The 52nd Grammy Awards have been billed as “ladies’ night,” and Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga were leading the way in the early going Sunday. Near the midway point, Beyonce led the pack with five awards, including song of the year for the omnipresent “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” while Swift claimed [...]
News Corp. said it settled a federal lawsuit filed against the company by Valassis Communications Inc. for $500 million, a figure which includes $300 million awarded during an earlier trial in July. “Significant risks” developed during pre-trial proceedings in the past couple of weeks, leading to its decision to settle, News Corp. said in a [...]
The President of Malawi has been chosen to assume the rotating presidency of the African Union, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader and the body’s outgoing chairman, has said. Gaddafi told an AU summit in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on Sunday that Bingu wa Mutharika would replace him, ending speculation that the Libyan leader would [...]
Hundreds of thousands of Egyptian football fans are on the streets of Cairo tonight, celebrating their team’s victory in the final of the African Cup of Nations. Their victory over Ghana makes it an unprecedented three titles in a row. As soon as referee Koman Coulibaly, from Mali, had blown the final whistle, an all-night [...]
Gunmen have killed 13 people at a high school student party in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez. Two adults and 14 teenagers died, while about two dozen others were injured, as the attackers fired indiscriminately on partygoers, according to reports. It was not immediately clear if anyone at the party was linked to the [...]
Flights transporting critically injured Haitians into the United States will resume within a few hours, the White House announced Sunday afternoon. The flights were temporarily suspended because of logistical issues including space to care for the injured, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Saturday. “Having received assurances that additional capacity exists both here and among [...]
The U.S. military has halted flights carrying Haitian earthquake victims to the United States because of an apparent dispute over where seriously injured patients should be taken for treatment. An American doctor treating victims in Port-au-Prince warned that at least 100 patients needed to get to better hospitals or they could die, while the U.S. [...]
The CIA builds a case for putting Anwar al Awlaki, linked to the Ft. Hood shootings and the Detroit Christmas bomb attempt, on its hit list. The complications involved are a window into a secretive process. The CIA sequence for a Predator strike ends with a missile but begins with a memo. Usually no more [...]
Miss Virginia Caressa Cameron won the 2010 Miss America title Saturday night after strutting in a skintight yellow dress, belting Beyonce’s “Listen” from “Dreamgirls” and telling kids they should get outside more often. Cameron, a 22-year-old from Fredericksburg, Va., won a $50,000 scholarship and the crown in Las Vegas after a pageant that started with [...]
For weeks, the right has heckled Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. for his plans to try the alleged 9/11 conspirators in New York City and his handling of the Christmas bombing plot suspect. Now the left is going to be upset: an upcoming Justice Department report from its ethics-watchdog unit, the Office of Professional Responsibility [...]
The lead investigator in the slaying in Mexico of a Southern California school board member has been killed in an ambush, authorities said Saturday. Mexican officials wouldn’t say whether investigator Manuel Acosta’s killing was related to the killing of Agustin Roberto “Bobby” Salcedo last month. Acosta, 42, was ambushed near his office Jan. 15 by [...]
Haitian police have arrested 10 U.S. citizens caught trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country in a suspected illicit adoption scheme, authorities said on Saturday. The five men and five women were in custody in the capital, Port-au-Prince after their arrests on Friday night. There are fears that traffickers could try to [...]
A 15,000 square foot facility known as iGrow that targets medical marijuana home growers opened in Oakland on Thursday. The event had two city council members for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. IGrow is a one-stop shop near the Oakland International Airport that offers an array of services for creating indoor cannabis gardens to medical marijuana patients. [...]
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says Moscow has agreed to sell Libya weapons in a $1.8 Billion deal. Mr. Putin made the announcement Saturday while meeting with the head of Izhmash, a major Russian gun manufacturer. He said the contract was signed Friday, and covers both small arms and more complex weapons. Russia’s Interfax news [...]
About 2,200 tourists have been airlifted from near the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru following floods that destroyed road and rail links. A break in the weather allowed the government to send in helicopters and all tourists were evacuated. Tourists’ patience has been stretched, with prices for some goods soaring. The Machu Picchu [...]
A half-smoked cigar, abandoned when Sir Winston Churchill dashed away to a Cabinet meeting, has sold for $7,000 (£4,500). The 9.5cm (3.74 ins) cigar was bought by a private collector from Hertfordshire, Engalnd. The ex-prime minister’s cigar, picked up by a member of the 10 Downing Street staff 69 years ago, was sold by Keys [...]
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday called for a formal investigation into the alarming rise in birth defects in a small town in central California. “There is nothing more important than the health and safety of the public,” said Schwarzenegger, “My administration is committed to the community of Kettleman City and will use our resources [...]
California has named a new site a state historical resource – despite the fact that it is not on Earth, never mind in the US. The site where Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in 1969, the first US landing, is now included on the state’s register. The unusual move by the California State Historical [...]
Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government is infringing the rights of a Canadian imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, but is not obliged to ask the US to repatriate him. The judgment on Friday overturned previous lower court rulings that ordered Ottawa to give assistance to Omar Khadr, saying his rights under Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms had been [...]
China is protesting a US decision to sell $6.4 Billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, saying it would cause “serious damage” to relations and co-operation between the two nations. A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said Beijing sent an urgent petition in the early hours of Saturday morning and also made its displeasure known [...]
Israel has submitted its response to a UN report that accused it of deliberately targeting civilians during last year’s Gaza offensive, but sidestepped a key UN demand for an independent commission to investigate war crimes allegations. Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defense Minister, told reporters in the southern Negev desert on Friday that the report backed the [...]
New York State Governor David Paterson joined a growing chorus on Thursday of those demanding that the upcoming trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be moved from lower Manhattan. “We were the epicenter of the attack in this country on Sept. 11,” Paterson said on ABC-TV’s “The View,” “and in my opinion maybe [...]
President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty [...]
Chinese peacekeeping riot police and U.S. troops Thursday carried out their first joint patrol in the quake-battered Haitian capital, as designated by the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). Hendre Ciprian, a Romanian police officer with MINUSTAH who coordinated the patrol, told reporters that the operation, the first one joined by U.S. soldiers at MINUSTAH’s [...]
Brazil’s largest city has declared a state of emergency, after heavy rain caused flooding in many neighborhoods and on major highways. Newspaper O Globo reported Sao Paulo has registered at least 108 miles of traffic during rush hour and reported at least eighty different areas in the city were flooded. One roadway, near the city [...]
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $10 Billion over the next decade to research new vaccines and bring them to the world’s poorest countries, the Microsoft co-founder and his wife said Friday. Calling upon governments and business to also contribute, they said the money will produce higher immunization rates and aims to make [...]
The NATO-led command expressed regret for a military convoy’s killing of a religious leader Thursday in Afghanistan. The death sparked angry demonstrations near a U.S. military base. The convoy fired “on what appeared to be a threatening vehicle” and “regrettably” an imam was shot and wounded before later dying at a hospital, NATO’s International Security [...]
An author and democracy activist who criticized Vietnam’s communist government has been sentenced to four years in jail after a trial lasting half a day. Pham Thanh Nghien was found guilty on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state”. She is the 14th Vietnamese democracy activist to face trial in the last three months as [...]
Toyota must act quickly to restore customer confidence in the wake of a massive global safety recall affecting millions of cars, Japan’s trade minister has said. “The scale of the recalls is huge. The situation is serious,” Masayuki Naoshima told reporters on Friday. “I would like Toyota to respond properly to secure consumer confidence.” His [...]
Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Friday he was “determined” to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the U.S. over the 2003 invasion of Iraq but admitted that London and Washington had different views over the main reason why war was necessary. The U.S. favored regime change as a reason while Britain said it was [...]
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has warned that many Haitians still face a daily struggle to find food and water two weeks after the island was decimated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake that killed an estimated 150,000 people. Now a U.N. special envoy to Haiti, Clinton told a special session of the World Economic Forum in [...]
Concern is mounting for a Chinese lawyer who is believed to be in detention but has not been seen for nearly a year. Foreign governments have urged Chinese officials to reveal the whereabouts of well-known activist Gao Zhisheng. Human rights groups say it is unusual that there has been no formal word on why Mr [...]
A senior Hamas military commander has died in Dubai, the Palestinian Islamist group has announced. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, 50, a founder of the Izz al-Din Qassam Brigades, passed away suddenly on 20 January, it added. The exact circumstances of his death were not clear, but one Hamas official, Izzat al-Rishq, told reporters that he had been [...]
At prosecutors’ request, a judge dismisses drug distribution charges against the billionaire, ending a case full of scandalous accusations. Civil lawsuits against Nicholas also are thrown out. Launched amid titillating allegations of drug abuse, illicit sex and ill-gotten gains, the federal government’s prosecution of Broadcom Corp. executives came to a whimpering conclusion Thursday when a [...]
High-speed rail projects in California, Florida and Illinois are among the big winners of $8 Billion in grants announced Thursday by the White House – the start of what some Democrats tout as a national rail-building program that could rival the interstate highways begun in the Eisenhower era. President Barack Obama announced the awards during [...]
A Clark County, Kansas undersheriff said he was just following his instincts when he found more than $1 million during a traffic stop. Undersheriff Daniel Knowles stopped a vehicle last week on U.S. 54 just outside of Minneola and became suspicious of the driver. Knowles searched the car and found a hidden compartment with the [...]
The Senate confirmed Ben Bernanke to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman on Thursday after a furious lobbying effort from the administration and threats from leading Democrats and Wall Street investors that the market would tank if Bernanke was turned back. Seventy seven senators voted to end a filibuster, but when the final vote [...]
Questions continue to swirl around claims that missiles had been spotted over Newfoundland’s southern coast, with a Liberal MP accusing Ottawa of providing no answers on the mysterious sightings. Gerry Byrne, the MP for Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, said Thursday he had received no further information on the missile-like objects seen earlier this week. “The objective [...]
J.D. Salinger, author of “The Catcher in the Rye” and other books, has died, according to his literary agent, Phyllis Westberg. The author died Wednesday at age 91 of natural causes at his home in New Hampshire, according to a family statement that Westberg provided Thursday. “Despite having broken his hip in May, his health [...]
Ten terror suspects thought to be linked to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian arrested for attempting to blow up a US-bound flight on Christmas Day, have been arrested in Malaysia. The men, aged between 20 and 50 years old, were attending a religious meeting in Kuala Lumpur when they were detained by police. Malaysia’s interior [...]
Iran has hanged two men over widespread protests that followed the country’s disputed presidential election in June last year, an Iranian news agency has said. The pair were convicted of being “Mohahareb” or enemies of God, and members of an outlawed pro-monarchist group called the People’s Mujahideen. “Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour [...]
A disbarred attorney who courted politicians and star athletes and led a flamboyant lifestyle even by flashy South Florida standards pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges that he ran a $1.2 Billion pyramid scheme. Scott Rothstein, 47, pleaded guilty to all five counts against him, including wire fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and a racketeering charge commonly [...]
President Barack Obama encourages the Nation to get the US economy growing again using the example of foreign nation’s investment in their infrastructure and asking the American people “How Long Should We Wait?” to begin rebuilding our country. President Obama vowed that preserving and generating new jobs will be his administration’s “number one focus in [...]
French rescuers pulled a teenage girl from the rubble of a home on the campus of the destroyed College St. Gerard on Wednesday, a stunning recovery 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city. Darlene Etienne, 17, was covered with a thermal blanket and given oxygen as rescuers rushed her on a stretcher to a [...]
Before its launch, the Apple Tablet was rumored to be a device that would revolutionize media and take the print world digital. The Wall Street Journal reports on the media’s reaction to the iPad launch, noting that the device’s potential impact appears to be greatest for the book industry. The WSJ adds, Apple hasn’t talked [...]
Well, it’s official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn’t know what he was talking about. Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the agency’s intelligence analysis and operations directorates, electrified the hand-wringing national debate over torture in December 2007 when he [...]
A United Nations Security Council panel has removed five senior Taliban officials from its sanctions list. A statement on Tuesday said the panel had “approved the deletion of the five entries” from its blacklist of individuals subjected to a travel ban, assets freeze and arms embargo. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has been pushing for [...]
Japanese car giant Toyota has said it will suspend US sales of eight models of cars, including its top selling Camry, amid a massive safety recall. The unprecedented move comes a week after the company announced a recall of 2.3 million cars to fix potentially faulty accelerator pedals. The recall was Toyota’s second major alert [...]
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal, a former senior legal adviser to Britain’s foreign ministry at the time of the conflict has told a public inquiry. Michael Wood said on Tuesday that the use of force against Iraq was “contrary to international law” because it had not been authorized by the UN Security Council. [...]
Mahinda Rajapaksa, the incumbent Sri Lankan president, has been re-elected, state television says. Rupavahini television said on Wednesday that Rajapaksa decisively beat Sarath Fonseka, his rival. The announcement came as troops surrounded a hotel in the capital Colombo where Fonseka was staying. It said with most districts counted, Rajapaksa had 5.2 million votes to 3.6 [...]
U.S. troops pulled a man alive from under a collapsed building in Haiti’s capital on Tuesday as U.N. troops sprayed tear gas at survivors desperate for food two weeks after a catastrophic earthquake. The 35-year-old man, covered in dust and dressed only in underpants, was carried from the ruins of a building in downtown Port-au-Prince [...]
A conservative activist who has caused problems for the community organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested and accused of trying to interfere with phones at U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office. Activist James O’Keefe, 25, was already in Landrieu’s New Orleans office Monday when Robert Flanagan and [...]
China could end a centuries-old custom and remove dogs and cats from the menu in the nation’s first draft law against animal abuse. Anyone caught eating them would face a fine of as much as 5,000 yuan (£450) and up to 15 days in jail if the law is passed. The draft is expected to [...]
Verizon Communications Inc., coping with subscriber losses at its fixed-line phone business, plans to cut about 13,000 jobs at the division this year after posting fourth-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates. The cuts will follow reductions of a similar size last year, Chief Financial Officer John Killian said on a conference call today. This year’s [...]
A suicide car bomber struck a police crime lab in central Baghdad Tuesday, killing at least 21 people and injuring dozens a day after suicide attacks hit several hotels favored by Western journalists, officials said. The timing of the blast, a day after Iraq hanged Saddam Hussein’s cousin and stalwart “Chemical Ali,” prompted speculation that [...]
A new species, this as yet unnamed rain frog looks toward an uncertain future. The frog is one of 30 unknown species found in Ecuador’s highland forests by a team of U.S. and Ecuadorian researchers, the nonprofit, Arizona-based Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International announced. As Central and South America’s increasingly isolated “islands” of mountaintop forest [...]
President Barack Obama attends a ceremony honoring the 2009 NBA Basketball Champions Los Angeles Lakers in the East Room at the White House in Washington, January 25, 2010.
The prime minister of Haiti has said that his country needs at least five to 10 years of reconstruction help after its people were “bloodied, martyred and ruined” by the devastating earthquake this month. Jean-Max Bellerive said on Monday at an international aid conference that “the people of Haiti will need more and more and [...]
Authorities in Peru have ordered the airlift of nearly 2,000 tourists stranded by heavy rains in the country’s top attraction, Machu Picchu. Days of heavy rains triggered up to 40 landslides, one of which blocked the railway connecting the Inca ruins with the city of Cuzco. Two people are reported to have died when a [...]
Former President Alfonso Portillo of Guatemala faces money-laundering charges in the United States, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday. The indictment charges Portillo with embezzling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, “a portion of which he then laundered through bank accounts located, among other places, in the United States and Europe,” the [...]
Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as “Chemical Ali”, has been executed by hanging, a government spokesman has announced. Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein’s regime and his cousin, had earlier been sentenced to death four times for genocide and crimes against humanity. Earlier this month, he was sentenced to death for ordering [...]
At least 36 people have died in three large explosions apparently targeting hotels in the heart of Iraq’s capital. More than 70 people were injured in the Baghdad blasts, which officials said were caused by suicide car bombers. They struck near the Sheraton, Babylon and Hamra hotels, which are popular with Western businessmen and media. [...]
A 40-yard field goal in overtime by a little-known kicker could become as famous as jambalaya in these parts. The New Orleans Saints, a team with no home and an uncertain future five years ago, are heading for their first Super Bowl. By battering Brett Favre and beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 Sunday, they set [...]
More than 150,000 people have been confirmed dead in the Port-au-Prince area alone following Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the country’s communications minister says. The death toll given by Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue on Sunday comes amid an exodus of residents from the shattered capital Port-au-Prince. Lassegue said that the 150,000 figure was compiled by CNE, a state [...]
Rescue crews searched feverishly in poor weather conditions Monday for passengers from an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea minutes after takeoff with 90 people aboard. By Monday morning, crews had found nine bodies, but no survivors, off the Lebanese coast where the Boeing aircraft had gone down, the Lebanese government said. [...]
The photos taken by Jordan Miles’ mother show his face covered with raw, red bruises, his cheek and lip swollen, his right eye swollen shut. A bald spot mars the long black dreadlocks where the 18-year-old violist says police tore them from his head. Now, 10 days after plainclothes officers stopped him on a street [...]
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company. The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club, which has underperformed the company’s namesake stores in the U.S. and abroad. The cuts represent about 10 [...]
In 1848, Phineas Gage became a medical miracle. Gage was a 25-year-old railroad foreman, who was known for being efficient and friendly. One September day, his crew was laying track in Cavendish, Vt. As he was tamping explosive powder into a hole in the rock, the powder exploded prematurely, driving the tamping iron straight through [...]
A 16-year-old has set out to become the youngest person to sail around the world alone. Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks sailed into the sunny Pacific Ocean on Saturday after being delayed a few days by a series of violent storms in California. Her boat-builder father, Laurence, along with other family members and fiends, cheered [...]
“Inglourious Basterds” took the ensemble cast award at the 16th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards on Saturday night while Golden Globe winners Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock again picked up top acting awards. The win by “Basterds,” Quentin Tarantino’s crazy action World War II flick, didn’t help clarify the race for Academy Award best picture, [...]
A crude oil spill in a southeast Texas port that happened when a tanker and towing vessel collided Saturday was not expected to spread beyond a two-mile area, the U.S. Coast Guard said. It was unclear exactly how much oil spilled into the water, but the Coast Guard said it could have been as much [...]
A 1930 Ford Model A used by bank robber John Dillinger to evade federal agents sold at auction Saturday for $165,000. The car, sold at the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., had a cameo role in the 2009 movie “Public Enemies” starring Johnny Depp. This car was used in Dillinger’s 1934 escape from [...]
A 12-foot green anaconda has been captured at a Florida park, where it apparently had been feasting on waterfowl for months. The giant snake, a native of the Amazon, was spotted and captured Jan. 13 at East Lake Fish Camp by an Osceola County sheriff’s mounted patrol unit. Toni Englert, who keeps horses at the [...]
A Russian-made passenger airplane caught fire as it crash-landed in northeastern Iran this morning, injuring dozens of people aboard in the latest in a string of Iranian civil aviation and transport mishaps. All 157 passengers and 13 crew members aboard Taban Air Flight 6437 survived as the Tupolev-154 aircraft caught fire on the tarmac of [...]
Competitors in a Highlands dog sled rally are racing over a snow-covered course for the first time since the mid 1990s. Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain spokeswoman Judy Wakker said the weekend event near Aviemore was an “amazing opportunity” for mushers. “The atmosphere is amazing, it’s buzzing,” she said. The Cairngorms experienced some of [...]
Osama Bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the failed attack on a US airliner on December 25, 2009 in a new audio tape. In the tape obtained by Al Jazeera, the world’s most wanted man warns President Barack Obama that there will be more attacks unless he finds a solution to the Palestinian crisis. The [...]
Venezuelan cable television providers stopped transmitting a channel critical of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday, after the government cited noncompliance with new regulations requiring the socialist leader’s speeches be televised on cable. Radio Caracas Television, an anti-Chavez channel known as RCTV that switched to cable and satellite television in 2007 after the government refused to [...]
Thousands of protesters have turned out in Venezuela, both in support of Hugo Chavez, the president, and against him, signaling a heated political climate ahead of the 2010 elections. Organised by the opposition to coincide with the anniversary of the downfall of General Marcos Perez Jimenez, a former dictator who was overthrown in the late [...]
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, has been sworn-in for a second term, vowing to further tighten state control over South America’s poorest economy and develop some of the world’s largest lithium reserves. Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia’s first indigenous president, won a sweeping re-election victory in December due to broad support from the poor Indian [...]
A 10-year-old Yemeni child shot and wounded five people outside a prison in the northern province of Amran after his father had been executed, state-run Saba news agency reported Saturday. The boy ambushed the five people outside the jail using a gun hidden under his clothes and several of the five wounded were in critical [...]
American Airlines, the world’s second-biggest carrier, said Friday it will lay off 175 pilots in the first half of this year due to capacity cuts and fewer retirements. Eighty pilots will lose their jobs at the end of February and a second round of layoffs could be in the spring, American spokeswoman Missy Latham said [...]
Unknown militants ambushed a NATO oil tanker in the ourskirts of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, local officials said on Saturday. Local officials said the militants ordered the driver and his assistant to get down and then set the tanker on fire. Militants frequently attack oil tankers and trucks [...]
A 24-year-old man has been rescued alive from the rubble of the ruined Napoli Inn Hotel in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, 11 days after the earthquake. The rescue of Wismond Exantus came hours after Haiti’s government declared an end to the search for survivors. Onlookers cheered as the man – smiling and apparently in a good [...]
Photographers fed up with being stopped and searched by British police under the country’s terrorism laws gathered in London to protest against the practice. Waving placards with the message, “I am a photographer, not a terrorist,” around 2,000 photographers called for more leniency from the British police. The slogan is the name of a group [...]
Solemn music from the world’s biggest stars served as the soundtrack to Friday night’s telethon for Haiti relief, but the fundraiser ended with Wyclef Jean shouting “Enough of the moping, let’s rebuild Haiti.” Preliminary results indicate that in excess of $60 Million was raised during the two-hour “Hope for Haiti” show, and donations continue to [...]
More than 111,000 people died in last week’s massive earthquake in Haiti, the government announced, as search-and-rescue teams wind down their effort to find survivors. The government’s figure, released by the United Nations late Friday, is the first precise death toll for the 7.0-magnitude quake that struck on January 12. It said 111,481 people were [...]
Director Roman Polanski lost his bid Friday to be sentenced without returning to the U.S. when a judge ruled the director must be present in court if he wants to resolve his 32-year-old sex case. Reiterating Polanski was a fugitive from justice, Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza said he was acting to protect “the dignity [...]
The Videos below are 360 degree Virtual Tours of four different Port au Prince neighborhoods after the earthquake. Drive through the Musseau neighborhood, walk through Cite Numero. Easy to navigate with a mouse or arrow keys; Click the PLAY button within the video screen. CLICK and DRAG your mouse to look up, down and around. [...]
Britain raised its terror threat alert to the second-highest level Friday, one of several recent moves the country has made to increase vigilance against international terrorists after a Christmas Day bombing attempt on a Europe-U.S. flight. The threat level was raised from “substantial” — where it had stood since July to indicate a strong possibility [...]
Oceans of liquid diamond topped with solid “icebergs” of the precious gems could be on Uranus and Neptune, new research has revealed. The first ever detailed research into the melting point of diamond found it behaves like water during melting and freezing – with its solid form floating on the liquid. A large diamond ocean [...]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has constructed a military command centre in a hollowed-out mountain close to the Chinese border from where he plans to fight a guerrilla campaign should his nation be invaded or engulfed in civil unrest. Beneath a lavish palace used by the North Korean supreme leader, the interior of Mount Baekdusan [...]
Luke Day, a teacher, drowned after “sacrificing himself” to save the life of his bride when a violent storm capsized their boat while they were on honeymoon in Egypt. Mr Day, 31, and his wife Dr Sophie Nicholson-Cole were sheltering under the foredeck of a traditional felucca sailing boat after the freak storm blew up [...]
A unanimous California Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a law that sought to impose limits on the amount of marijuana a medical patient can legally possess. The California Supreme Court ruled that state lawmakers were wrong to change provisions of the voter-approved Proposition 215. The 1996 measure allowed for patients with a doctor’s recommendation [...]
The US military, which is in control of the Port-au-Prince airport, has decided to eject all media organizations from the airport, not giving any reason for their decision. Meanwhile, the hunt for survivors has continued, with teams from the US, Brazil and Chile still working with sniffer dogs at the collapsed Montana Hotel in Port-au-Prince. [...]
The Supreme Court today overturned a century-old restriction on corporations using their money to sway federal elections and ruled that companies have a free-speech right to spend as much as they wish to persuade voters to elect or defeat candidates for Congress and the White House. In a 5-4 decision, the court’s conservative bloc said [...]
A Russian journalist who was thrown into a Siberian drunk tank and savagely beaten by a young police officer died Wednesday, in a case that has sparked a national conversation about the latent alcoholism and casual violence that wind their way through life in this winter-hardened land. Konstantin Popov was a little-known journalist who specialized [...]
Workers are carving out mass graves on a hillside north of Haiti’s capital, using earth-movers to bury 10,000 earthquake victims in a single day while relief workers warn the death toll could increase. Medical clinics have 12-day patient backlogs, untreated injuries are festering and makeshift camps housing thousands of survivors could foster disease, experts said. [...]
French police say they have arrested a Rwandan doctor who is wanted in his homeland on charges of genocide and war crimes. Sosthene Munyemana was detained by police on Wednesday in Bordeaux, in the southwest of France, under an extradition warrant issued by Rwanda. The 45-year-old, who had been working in a hospital emergency ward [...]
Yemeni fighter jets have attacked the home of a suspected leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the military steps up pressure on the group. A Yemeni tribal source said a number of people had been killed in Wednesday’s air raids in Erq al-Shabwan village in Maarib province, about 130km east of the capital [...]
More than a week after their nursing home collapsed, dozens of elderly Haitians are still begging for food and medicine in a downtown Port-au-Prince slum barely a mile from the international airport where tons of aid are pouring in. “It’s as if everybody has forgotten us, nobody cares,” said Phileas Julien, 78, a sometimes delirious [...]
Scientists have developed a sound generator so powerful its shock waves can stun, and even kill people. Another group of researchers have developed another unusual application for sound: a method of “acoustic levitation” that could help maintain colonies on Mars or the moon by using high-pitched sound waves to remove alien dust. Blasting a high-pitched [...]
The deadly clash was the latest in a long line of drug related violence to have plagued Mexico’s jails in recent months. Inmates at the prison outside the city of Durango stabbed rivals with makeshift spears sharpened with tools from the jail workshop and left victims bleeding from their chests and necks, police said. The [...]
About 1.5 million Graco strollers sold at Wal-Mart, Target and other major retailers are being recalled after some children’s fingertips were amputated by hinges on the products. The recall by Graco Children’s Products Inc. includes certain model numbers of its Passage, Alano and Spree Strollers and Travel Systems. The Exton, Pa., company received seven reports [...]
A strong earthquake struck Haiti on Wednesday morning, shaking buildings and sending screaming people running into the streets only eight days after the country’s capital was devastated by a previous quake. The U.S. Geological Survey said the 6.1 magnitude quake hit at 6:03 a.m. (1103 GMT) about 35 miles (56 kilometers) northwest of the capital [...]
Geert Wilders, a right-wing Dutch MP, has appeared in an Amsterdam court on charges of inciting hatred against Muslims. The Freedom Party leader is standing trial after a court overruled a decision by the public prosecutor, who had argued Wilders was protected by the right to free speech. Wilders is being charged over his 2008 [...]
FBI agents have arrested 22 people working in the arms and security industries in a massive sting operation, charging them with trying to bribe an African defense minister, US officials said Tuesday. In the biggest operation ever of its kind, the 22 including at least three British nationals were held under the Foreign Corrupt Practices [...]
Four Vietnamese democracy activists are expected to go on trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Wednesday, accused of collaborating with foreigners in a plot to overthrow the government. According to state media they have been charged with “carrying out activities aimed at overthrowing the people’s administration”. If found guilty they could face the death [...]
After hours of work, an L.A. County urban search and rescue team pulls a woman from the rubble as crowds begin to chant ‘USA, USA.’
It’s the kind of brutal reversal of fortune that can alter the course of a presidency. From charmed to cursed in a Boston minute. The Democrat’s stunning defeat Tuesday night in the Massachusetts Senate race that should have been a cakewalk comes barely 14 months after Barack Obama carried the state by 26 percentage points. [...]
Police were looking for a lone shooter who they said killed eight people Tuesday in central Virginia, then fled in the woods, violently resisting efforts to take him in and even nearly shooting down a police helicopter as it hovered over the area trying to flush him out. State police said officers had the suspect, [...]
Among other things Lucian Freud is a reformed brawler, a quintessential Londoner, a recluse, a workaholic, a survivor and the greatest portrait painter of his generation. All of which makes this newly rediscovered Self-Portrait with a Black Eye something of an emblematic work: a breathtaking painting, made straight after a fight with a London taxi [...]
Clashes between Muslim and Christian gangs have broken out again in the capital of central Nigeria’s Plateau state, Jos, causing dozens of deaths and forcing police to impose a 24-hour curfew. A police official said on Tuesday that as many as 60 people might have been killed since Sunday when clashes started. Mohammed Shittu, an [...]
About 635,000 cribs sold at major discounters nationwide have been recalled by Dorel Asia SRL for strangulation and suffocation hazards that killed one child and injured 10 others, the government said Tuesday. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said that the hardware holding up the side of the crib can fail, causing the drop side [...]
A Pakistani scientist who is accused of shooting at U.S. officers while in custody in Afghanistan was escorted out of a courtroom on the first day of her trial Tuesday, after she shouted that a witness was lying. Aafia Siddiqui stood up and interrupted U.S. Army Capt. Robert Snyder as Snyder told the jury that [...]
British candy maker Cadbury on Tuesday accepted and recommended to shareholders Kraft’s improved takeover offer worth $21 Billion, potentially ending a months-long corporate battle to create the world’s largest maker of chocolate and sweets. The U.S. food conglomerate said the board of Cadbury, maker of Creme Eggs and Dentyne gum, had unanimously endorsed the offer [...]
The FBI violated the law in collecting thousands of U.S. telephone records during the Bush administration, according to a report published on Tuesday. Citing internal memos and interviews, the report states that the FBI invoked nonexistent terrorism emergencies or persuaded phone companies to provide information. The report said the result was more than 2,000 illegally [...]
“I’d like to take a pistol and shoot every JAL executive of the last 20 years,” says Hideo Fujiwara, an otherwise gently spoken 72-year-old. The former pilot flew for Japan Airlines, which is filing for bankruptcy on Tuesday, for 34 years but will see his monthly pension shrink by 40 per cent to Y140,000 ($1,546) [...]
International relief efforts are gaining momentum in Haiti a week after an earthquake killed tens of thousands of people and left three million in need of help. After criticism that military and rescue flights had been given priority over humanitarian aid at the tiny Port-au-Prince airport, the US and UN have now agreed to prioritise [...]
One of the key figures in a conspiracy to set off three truck bombs in eastern Canada has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty in October to co-leading the Islamist militant group dubbed the Toronto 18. The group’s targets included the city’s stock exchange and a military base. Sentencing Amara, who [...]
A gun battle, which lasted more than three hours, in which the Taliban claimed to have infiltrated key government sites in central Kabul killed seven people on Monday morning, hospital officials said. Forty other people were injured, said Dr. Kabir Amiri, head administrator of Kabul hospitals. Afghan security forces were also among the casualties, he [...]
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has seized control of a foreign supermarket chain, Exito, after he accused the company of hiking its prices. The joint French-Colombian supermarket chain was guilty of breaking Venezuelan law on price controls and would now pass into state hands, Mr Chavez said. He said any other company increasing prices also risked [...]
On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King delivered a speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in [...]
Ten thousand immigrant rights advocates marched in front of a county jail in Phoenix Saturday in a protest that was aimed at Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration efforts and was marked by a clash between a small group of protesters and police officers. Organizers say the protest was meant to show officials in Washington [...]
A raid by a US drone in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 12 suspected opposition fighters, Pakistani officials have said. The attack took place on Sunday in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan, close to the Afghanistan border. “The target was a militant compound,” a senior military official said of the raid, which occurred [...]
Sebastian Pinera has won Chile’s presidential election, becoming the nation’s first democratically elected right-wing president in 52 years. With 99 per cent of the ballots counted on Sunday, the billionaire conservative candidate had a 52 per cent to 48 per cent advantage over Eduardo Frei, the left leaning former president, who conceded defeat. The victory [...]
The largest ransom ever paid to Somali pirates has been dropped onto the deck of a Greek-flagged oil tanker carrying two million barrels of oil. The ransom delivered on Sunday is believed to be between $5.5 Million and $7 Million, according to sources interviewed by reporters. With 28 crew members on board, the Maran Centaurus [...]
Getting food, water and medical care to residents in some parts of Port au Prince is virtually impossible. The roads are blocked with concrete walls that have collapsed, debris strewn everywhere, people blocking the streets to force traffic to stop. The solution is to move the 300,000 residents of Port au Prince to a rural [...]
Survivors still emerged from collapsed buildings in Haiti’s devastated capital Sunday, nearly five days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck the impoverished island nation. U.S. and Turkish rescuers plucked three people, including an American woman, from the rubble of a supermarket Sunday, and were continuing to search for more people in the ruins. The survivors had [...]
Senegal’s president says he will offer free land and “repatriation” to people affected by the earthquake in Haiti. President Abdoulaye Wade said Haitians were sons and daughters of Africa since Haiti was founded by slaves, including some thought to be from Senegal. “The president is offering voluntary repatriation to any Haitian that wants to return [...]
Ali Hassan al-Majid, a former Iraqi official known as Chemical Ali, has been sentenced to death for ordering the gassing of Kurds. It is the fourth time that Majid, an enforcer in Saddam Hussein’s regime, has been sentenced to death. He has also been convicted of the killings of Shia Muslims in 1991 and 1999 [...]
Egypt’s main opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood, has named Muhammad Badie as its new leader following the resignation of Muhammad Akef. A veterinary professor at a southern university, Badie was “chosen by consensus by members of the consultative council,” Akef told a press conference in Cairo on Saturday. The Brotherhood is officially banned but controls a [...]
A temporary protected status for Haitian nationals who were in the United States as of Tuesday has been designated by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, she announced Friday. “This is a disaster of historic proportions and this designation will allow eligible Haitian nationals in the United States to continue living and working in our country [...]
A Spanish politician has said he was shocked to find out the FBI had used his photo for a digitally-altered image showing how Osama Bin Laden might look. Gaspar Llamazares said he would no longer feel safe travelling to the US after his hair and parts of his face appeared on a most-wanted poster. He [...]
The German government has warned web users to find an alternative browser to Internet Explorer to protect security. The warning from the Federal Office for Information Security comes after Microsoft admitted IE was the weak link in recent attacks on Google’s systems. Microsoft says the security hole can be shut by setting the browser’s security [...]
“How can I help?” That’s what former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both asked as the devastating impact of the earthquake in Haiti became clear. This question brought them to a place they both know well, the Oval Office. There they met with President Obama and agreed to lead a major fundraising effort [...]
It was a once-in-a-millennium event on Friday when an annular solar eclipse plunged parts of Asia and Africa into partial darkness. The record-breaking eclipse, lasting 11 minutes, 8 seconds, will be the longest annular one until December 23, 3043. According to astronomers, the best place to see the eclipse was in the Maldives, where it [...]
The parents of a Galesburg, Illinois soldier charged with possessing child pornography in Afghanistan say he did nothing wrong and are furious about the way he is being treated by military authorities. Spec. Billy Miller, 24, was due to return from Afghanistan last September, but his tour of duty has been involuntarily extended while he [...]
President Obama has proposed imposing a fee on big Wall Street banks to reimburse taxpayers up to $117 Billion for the 2008 financial bailout. Lambasting bankers for their “massive profits and obscene bonuses”, President Obama vowed on Thursday to “recover every single dime” the government spent rescuing the financial sector from its worst crisis since [...]
Up to 200,000 people are feared to have been killed in the earthquake that devastated Haiti and three-quarters of the capital, Port-au-Prince, will need to be rebuilt, authorities in the Caribbean country have said. “We have already collected around 50,000 dead bodies. We anticipate there will be between 100,00 and 200,000 dead in total, although [...]
Russia’s parliament has ended years of resistance and ratified an international agreement intended to strengthen and speed up the work of the European Court of Human Rights. The State Duma had refused to ratify Protocol 14, a key element of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, in 2006, but backed the measure [...]
An investigation into Indonesia’s prisons has found that some inmates live a life of luxury behind bars, with flat-screen televisions and king-sized beds. A video shot by a local television station showed the lavish living quarters of a businesswoman who was sentenced to five years in prison for bribing a prosecutor with $600,000 for dropping [...]
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE Bureau of Consular Affairs This information is current as of today, Fri Jan 15 2010 21:56:12 GMT-0800 (Pacific Standard Time). In Haiti, calls regarding the welfare of U.S. citizens can be made to the Embassy’s Consular Task Force in Port-au-Prince at 509-2229-8942, 509-2229-8089, 509-2229-8322 or 509-2229-8672. The Department of State has [...]
Osama Bin Laden may look drastically different today than he did just a few years ago, and the FBI has released new pictures showing what he may look like today. The digitally-enhanced images show an aged Bin Laden with grey hair and wrinkles. There are two versions: one in his traditional style and another in [...]
The aftermath of Tuesday’s earthquake has posed logistical challenges for all humanitarian organizations, including Red Cross responders, who are working around the clock to meet the challenges and ensure aid reaches the survivors. The difficulties include damaged transportation and power systems; an unreliable airport tower, which had led to many flights being diverted; and damaged [...]
Impassable roads, a bottleneck at the damaged airport, an unreachable dock and not enough equipment to unload supplies kept much of the world’s help Friday from desperate Haitians. With thousands of people trapped under the rubble since Tuesday’s 7.0-magnitude earthquake, every minute mattered. Officials said the window of opportunity to save many lives was closing. [...]
Anyone rescuers can save from the thousands of piles of concrete is a success story, but the progress is very slow and time is running out. There is not enough equipment to go around and the frustration of rescuers is evident as they plead for assistance to remove the massive slabs of concrete covering crying [...]
AP photographer Gerald Herbert captured stunning photos that show two-year-old Redjeson Hausteen Claude’s rescue. Spanish and Belgian rescuers reunited the boy with his mother and father Thursday evening. Spanish and Belgian rescuers pulled Claude from the rubble of Tuesday’s earthquake. Redjeson Hausteen Claude reacts to his mother Daphnee Plaisin, after his rescue A Spanish rescuer [...]
He Pingping (L) of China gestures as Sultan Kosen of Turkey looks on as they pose for photographers during a promotional event in Istanbul January 14, 2010. He, with a height of 73 cm (2 feet 5 inch), and Kosen, with a height of 246.5 cm (8 feet 1 inch), are listed in the Guinness [...]
Here are the latest photos from Port au Prince, January 14, 2010. Search & Rescue Teams are arriving from all over the world. US troops have secured the main airport to ensure all rescue operations proceed without delay. Food and water is being distributed but much more is needed immediately. Many are into their third [...]
In a 2007 freelance column for the Edmonton Journal, Sam Roweis explained the source of his lifelong fascination with the inner workings of things. “I spent a significant chunk of my childhood tinkering with everything from rockets and flying machines to electric motors and robots,” he wrote. The young computer scientist was excitedly explaining just [...]
President Barack Obama dispatched thousands of troops to help stabilize Haiti Thursday and promised $100 Million or more in quick earthquake aid, putting the U.S. firmly at the head of a relief effort of historic proportions. U.S. forces secured the airport in the capital and began an airlift of urgently needed medicine, water and other [...]
A US citizen working as an editor for a Palestinian news agency is appealing against Israel’s refusal to allow him into the West Bank. Jared Malsin has been detained since he returned from a holiday in Prague on Tuesday evening, his colleagues said. Israeli security officials said security concerns had arisen when he was questioned [...]
Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has indefinitely suspended rolling blackouts in the country’s capital, Caracas, just a day after they began. Chavez has also dismissed the electricity minister, Angel Rodriguez, saying he was responsible for supposed mistakes in the way the rationing plan was applied. He said Rodriguez had taken his order “like a soldier”. The [...]
The Iranian physics professor who was killed in a bomb blast earlier this week has been buried in Tehran, with hundreds of mourners joining the funeral procession. Relatives of Massoud Ali Mohammadi were accompanied by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as they carried his body from his house to a nearby shrine on Thursday. Some [...]
Aid agencies are racing to get help to Haiti where thousands are feared to be trapped under rubble following a devastating earthquake which is believed to have left tens of thousands dead or trapped. The United Nations has mobilized 37 search and rescue teams from a global network to the devastated capital Port-au-Prince. Elisabeth Byrs, [...]
To a generation or two of patients from her rural community in Central Ontario, Yvonne Martin was the senior nurse at the local clinic who gave them their vaccinations, weighed their babies and took their blood pressure. Then, retired and a grandmother, Ms. Martin assumed a new role as an aid worker who went to [...]
Weizhen Tang – a Toronto money manager accused of allegedly operating a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme – was taken into police custody Wednesday after arriving at Pearson International Airport from China. Mr. Tang, the self-proclaimed “Chinese Warren Buffett,” arrived at 51 Division around 8:30 p.m., Constable Brent Bennett said. A Canada-wide arrest warrant was issued for [...]
The British government said Wednesday it will appeal a European court ruling that certain police stop-and-search powers are a breach of human rights. Under Section 44 of Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000, uniformed officers may stop any pedestrian or vehicle and search them, regardless of whether they have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Human rights groups complain [...]
A Chinese Search and Rescue Team arrives in Port au Prince with K9 search dogs. A French Team has also arrived as well as a Team from Italy. The Dominican Republic is offering the use of its hospitals, the nearest is about two hours drive from Port au Prince.
As the U.S. advanced its massive military response to aid survivors of Haiti’s earthquake, devastation greeted the first Coast Guard cutter crew to pull into Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. There were collapsed piers, toppled cranes and submerged shipping containers, Cmdr. Diane Durham, commander of the cutter Forward, told NBC News. Flames flickered in the distance on [...]
The Army filed charges Tuesday against a single-mom soldier who refused to deploy to Afghanistan last year, arguing she had no family able to care for her infant son. Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, a 21-year-old Army cook, could face a prison sentence and a dishonorable discharge if she is convicted in a court-martial. But first, an [...]
Prosecutors in New York have given up their case against John Gotti Junior, the son of the city’s most powerful modern gangster. In the course of five years, juries in four trials failed to reach a verdict against John Gotti on charges of murder and racketeering. Justice officials said they would not seek a fifth [...]
Radio Tele Ginen in Haiti advises the Morning Post that they will broadcast live coverage in approximately one hour. Watch it here, live:
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Death was everywhere Wednesday in this devastated city of 2 million. Bodies of tiny children were piled next to schools. Corpses of women lay on the street with stunned expressions frozen on their faces as flies began to gather. Bodies of men were covered with plastic tarps or cotton sheets. Moreover, untold [...]
Haitians piled bodies along the devastated streets of their capital Wednesday after the strongest earthquake hit the poor Caribbean nation in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace and the UN peacekeeping headquarters. Untold numbers were still trapped. Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent [...]
The Burj Kalifa has hardly struggled to attract attention, or photographers, since opening in Dubai last week with an elaborate celebration. But here is something different, some stunning photographs of the Burj being struck by lightning. The photos were taken by Alisdair Miller; http://www.alisdairmiller.com/HOME.html
The U.S. on Tuesday was dispatching disaster rescue teams to earthquake-stricken Haiti, where a U.S. official said a “serious loss of life” was expected. President Barack Obama said his thoughts and prayers were with the people of Haiti and that the U.S. stood ready to help the impoverished Caribbean nation. While telephone lines were down [...]
Google said Tuesday the company and at least 20 others were victims of a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” originating in China in mid-December, evidently to gain access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. “Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective,” according to a [...]
A New York City cab driver is being praised for returning over $21,000 lost by a visitor from Italy. Felicia Lettieri, who’s 72, left her purse in a Manhattan taxi on Christmas Eve. It contained traveling money for her and six relatives. Police told them not to get their hopes up about finding it. The [...]
The US has dismissed an accusation by Iran that it was behind the murder of an Iranian nuclear physics professor, who was killed in a bomb blast. Mark Toner, a US state department spokesman, on Tuesday called the allegation “absurd”, hours after Massoud Mohammadi, a professor at Tehran University, was killed in the north of [...]
Teodoro “El Teo” Garcia Simental, one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug lords, has been captured on the northwestern Baja California peninsula, a federal police official has said. “They detained Teodoro Garcia Simental, “El Teo”. It was in La Paz, Baja California Sur. They also detained one of his brothers known as “El torito”,” the official said [...]
A lawyer who left a videotape saying Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom would be responsible if anything happened to him masterminded his own death last year, a special United Nations commission said Tuesday after an eight-month investigation. Colom had nothing to do with the killing, said Carlos Castresana, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in [...]
A strong earthquake hit the impoverished country of Haiti on Tuesday, where a hospital collapsed and people were screaming for help. Other buildings also were damaged. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, but an analyst at the U.S. Geological Survey said there could be substantial damage and casualties. Powerful aftershocks were felt [...]
Political leaders expressed shock Tuesday at the slaying of a powerful publisher, puzzling over possible motives for a killing that stirred feelings of insecurity on this war-divided island. Andy Hadjicostis, the 41-year-old director of the Dias publishing group, was fatally shot late Monday outside his home in central Nicosia, in an attack that bore the [...]
China has successfully tested its advanced air defence capabilities, intercepting a missile in mid-flight within its territory, state media reported. “The test has achieved the expected objective,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday. The report on the “ground-based mid-course missile interception technology” comes amid tensions over US arms [...]
The criminal case against the first Guantanamo detainee standing trial in a US civilian court should be thrown out because he was denied the right to a speedy trial, defence lawyers have argued. But the US government said in the Manhattan federal court on Monday that gathering intelligence from Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani during interrogations was [...]
Chile has become the first South American country to be admitted into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s President, says entry into the group is a major stride towards joining the ranks of developed nations. Chile has, in the last two decades, gone from being one of the poorest countries [...]
A former spokesperson for Tony Blair, the British prime minister who sent UK troops into Iraq, will give evidence to a public inquiry on the war. Alastair Campbell, the first big name witness to appear before the Chilcot inquiry in London, is likely to face questions on Tuesday about the intelligence Britain used to make [...]
A professor of nuclear physics at Tehran University was killed Tuesday by a bomb-rigged motorcycle parked outside his home in Iran’s capital, state media reported. Massoud Mohammadi had just left his house on his way to work when the explosion went off, state-run Press TV said. The blast shattered the windows of his home in [...]
A Chinese millionaire’s $8,888,888 gift to Yale University has impressed and provoked his countrymen. Lei Zhang’s donation will help pay for a new School of Management campus at Yale and a new auditorium there will bear his name, the school announced last week. He received a master’s degree in business from the school in 2002. [...]
Jimi Hendrix only released four official studio albums during his lifetime. Monday, Sony Music and the Hendrix estate announced a new album, to be released March 9, 2010. It’s called Valleys of Neptune. Most of the songs on the new release were recorded in London in a series of 1969 sessions. Eddie Kramer, a longtime [...]
Bangladesh Anthrax Spreads, Public Panics
Top Police Official In Siberia Accused Of Taking $450,000 In Bribes
Russian Banker Shot Dead In Moscow
Russian Performers Drop Fish-Eating Circus Act
Taliban Chief Says Victory Imminent
North Korea Marks 62nd Founding Day
Fear Of Fresh Violence In Nigeria
Rachel Corrie Trial: During War There Are No Civilians
Egypt’s Leprosy Colony Lives On, VIDEO
US Soldiers ‘Kept Afghan Body Parts’
China’s Blind Activist Lawyer Released From Prison
9th Circuit Throws Out CIA Torture Lawsuit For National Security Reasons
Mexican Mayor Gunned Down Inside Own Office
Giant Rats Put Noses To Work On Africa’s Land Mine Epidemic
Fidel: ‘Cuban Model Doesn’t Even Work For Us Anymore’
Vitamin B Halts Memory Loss In Breakthrough British Trial
Bremner: ‘I Represent Seattle Police, You Can’t Arrest Me’
Russian Rokot Carrier With Three Satellites Blasts Off From Plesetsk Space Center
Police In Kamchatka Seize Poached Caviar Worth $1 Million
Europe Raids File-Sharing Groups Including Sweden
Kabul Bank Freezes Assets of Directors And Major Borrowers
Meeting The Taliban In Baghlan, VIDEO
United Nations ‘Failed’ Congo Rape Victims
California Regulators Seek Up To $9.9 Billion In Fines From PacifiCare
18 Murdered In Shoe Factory Shooting In Honduras
The Amazing World Of The Praying Mantis
9/11 Koran Burning Would Put US Troops’ In Danger, Petraeus Warns
Dozens Of Homes Burn Across Detroit, VIDEO
John Lennon’s Killer Denied Parole For The 6th Time
Belize Mob Torches Americans’ Animal Sanctuary
Pastor Wonders If It’s Wise To Burn Qurans Amid U.S. Warnings, VIDEO
Italian Crime Fighting Mayor Is Killed In Mafia-Style Execution
With A Little Help From My Friends
In Russia, No Kasha Creates Political Tension
Thieves Steal 3 Ancient Icons From Moscow Region Church
George Soros Donates $100 Million To Human Rights Watch
Congolese Poachers Destroy Protected Birds
French Unions Stage Nationwide Strike
Oracle Hires Former HP’s Mark Hurd
LAPD Kills Unarmed Migrant, Community Protests
El Salvador: 3rd Migrant Survived Mexico Massacre
Mexican Soldiers Open Fire On Family’s Car At Checkpoint, Killing 15-Year-Old And Father
U.S. Considers Boosting Funds For Mexico Drug War
California’s Union Jobs Take Hit From Recession
Israeli Minister: Speed Up Building, A Promise Is A Promise
Miners Seeking Gold Destroy Suriname Ecosystem
Little Rock Nine Member, Jefferson Thomas
Putin Compares Himself To Roosevelt As He Hints At Third Term
Condoleezza Rice ‘Ordered Bush To Stay Out Of Washington’ After 9/11
Stone Mason Sparks Cathedral Row With ‘Muslim’ Gargoyle
John Travolta Drops Charges In Extortion Case
150 Arrested In Mozambique Following Deadly Protests
U.S. Investors Sue For Payback For Pre-World War II German Bonds
Saad al-Hariri Retracts Charge That Syria Killed His Father
North Korea Plans Succession Meeting
The Arrest And Trial Of Human Rights Activist Shiva Nazar-Ahari
Arsenic Scare Hits Argentina, VIDEO
President Obama Unveils $50 Billion Infrastructure Plan
Cockroach Immune To Deadly Super-Bacteria
Gulf Residents Test Positive For Oil In Blood
