Former world heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman claims his water was drugged before he lost to Muhammad Ali in their 1974 ”Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire in his new book. Foreman told ESPN on Tuesday that he was certain he was drugged because his water had a medicine-like taste.
Three journalists for the New York Times who were arrested by the Ethiopian military and held for five days have been released, the newspaper reported on Tuesday. The paper said the journalists, including Nairobi bureau chief Jeffrey Gettleman, were detained on May 16 in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, near the Somali border.
Never had time to read Moby Dick and want something weightier than spam to read on your Blackberry on the way to work? A new website is offering to send classic books in bite-size installments to your handheld device or e-mail every morning before you go to work, or whenever you want, for free.
United States senator Joe Biden said that he would commit US forces immediately to stop militia in Sudan’s Darfur region as long as there were reports of genocide. Biden said on Monday that in his personal opinion nations had at ”some point to cede their sovereignty” if they engaged in genocide.
Post-war art broke the -million mark for a second straight night on Wednesday as Christie’s sold a record-smashing -million-worth of contemporary art, the second-highest total for any auction in history. This time it was Andy Warhol’s Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), which soared to ,72-million.
The United Nations said on Wednesday an independent probe was being conducted into whether UN vehicles were used to smuggle diamonds from a mine in Zimbabwe. In January, the industry’s World Diamond Council said it received reports that diamonds in Zimbabwe were being smuggled into South Africa.
Sotheby’s auction house in New York has fetched a record amount of cash for contemporary art work with the sale of a painting by United States abstract artist Mark Rothko for ,8-million. The canvas by the Latvian-born painter, entitled Yellow, Pink, Lavender on Rose, had been valued at about -million.
JK Rowling has a request for those with inside information on her seventh and final Harry Potter book: please keep it to yourself. ”We’re a little under three months away, now, and the first distant rumblings of the weirdness that usually precedes a Harry Potter publication can be heard on the horizon,” Rowling wrote on her website.
Billions of dollars’ worth of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for, possibly having been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, the New York Times said on Saturday. The discrepancy was valued between -million and -million daily, using a per barrel average, the report said.
Zimbabwe, widely criticised for mismanaging its economy, was elected on Friday as head of the Commission on Sustainable Development, the main United Nations inter-governmental body on the environment. Despite objections from Western nations, the 53-nation commission voted Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment and Tourism, Francis Nheme, as chairperson to replace oil-producer Qatar.
New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission unanimously approved a plan on Thursday to install touch-screen monitors in all 13 000 city cabs over the objections of some drivers who consider the technology too expensive and intrusive. The monitors are already in 200 cabs as an experiment.
Alcoa, the world’s largest aluminum company, said on Monday it would make a hostile bid for Canada’s Alcan, estimated at -billion, after talks between the rivals failed to lead to a deal. If successful, the bid of ,25 per share in cash and stock would create the the world’s largest producer of the metal.
Ministers meeting on solutions to cuts in carbon emissions do not trust each other to come up with concrete measures by Friday. ”Many industrialised countries believe that the developing countries are unwilling and that they are doing too little,” said former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.
Former United States president Bill Clinton announced deals with two Indian generic drug companies on Tuesday to cut prices of Aids treatment for second-line antiretroviral drugs for 66 developing countries. The new prices for the drugs will mean an average saving of 25% in low-income countries and 50% in middle-income countries, Clinton said.
Africa should condemn human rights violations in Zimbabwe and South Africa should consider threatening action against its neighbour, South African Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu said on Monday. Africa seems ”so reluctant just to call a spade a spade. Human rights violations are human rights violations,” he said.
Alcoa said on Monday it would make a hostile bid for Canada’s Alcan for nearly -billion, after talks between the two aluminum producers failed to lead to a deal.
If successful, the bid would create the world’s largest producer of the metal, which is used in products ranging from beverage cans to airplanes.
Microsoft is resuming its pursuit of search-engine operator Yahoo! that could help it better compete with web search leader Google, published reports said on Friday. The New York Post reported on Friday that Microsoft has asked Yahoo! to enter formal negotiations for an acquisition that could be worth -billion.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday he is alarmed at the increasing number of journalists being targeted because of their work. ”Most alarmingly, in seeking to shed light on the plight of others, journalists themselves become targets,” he said.
News Corporation launched a -billion bid on Tuesday for Dow Jones in a bold move to add the prestigious Wall Street Journal business daily to Rupert Murdoch’s vast media empire. The move for the storied publishing firm sparked a rally in other newspaper stocks and offered hints of a further shake-up in an industry in turmoil.
Delta Air Lines is set to emerge from 19 months of bankruptcy protection in another sign that one of the bleakest chapters for the United States airline industry may be coming to an end. The third-largest US carrier could exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy as early as Monday.
They called it the ”Bloomberg Gun Give-Away”. On Thursday two gun shops in the state of Virginia staged a competition: anyone spending more than in either Bob Moates’s stores or Old Dominion Guns and Tackle would be entered into a draw, first prize a handgun or rifle worth .
Children in Darfur are enduring ”unspeakable acts of violence and abuse” from killing and rape to abduction, torture and recruitment, as fighters in the escalating four-year conflict in Sudan’s vast western region, a global network of relief and human rights organisations said.
Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the internet, some university researchers with the federal government’s blessing want to scrap all that and start over. Many believe a ”clean slate” approach is the only way truly to address challenges that have cropped up in this time.
The Wall Street Journal won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for public service on Monday for its probe into backdated stock options for business executives that led to investigations and dismissals in corporate America. The Journal was one of several winners of the 91st annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music.
After months of delay, Sudan said it would let 3 000 United Nations peacekeepers into Darfur to reinforce an African Union force struggling to keep the peace, the most substantial agreement to date. But the new military personnel may take six months to recruit and deploy, UN officials said.
The United Nations expects Sudan to permit a UN force to use attack helicopters, completing a deal to bolster the 7 000 African Union troops in Darfur, the British ambassador said on Thursday. The UN is nearing agreement with Khartoum to add about 3 000 UN military personnel and equipment to the African Union force.
American author Kurt Vonnegut, whose works blended science fiction and black comedy built on his experience as Nazi prisoner-of-war, has died at the age of 84, his publisher said. Vonnegut was best known for <i>Cat’s Cradle</i>, <i>Breakfast of Champions</i> and <i>Slaughterhouse-Five</i>.
Agence France-Presse (AFP), the global news agency based in Paris, has settled its lawsuit against Google and will allow the internet search leader to post news and photos from AFP journalists. The deal, announced on Friday, settles the copyright infringement lawsuit that AFP filed in March 2005.
Hit American Mob drama The Sopranos begins its final run of episodes this Sunday with millions expected to tune in for the climax of one of most successful series in United States television history. Speculation is rife about who will get ”whacked,” who will be ”made” and who will become a ”guest of the government”.
Workers clearing out slot machines from an old casino in New Jersey got an unexpected surprise when they discovered more than 000 in loose change had fallen under the machines. The Sands casino in Atlantic City closed in November to make way for a new mega-casino.
New York authorities are fuming after the developers of video game Grand Theft Auto, in which players rob and kill their way to the next level, set the latest version of the game in the city. The fourth version of the game openly features landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.
A Manhattan art gallery cancelled on Friday its Easter-season exhibit of a life-size chocolate sculpture depicting a naked Jesus, after an outcry by Roman Catholics. The sculpture My Sweet Lord by Cosimo Cavallaro was to have been exhibited for two hours each day next week in a street-level window of the Roger Smith Lab Gallery in Midtown Manhattan.