensive B&B in the world’. Then again the trailer camp is the only ‘bed and breakfast’ that also provides lunch, dinner, a gym, 24-hour Internet access and a relatively secure place to stay in Basra.Situated within the newly-acquired American military base in this southern-Iraqi province, the B&B provides private [...]
Ortega y la Erosión de la Democracia en Nicaragua
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Se ha alcanzado un nuevo hito en el continuo desmantelamiento de la democracia en Nicaragua. Read more
It Wasn’t Just Miller’s Story
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The Judith Miller-Valerie Plame-Scooter Libby imbroglio is being reduced to a simple narrative about the origins of the Iraq war. Miller, the story goes, was an anti-Saddam Hussein, weapons-of-mass-destruction-hunting zealot and was either an eager participant or an unwitting dupe in a campaign by Bush administration officials and Iraqi exiles to justify the invasion. The [...]
Requiem for a Terrier
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My wife belongs to the school of thought that counsels against watching politicians debate on television. “It only encourages them,” she fears. So for company during the final McCain-Obama face-off, I turned to Coco, who nestled with me on the family sofa. Read more
Suspected Nazi Guard Deported, Imprisoned in Germany
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MUNICH, May 12 — Accused Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk was imprisoned here Tuesday after he was deported from the United States to face trial on charges that he helped murder 29,000 Jews and other prisoners during World War II. Read more