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/ 5 November 2007
If the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) save the mountain gorilla, might the gorilla return the favour? That is the hope of environmental activists, who realise that wildlife conservation and tourism could be the key to survival for people as well as animals in a part of Africa where conflict has been the norm.
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/ 4 November 2007
Bush administration officials are weighing a plan that would grant detainees at Guantánamo Bay greater rights, as part of an effort to close the facility and possibly move some of the detainees to locations in the United States locations, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
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/ 4 November 2007
Citigroup chief executive Charles Prince plans to resign this weekend, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday, as the widening subprime mortgage crisis brings to an end the reign of Sanford Weill’s troubled successor. The largest United States bank by assets plans to hold an emergency board meeting on Sunday, at which Prince will step down.
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/ 3 November 2007
International Olympic Committee (IOC) chief Jacques Rogge said on Friday that poor air quality in Beijing could disrupt events in next year’s games. ”We will not hesitate to delay or postpone events if the air quality could harm athletes,” Rogge said during a speech in Chicago.
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/ 3 November 2007
About 1 700 people asked to be reimbursed for buying James Frey’s largely fabricated best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, a lawyer said as a judge approved a settlement with disgruntled readers. United States District Judge Richard Holwell said on Friday that the settlement was ”most fair, adequate and reasonable”.
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/ 2 November 2007
The United Nations launched a new website powered by Google and network equipment maker Cisco on Thursday that will show how and where the world is succeeding or failing in meeting the Millennium Development Goals on ending poverty.
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/ 1 November 2007
Paul Tibbets, the pilot and commander of the B-29 that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, died on November 1, a spokesperson said. He was 92. Tibbets died at his Columbus home after a two-month decline in his health stemming from a variety of health problems, said Gerry Newhouse, a long-time friend.
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/ 1 November 2007
With hours to go before their contract was set to expire, Hollywood screenwriters and studios deadlocked on Wednesday in talks aimed at averting the first major strike against the film and TV industry in 20 years. It was unclear what would happen next, but leaders of the Writers Guild of America have ruled out declaring an immediate walkout.
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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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/ 1 November 2007
United States astronomers have discovered the biggest black hole orbiting a star 1,8-million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia, with a record-setting mass of 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, Nasa said on Tuesday. The massive newcomer beats the previous stellar-mass black hole discovered on October 17 in the M33 galaxy that has 16 times the mass of our Sun.
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/ 31 October 2007
Nasa scrambled on Wednesday to deal with two power problems at the International Space Station that could delay future missions and make it even harder to finish building the orbiting outpost before the space shuttles must be retired. Both issues competed for the precious little spacewalking time that’s left in Discovery‘s mission.
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/ 31 October 2007
Singer-actor Robert Goulet, whose rich baritone voice made him an instant success when he played Lancelot in the original 1960 Broadway hit Camelot, died on Tuesday at age 73. The performer, who suffered from the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre.
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/ 31 October 2007
Major powers plan to meet in London this week to discuss new sanctions on Iran amid a spat between Washington and the United Nations over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, United States officials said on Tuesday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a speech on Tuesday that Iran would not retreat in the dispute.
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/ 30 October 2007
A computer developed for the world’s poor children, dubbed ”the laptop”, has reached a milestone: It is now selling for . The One Laptop per Child Foundation, founded by MIT Professor Nicholas Negroponte, has started offering the lime-green-and-white machines in lots of 10 000 or more for apiece on its website.
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/ 30 October 2007
The United Nations Security Council renewed arms and diamond sanctions against Côte d’Ivoire on Monday in a bid to make the West African country stick to the terms of a peace process. A resolution passed by the council extended the sanctions for a further year but promised to review them during that period.
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/ 30 October 2007
United States State Department investigators looking into the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month offered immunity deals to Blackwater security guards. The investigators from the agency’s investigative arm did not, however, have the authority to offer such immunity grants.
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/ 30 October 2007
French President Nicolas Sarkozy showed flashes of temper and abruptly terminated a television interview aimed at introducing him to United States audiences. In the interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes, Sarkozy sparred with the correspondent, called his press secretary an imbecile, said he was too busy to make time for a ”stupid” interview.
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/ 29 October 2007
A week after a half-million people fled southern California’s wildfires, shelters began closing and residents were figuring out what to do next — even as firefighters kept a wary eye on the possibility of strong winds developing later in the week. The flames destroyed more than 2 000 homes.
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/ 29 October 2007
A pack of hunting dogs shot an Iowa man as he went to retrieve a fallen pheasant, authorities said. James Harris (37) was shot in the leg while hunting with some friends on Friday afternoon, a day before pheasant season officially opened. Harris was treated at a regional medical centre.
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/ 29 October 2007
As Merrill Lynch’s board deliberates the fate of chairperson and chief executive Stan O’Neal, a leading contender for the job on Sunday said he is not aware of being a candidate. Meanwhile, Merrill’s board has reached a broad consensus to remove O’Neal as chairperson and CEO, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
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/ 28 October 2007
A federal grand jury is investigating allegations that magician David Copperfield raped and threatened a Washington state woman at his estate in the Bahamas, a newspaper reported. The Seattle Times reported on Saturday that at least three federal law-enforcement officials, whom the paper did not identify, confirmed the grand jury investigation.
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/ 28 October 2007
Firefighters tightened their grip on California’s wildfires with the help of cooler weather, but a threat remained on Sunday of health hazards from choking plumes of smoke over the region. Cooler temperatures, calmer winds and spots of drizzle allowed firefighters to staunch or contain most of the 23 fires that have erupted since last Sunday.
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/ 27 October 2007
United States biochemist Arthur Kornberg, who won a Nobel Prize for shedding light on the construction of human DNA, died on October 26 at the age of 89, Stanford University said. "Dr Kornberg was one of the most distinguished and remarkable scientists in American medicine," the head of the California university’s medical school, Philip Pizzo, said in a statement.
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/ 27 October 2007
World oil prices surged to historic highs on Friday, breaching $92 for the first time in New York amid rising tension in crude-rich Iran and tightening United States energy supplies. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, soared to a record intraday high of $92,22 per barrel.
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/ 26 October 2007
Apple’s upgraded Leopard operating system will be set loose on Friday as trend-setting iPods and iPhones cause the ranks of Macintosh computer lovers to swell. Eagerly-awaited by Apple’s notoriously cultish followers, Leopard’s release was delayed so the company’s engineers could devote their time to getting iPhones to market in the United States in June.
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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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/ 25 October 2007
California wildfires that have destroyed 1 300 homes and forced the evacuation of 500 000 people raged into a fifth day on Thursday, but firefighters seized on a break in the weather to largely halt the march of destruction. About 15 fires still blazed across the southern part of the state, lighting up the night sky.
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/ 24 October 2007
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice singled out Iran on Wednesday as ”perhaps the single greatest challenge” to US security, but stressed that diplomacy was the preferred way to end its nuclear drive. President George Bush last week warned that a nuclear-armed Iran evoked the threat of ”World War III”.
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/ 24 October 2007
After three days of a vicious firestorm, exhausted firefighters and weary residents looked forward on Wednesday to a break — an expected slackening of the gale-force winds that have ignited California’s largest complex of wildland blazes. ”By Thursday, we’re expecting it to be pretty much over,” said a meteorologist.
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/ 24 October 2007
A simple device for detecting carbon monoxide in the blood may help doctors get an honest answer out of patients who smoke, United States researchers said on Monday. The device, called a pulse cooximeter, is typically used to test for carbon monoxide levels in firefighters.
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/ 24 October 2007
Fierce wildfires raged across Southern California on Tuesday, threatening more than 60Â 000 homes as night fell and forcing half a million people to flee in the state’s largest evacuation. California’s worst fires in four years tormented the San Diego area in the south and threatened mountain communities further north.
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/ 23 October 2007
The United States space shuttle Discovery blasted off on a pillar of fire on Tuesday, soaring above Florida marshlands toward a rendezvous in two days with the International Space Station. Discovery‘s 14-day mission kicks off a two-month refurbishment of the -billion outpost that prepares the way for Europe’s first permanent laboratory in orbit.