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/ 22 September 2007

Limited Darfur force could be on ground in October

A small amount of extra peacekeeping troops for Sudan’s troubled Darfur region could be in place by October, officials said on Friday after a high-level meeting on Darfur at the United Nations. Nigeria and Rwanda are considering sending ”a few battalions” to the region next month, according to Britain’s secretary of state for Africa.

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/ 21 September 2007

New search start-up hopes to rival Google

The dozens of entrepreneurs gathered for an exclusive high-tech conference in San Francisco this week all hoped to dazzle the crowd with their ingenuity. But one start-up, Powerset, is pursuing a particularly challenging goal: it is aiming to outshine the internet’s brightest star with a new search engine built to outsmart Google.

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/ 20 September 2007

Spector judge, jury struggle to resolve impasse

The judge in the murder trial of Phil Spector on Wednesday abandoned the idea of presenting the deadlocked jury with a reduced charge of manslaughter against the music producer. In a day of complex legal manoeuvrings, both the judge and jury struggled to find a way to proceed in the case, which was stalled after seven days of deliberations.

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/ 19 September 2007

Daily anti-HIV pill could save millions

Providing healthy people with an antiretroviral drug to protect them against HIV infection could drastically slow the spread of the virus in sub-Saharan Africa, United States researchers said on Tuesday. In a best-case scenario, the drug could prevent three million new HIV cases in this part of Africa over a 10-year span.

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/ 18 September 2007

Russia and China ‘spying at Cold War levels’

Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned on Tuesday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell was to raise the spectre of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on wiretapping.

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/ 18 September 2007

New York Times to end paid internet service

The New York Times said on Monday it will end its paid TimesSelect web service and make most of its website available for free in the hopes of attracting more readers and higher advertising revenue. TimesSelect will shut down on Wednesday, two years after the Times launched it, which charges subscribers ,95 a month or ,95 a year.

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/ 18 September 2007

Hatton and Mayweather begin verbal jabs

Unbeaten fighters Floyd Mayweather and Ricky Hatton began the build-up to their December 8 duel in Las Vegas with some verbal sparring on Monday. At a press conference in the Hollywood tourist haven of Universal City England’s Hatton and American Mayweather took turns taking pot-shots at each other as they launched a promotional tour.

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/ 17 September 2007

Sopranos bows out with top Emmy honours

United Sates mob drama The Sopranos said its final farewells when it picked up the top award at the 59th annual Emmy awards in Los Angeles on Sunday at television’s equivalent of the Oscars. The groundbreaking HBO series, which ended in June after an eight-year run, took home the awards for outstanding drama, best writing and directing.

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/ 16 September 2007

OJ Simpson arrested in Vegas hotel break-in

Las Vegas police arrested former football star OJ Simpson on Sunday in connection with a hotel room break-in, CNN said. A source with the Las Vegas Police Department told CNN Simpson was taken into custody at the Palms hotel. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, in June 1994.

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/ 16 September 2007

Alan Greenspan criticises Bush in new book

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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/ 16 September 2007

Woods stays three ahead after day of low scoring

Tiger Woods maintained his three-shot lead at the Tour Championship after resisting a glut of low scoring on Saturday, spearheaded by United States Masters champion Zach Johnson with a dazzling 10-under-par 60. Woods, hunting a seventh PGA Tour title this year and inaugural FedExCup honours, fired a 64 in the third round at a sun-drenched East Lake Golf Club.

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/ 15 September 2007

Tiger surges ahead at Tour Championship

Tiger Woods played a six-hole stretch in seven-under par but followed with a back nine of even-par golf that left him three strokes ahead of the field on Friday after two rounds of the United States Tour Championship. Tearing apart a defenceless course at East Lake Golf Club, Woods made five straight birdies and capped it with a 70-foot eagle putt on the par-five ninth hole to make the turn in 28.

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/ 14 September 2007

Jet envy: Google founders pay for big parking perk

Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin park their jet just a stone’s throw from their offices, paying $1,3-million a year for rights at a federally maintained airfield, the <i>New York Times</i> reported Thursday. Why put up with bothersome local traffic when you can shell out a princely sum for take-off and landing rights just a few minutes from your office?

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/ 13 September 2007

Hurricane Humberto blasts across Texas

Hurricane Humberto blasted across south-east Texas on Thursday as it headed toward Louisiana, packing strong winds and triggering fears of flooding, United States forecasters said. Humberto emerged as a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and mushroomed into a hurricane moments before slamming ashore.

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/ 12 September 2007

Oil price up to record $80 a barrel

New York crude oil prices reached a barrel on Wednesday for the first time as the market fretted over declining United States reserves and a new tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico. Prices shot higher after news that US crude reserves fell by a sharper-than-expected 7,1-million barrels over the past week.