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/ 30 October 2005
Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong poked fun at French critics and their accusations of doping in New York on Saturday, playing the controversy for laughs while hosting Saturday Night Live. The French newspaper L’Equipe reported 1999 urine samples from Armstrong tested positive for a banned substance.
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/ 28 October 2005
New York City has many odours, but when the city began to smell a little too good, New Yorkers became alarmed. Residents from the southern tip of Manhattan to the Upper West Side nearly 16km north called a city hotline to report a strong odour on Thursday night that most compared to maple syrup.
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/ 28 October 2005
It’s one of the stranger consequences of globalisation: in India, salesmen are going door to door selling satellite radios that receive, among other things, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. The company behind this combination of 1930s-style marketing and space-age technology is WorldSpace, a Washington, DC-based outfit that is trying to make satellite radio a global phenomenon.
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/ 25 October 2005
A quiet revolution is transforming life on the internet: new, agile software now lets people quickly check flight options, see stock prices fluctuate and better manage their online photos and e-mail. Such tools make computing less of a chore because they sit on distant web servers and run over standard browsers.
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/ 25 October 2005
A quiet revolution is transforming life on the internet: new, agile software now lets people quickly check flight options, see stock prices fluctuate and better manage their online photos and e-mail. Such tools make computing less of a chore because they sit on distant web servers and run over standard browsers.
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/ 21 October 2005
When Google commanded per share in its August 2004 initial public offering, the prospect of the stock quadrupling in less than 15 months ago seemed inconceivable. It doesn’t appear far-fetched now: Google’s shares hit a new all-time high early on Friday, rising by ,69 to ,89 in morning New York Stock Exchange trading.
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/ 21 October 2005
Apparently Ken still isn’t over Barbie. Almost two years after the closely watched celebrity couple split after a 43-year romance, Ken is considering a makeover in an
effort to win his doll baby back. Mattel made the announcement on Thursday. Russell Arons, vice-president of marketing at Mattel, would say only that fans might see big changes this spring.
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/ 18 October 2005
World oil prices shot higher on Monday as Tropical Storm Wilma raised fresh concern over hurricane-battered production in the United States Gulf of Mexico. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, jumped $1,73 to close at $64,36 per barrel.
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/ 13 October 2005
United States talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey, whose influence can turn the New York Times bestseller list on its head, is having a similar impact on the FBI’s most-wanted list with a campaign to catch fugitive paedophiles. Winfrey launched ”Oprah’s Child Predator Watch List” last week, to almost immediate results.
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/ 12 October 2005
Yahoo! said on Wednesday it will bar chat rooms that promote sex between minors and adults and restrict all chat rooms to users 18 and older. The internet portal also will pre-screen the names of all user-created chat rooms if and when it restores the ability to create them.
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/ 12 October 2005
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint report on Wednesday highlighting the plight of thousands of child offenders serving life sentences in United States prisons without hope of parole. At least 2 225 people are currently held under such sentences for crimes committed before they were 18.
Harold Leventhal, a renowned folk-music promoter who worked with Woody Guthrie and introduced Bob Dylan in his first major concert-hall show, has died. He was 86. From the 1950s to the end of the 20th century, Leventhal was a champion of folk music who introduced audiences to both American and foreign artists.
Young people today are better educated than any previous generation, but 130-million youths are still illiterate, more than half a billion live on less than a day, and a record 88-million are unemployed, according to a United Nations report. The report highlights the stark differences in the lives and opportunities of young people in poor African and Asian nations and richer Western countries.
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/ 27 September 2005
If proof were needed that United States oil refineries are stretched to breaking point, the twin hurricanes of Katrina and now Rita have provided ample evidence. A total of 859 rigs and platforms in the Gulf are unmanned after being evacuated last week before Rita swept through, US government figures showed on Monday.
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/ 20 September 2005
Former Tyco International chief Dennis Kozlowski and his top lieutenant, Mark Swartz, were each sentenced to up to 25 years in prison in New York on Monday for looting the company of hundreds of millions of dollars. The two men stood accused of using the conglomerate as a personal piggy bank.
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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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/ 19 September 2005
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Sunday dangled the threat of United Nations sanctions against parties blocking a peace process in strife-torn Côte d’Ivoire, a former French colony. ”Each side must respect the commitments made so free and transparent elections can be held throughout the country,” he noted.
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/ 17 September 2005
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said on Friday he has proof of a United States plan to invade his county at the end of a visit to the US for the United Nations General Assembly packed with diplomatic fireworks. ”I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela,” the left-wing leader told ABC television in an interview.
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/ 17 September 2005
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan joined three African leaders on Friday to welcome a -million commitment by six United States-based foundations to support universities in seven countries, calling it a concrete example of the needs being discussed by world leaders at the UN World Summit in New York.
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/ 16 September 2005
"This morning, I forgot it was my birthday until one of the Oxfam staff wished me a happy birthday. I never expected to be celebrating my 42nd birthday at the United Nations World Summit in New York," Wednesday was the opening day of the UN World Summit and the media here were flat-out covering speech after speech by world leaders.
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/ 15 September 2005
”United States President George Bush and other world leaders have been speaking today, on the first day of the United Nations World Summit, about what the summit has achieved .. The presidents and prime ministers were ushered with police escorts while helicopters flew overhead,” writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 14 September 2005
Diplomats at the United Nations finally reached agreement on Tuesday night on a watered-down document to reform the organisation and tackle poverty just hours before leaders arrived for the start of a world summit. This final draft fell far short of ambitious proposals for an overhaul of the UN which was set out earlier this year by Kofi Annan, the Secretary General.
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/ 13 September 2005
The promising market for internet telephony heated up on Monday as online auction giant eBay announced it was taking over the rapidly growing European firm Skype Technologies for more than ,6-billion. The deal will make Skype’s youthful founders, Niklas Zennstroem (39) of Sweden and 29-year-old Danish citizen Janus Friis, exceedingly rich men.
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/ 13 September 2005
”The decisions made by world leaders at the UN World Summit this week in New York affect all of us and are a crucial chance for UN reform. As a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, I arrived on Monday ahead of the summit and am very excited to be here,” writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 13 September 2005
"As I walk through the skyscrapers lining the streets of New York City, I feel a very long way from my home in Rwanda and it is a bit surreal to be here. But I know that the decisions made here at the United Nations World Summit this week will have a huge impact on the people in my hometown," writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 12 September 2005
Kim Clijsters can thank the bad wrist which kept her away from tennis for much of 2004 with helping turn her into a Grand Slam champion on her fifth attempt in a final. ”I think everything has definitely made me a physically stronger person,” said the 22-year-old who banked a record-setting ,2-million payday for winning the New York women’s title.
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/ 12 September 2005
Andre Agassi has battled the champions of three eras — Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl — and now he puts Roger Federer above them all. ”He’s the best I’ve ever played against,” Agassi said after falling to Federer 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1 in the United States Open final on Sunday.
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/ 10 September 2005
Kim Clijsters persevered through five failed match-point chances to come good on her sixth for a 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3 semifinal upset of top seed Maria Sharapova on Friday at the ,75-million United States Open. The Belgian fourth seed will play on Saturday night against French 12th seed Mary Pierce.
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/ 9 September 2005
They are on the cusp of a dream final at the United States Open, but first Roger Federer must confirm his domination over Lleyton Hewitt and then Andre Agassi needs to put down the challenge of upstart Robby Ginepri. A Federer-Agassi final under the lights on Sunday would potentially be the tennis match of the year.
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/ 8 September 2005
Second-seeded Lindsay Davenport and number three Amelie Mauresmo were sent packing on Wednesday as Elena Dementieva and Mary Pierce set up a semifinal clash at the United States Open tennis championships. Meanwhile, Andre Agassi electrified the US Open on Wednesday with a battling quarterfinal win over a man 10 years his junior.
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/ 7 September 2005
Roger Federer dropped his first set in the United States Open before putting away Nicolas Kiefer of Germany 6-4, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4 on Tuesday to earn a spot in the quarterfinals. Lleyton Hewitt won 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 over number 15 Dominik Hrbaty, who drew more attention for his pink peekaboo shirt than his play.
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/ 7 September 2005
Kim Clijsters’s never-say-die philosophy kept her bid for her first Grand Slam title on track on Tuesday as she rallied to beat Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in three sets and book a US Open semifinal berth. Clijsters was down a set and trailing 2-4 in the second, looking tentative in the face of Williams’s power and perhaps in the face of yet another Grand Slam disappointment.