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/ 10 November 2007
South African diplomats have expressed shock at strong United States government criticism in the New York Times this week of the country’s stance over a United Nations resolution, introduced by the US, that condemns rape by governments and military formations.
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/ 2 November 2007
The United States on Thursday took a first step towards mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions, in direct defiance of the Bush administration’s policy on climate change. The vote in a Senate subcommittee marks the first US move towards European-style policies.
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/ 1 November 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets Israeli and Palestinian leaders this weekend to craft a joint document ahead of a peace conference but she has intentionally set expectations low. US officials expect Rice’s visit will result in a document filled with principles to kick off negotiations on a Palestinian state.
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/ 27 October 2007
Vladimir Putin stirred ghosts of the Cold War on Friday by comparing the Pentagon’s plan to site elements of its missile shield in Europe to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 when the United States and the Soviet Union went to the brink of nuclear war. The Kremlin’s challenge to the US president in 1962 triggered the worst confrontation of the Cold War.
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/ 25 October 2007
Ratcheting up the pressure on Tehran, the United States on Thursday designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferater of weapons of mass destruction and its elite Qods force a supporter of terrorism. In total, Washington slapped sanctions on more than 20 Iranian companies, major banks and individuals as well as the Defence Ministry.
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/ 23 October 2007
It’s the conundrum that faces all television personalities broadcasting live: how to deal with hecklers trying to disrupt the show. Do you try to reason with them? Or do you do what the American talk show host Bill Maher did — jump into the audience, threaten the hecklers with an ”ass kicking” and scream ”Get the fuck out of my building!”
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/ 19 October 2007
The battle over the agenda of a conference on Palestinian statehood offers United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a glimpse of the gruelling process that awaits if and when the two sides enter formal negotiations. Four days of shuttle diplomacy by Rice this week were not enough to close the gaps.
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/ 17 October 2007
President George Bush hosted the Dalai Lama on Tuesday despite China’s warning that US plans to honour the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader could damage relations between Beijing and Washington. Beijing has bitterly denounced plans for the Dalai Lama to receive the Congressional Gold Medal on Wednesday.
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/ 13 October 2007
For years, former United States vice-president Al Gore and a host of climate scientists were belittled and, worst of all, ignored for their message about how dire global warming is. On Friday, they were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their warnings about what Gore calls ”a planetary emergency”.
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/ 12 October 2007
A diplomatic rift between Turkey and the United States deepened on Friday after Ankara recalled its ambassador to Washington over a vote in the US Congress to label the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks an act of genocide. The envoy’s recall came as the White House sought to mollify its Nato partner.
Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan on Wednesday urged the United States to be more patient as his country fights extremists in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Khan acknowledged his country suffered an ”image problem” but said there needed to be a greater understanding of the enormous challenges.
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/ 22 September 2007
Fidel Castro looked alert and healthier during an hour-long interview taped and aired on Cuban television on Friday, responding to rumours of his death with a defiant ”here I am”. In the first video of the ailing 81-year-old revolutionary seen in more than three months, a pale Castro stayed seated the entire time.
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/ 20 September 2007
Nearly two million Iraqis have become refugees in their own land in the past year, redrawing the ethnic and sectarian map of Baghdad and other cities, a report by the Iraqi Red Crescent said on Wednesday. In Baghdad alone, nearly a million people have fled their homes.
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/ 18 September 2007
The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apologised to the Iraqi government on Monday in an attempt to prevent the expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA. The ministry of interior on Monday took the decision to expel Blackwater after eight Iraqi civilians were killed and 13 wounded in Baghdad.
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/ 17 September 2007
Alan Greenspan, the Washington insider and long-time head of the United States central bank, has said the invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil. His claim comes in his newly published autobiography, The Age of Turbulence, in which he also castigates George Bush’s administration for making ”grave mistakes” in economic policy.
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/ 16 September 2007
Former Federal Reserve chairperson Alan Greenspan, in a memoir to be released on Monday, criticised President George Bush and congressional Republicans for abandoning fiscal discipline and for putting politics ahead of sound economics. In his book, Greenspan said he was surprised Bush was unwilling to temper his campaign promises with fiscal reality once elected.
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/ 14 September 2007
The killing of one of his key Iraqi allies on the day he announced a troop pull-out from Iraq came as a stark reminder to United States President George Bush of just how precarious the situation still is in Iraq. Political analysts believe the country will unravel even further, hastened by Bush’s decision to withdraw 21 500 combat troops by next July.
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/ 14 September 2007
A Sunni Arab tribal leader instrumental in driving al-Qaeda out of Iraq’s Anbar province was killed by a bomb on Thursday, hours before United States President George Bush endorsed limited US troop cuts in Iraq. Abdul Sattar Abu Risha died in an attack on his car near his home in Ramadi, capital of Anbar.
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/ 14 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Thursday night called on Americans to support an ”enduring relationship” with Iraq, in a speech delivered hours after a key Sunni tribal ally, portrayed as symbolic of a potential turnaround for the US in the war, was killed by a roadside bomb.
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/ 13 September 2007
Russia’s military on Wednesday announced that it had successfully tested a lethal new air-delivered bomb, which it described as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear weapon. Officials said Moscow had developed the new thermobaric bomb to add to its already potent nuclear arsenal.
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/ 11 September 2007
Anti-war Senate Democrats bluntly told Iraq commander General David Petraeus on Tuesday his troop surge strategy was an abject failure in its prime objective — forcing a political settlement. Several senior Senate Republicans also questioned the administration’s approach as the general endured a grilling on a second day of high-stakes testimony to Congress.
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/ 11 September 2007
The United States trade deficit declined slightly in July as record exports of farm goods, autos and other products offset a big jump in foreign oil prices. The deficit with China hit the second-highest level yet, reflecting strong demand for Chinese-made goods despite a string of high-profile recalls.
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/ 10 September 2007
The Bush administration’s most senior advisers on Iraq, the commander of US forces, General David Petraeus, and the ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, will launch a new drive today to defer any exit of troops until April 2008 amid growing doubts about their credibility in Congress and among the public.
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/ 8 September 2007
General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. ”It has not worked out as we had hoped,” the general said.
United States President George Bush will outline reforms on Friday to help struggling subprime mortgage borrowers and his central bank chief will deliver a speech which will be pored over for hints of a looming rate cut. Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke speaks on ”Housing and Monetary Policy” at around 2pm GMT.
United States President George Bush on Tuesday ramped up the war of words between the US and Iran, accusing Tehran of threatening to place the Middle East under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust and revealing that he had authorised US military commanders in Iraq to ”confront Tehran’s murderous activities”.
United States President George Bush finally lost his battle to hang on to the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, on Monday after months of unremitting congressional pressure over a series of scandals that included the firing of nine state prosecutors, wire tapping and torture. Bush blamed the Democrats, accusing them of dragging a decent and talented man through the mud.
United States President-elect George W Bush put the finishing touches to his Cabinet this week.
Tighten financial sanctions against South Africa- that’s what United Democratic Front leaders will tell US President George Bush this morning.