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/ 20 September 2005
Gordon Gould, a pioneer in laser technology who coined the word ”laser” and won a decades-long struggle to secure patent rights for the most commonly used type, has died. He was 85. Gould, a resident of Sag Harbor, on Long Island, once said that his first ideas for the laser came suddenly to him in 1957.
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/ 20 September 2005
The United Nations said on Monday that food distribution targeting Niger’s most vulnerable populations will continue beyond the harvests hoped to return food security to the impoverished West African state. The announcement came amid bubbling controversy over further food distribution beyond harvest time.
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/ 20 September 2005
Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri said his terror network carried out the July 7 London bombings in a statement broadcast on an Arab satellite television station, marking the group’s first direct claim of responsibility for the attacks that killed 52 people. He also criticised the legitimacy of Sunday’s Afghanistan parliamentary elections.
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/ 20 September 2005
Crude oil prices dipped on Tuesday but stayed above a barrel, while natural gas hit a new all-time high amid concerns that Tropical Storm Rita could eventually strike Texas, the heart of United States oil production, threatening to compound damage from Hurricane Katrina.
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/ 20 September 2005
A mechanic accused of slitting his wife’s throat claimed in the Pretoria High Court on Monday police had ”tortured” a confession out of him. Pieter Viljoen denied that he had anything to do with his wife Amelia’s gruesome murder in 2001 and attacked the admissibility of his statements about the murder.
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/ 20 September 2005
There is still no sign of the Durban yacht Moquini that went missing during the Mauritius-to-Durban yacht race, race organiser Dave Claxton said on Monday evening. ”We couldn’t search on Sunday and every day you miss, the search area gets bigger because of currents, wind, drift patterns,” he said.
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/ 20 September 2005
”Art diagnostician” Maurizio Seracini has examined Leonardo da Vinci’s The Adoration of the Magi minutely using a technique that exploits the fact that infrared light passes through paint but reflects off the under-drawing. After a four-year investigation, what he has found will electrify conspiracy theorists.
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/ 20 September 2005
Iraqi authorities are preparing an arrest warrant for the country’s former defence minister in connection with a massive fraud case involving the ”disappearance” of more than -billion from ministry coffers. But Hazim Shaalan, who is understood to be living in Jordan, has denied complicity in the scandal.
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/ 20 September 2005
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin on Monday suspended the return of the stricken city’s population as a new storm bore down on the coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina. At the same time, authorities in Florida ordered the evacuation of several islands in the Keys chain off the south coast because of Tropical Storm Rita.
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/ 20 September 2005
The chances of Angela Merkel becoming Germany’s next chancellor suffered a setback on Monday when the Greens appeared to rule out joining a coalition with her conservative Christian Democrat party. With the country in political gridlock, speculation is growing that the Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, will try to force new elections.