Israel’s 12th Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has courted early disapproval for a weak coalition few believe can redraw the borders of the Jewish state. A veteran nationalist, who like his coma-stricken predecessor Ariel Sharon, underwent a sea change in his views in late career, Olmert has vowed to guide the nation on the path to peace.
Counseling and a drug that blocks the brain’s pleasure receptors can effectively treat alcoholism without the expense of checking into specialised clinics, said a study released on Tuesday. ”Medical care works, and alcoholics don’t need to check into a specialty treatment programme to get it,” said Robert Swift, an author of the report.
A United States Congress-mandated commission called on the government to take "aggressive action" against Saudi Arabia for alleged religious-freedom violations and warned that religious rights were under threat in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nick Mallett could help England retain the World Cup next year after the South African expressed interest in the newly created role of director of elite rugby at the Rugby Football Union (RFU). Mallett, currently director of rugby at Western Province, was quoted as saying he would be interested in any approach from the RFU concerning a role in which he would work alongside England’s head coach, Andy Robinson.
The international threat of terrorism has created a need for customs officials to balance security checks and the free flow of business, a South African Revenue Service commissioner said on Wednesday. In the United States, for example, there was a proposal that containers bound for there be cleared by their country of origin first.
Three months after succeeding the famously discreet Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke has been dealt a painful lesson in the cost of careless talk. A private conversation involving the new Fed chief at Saturday’s annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association found its way out into public this week.
The Canterbury Crusaders have surprisingly rested captain and star flanker Richie McCaw for their crunch Super 14 rugby match against the Northern Bulls in Pretoria this weekend, but denied a recurrence of head injuries. McCaw said it was tough watching from the sidelines but the break was a chance to repair niggling injuries.
North Korea loses at least -million each week it stays away from multilateral talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons drive, a top United States negotiator said on Tuesday. North Korea stood to gain that amount of money in energy aid alone in return for abandoning its nuclear weapons under an agreement reached by the negotiating parties.
The British Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ”incomplete” and ”misleading”, including failing to adequately report the hardships of Palestinians living under occupation, an independent review commissioned by the corporation’s board of governors has found.
The French Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, on Tuesday vowed he would not resign over a bogus corruption scandal dubbed France’s Watergate and told Parliament he had been the victim of a campaign of ”slander and lies”.