World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz cancelled a speech to a health conference on Thursday as the bank’s board met late into the night to discuss a controversy over the promotion of his girlfriend, which has paralysed the poverty-fighting institution. The bank’s staff association, which has led the calls for Wolfowitz to step down, called on the board, which usually operates in secret, to make its decision public.
It seems that massacres at American schools and universities are becoming as traditional as the Fourth of July, or, as one newspaper put it, apple pie.
A videotaped diatribe by the Virginia Tech gunman shocked students and mesmerised television viewers, but police said on Thursday it yielded little value for the investigation of the campus massacre. Students at the university expressed disgust and disbelief at self-made photos and a disturbing video the killer mailed to NBC News.
Embattled World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz looked more isolated than ever on Thursday as directors debated his fate amid the rumblings of a civil war among senior staff. The 24 executive directors discussed what action to take over a pay and favouritism scandal that has engulfed the former Pentagon deputy chief.
The world public rejects the United States role as a world leader, but still wants the US to do its share in multilateral efforts and does not support a US withdrawal from international affairs, says a poll released on Wednesday. The survey respondents saw the US as an unreliable ”world policeman”.
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.
United States President George Bush on Wednesday bluntly warned that Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir had one "last chance" to help end violence in Darfur or face tougher US sanctions and other punishments. "The time for promises is over, President Bashir must act," Bush said in remarks at the Holocaust Museum in Washington.
Whether it is through the soaring grace of the Eiffel Tower or the breathtaking beauty of Provence, France is hoping to lure tourists by persuading Hollywood to shoot more films there. An unprecedented alliance of French film and local government officials descended on Los Angeles last week to attend the Locations Trade Show, an annual fair that puts potential film sites in the movie industry’s shop window.
Surging energy prices pushed consumer inflation in the United States up by the largest amount in nearly a year in March. Meanwhile, industrial output fell for the second time in the past three months, reflecting a big drop in production at the nation’s utilities because of the warmer-than-usual weather.
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.
David Dain Smith lives in Missouri, but his California winery is just a click away, waiting to spring to life in the dim glow of his computer screen. Smith is making wine through Crushpad, a winery where the grapes are real but the experience is as virtual as members want it to be with email updates, live chat and web cams.
Hollywood is banking that good things really do come in threes as it prepares to unleash an unprecedented series of blockbuster sequels on the box office. Three of the most profitable franchises in history release their long-awaited third instalments next month: Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-Man and Shrek.
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.
Virginia Tech students described the mayhem on campus on Monday and criticised officials for not shutting the university down quickly enough after 33 people were killed including a gunman. Andrew Gisch, a second-year student, was walking across a quadrangle listening to his iPod when he heard ”a big bang”.
The killings at Virginia Tech university on Monday will stir fresh debate in the United States over gun control and what drives people to go on shooting rampages through schools and colleges. School shootings have prompted changes to school safety rules and sparked debate over the availability of guns.
At least 22 people, including the suspected gunman, were killed in a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech university on Monday, police and university officials said. The rampage took place in two separate areas of the campus during the morning. Police said they believe a single gunman was responsible.
Steffi Graf required three stitches after husband Andre Agassi inadvertently hit her in the face with his racket during a fundraiser that followed the final of the United States Clay Court Championships on Sunday. Graf and Agassi were holding hands — her left to his right — while rallying with a couple of youngsters when Agassi’s follow-through struck his wife in the face.
Jerry Kelly aced the par-three fourth hole on his way to a four-under par 67 on Saturday to grab the lead at the United States PGA Verizon Heritage after a tough day for Ernie Els. Kelly, who trailed leader Els by three strokes when the day began, stood on 13-under par 200 after 54 holes.
The woman at the centre of a scandal that could force the resignation of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz says she has been victimised and forced to take a transfer she never wanted in the first place. Shaha Riza said she was surprised when told she had to take an outside assignment because of her relationship with Wolfowitz.
Despite denials by World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz on Thursday, newly disclosed internal documents indicate that the bank may, in fact, have reversed a long-standing policy of promoting family planning on his watch. The contradictions could further intensify Wolfowitz’s troubles at the bank.
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.
Ernie Els made partial amends for his missed cut at last week’s Masters with a fast start at the Heritage Classic in Hilton Head, South Carolina, on Thursday. The world number five, who failed to qualify for the weekend for the first time in a major since the 1999 PGA Championship, fired a six-under-par 65 in the opening round at a breezy Harbour Town Golf Links.
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>.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz criticised rich countries, including the United States, for failing to increase aid to needy developing nations at a time when some African economies were about to ”turn the corner”. Some key economies were improving, he said, but the countries still needed aid to make the most of new opportunities.
Search engine Google and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum launched an online mapping project on Tuesday to provide what the museum said was evidence of atrocities committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region. More than 200 000 people have been killed in Darfur since 2003 and some of this carnage has been detailed by Google Earth.
The home of late country music legend Johnny Cash in Nashville, Tennesee, burned to the ground on Tuesday in a fire likely fuelled by renovation materials, according to local media reports. The huge lakeside house in Hendersonville, a suburb of the country music capital, went up in flames on Tuesday afternoon as it was being heavily renovated.
The stability of the global financial system is being bolstered by favourable economic conditions, but some financial market risks have crept up in recent months, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday. The IMF pointed to potential risks from the rapid decline in the United States subprime mortgage market, involving borrowers with poor credit history.
United States President George Bush said on Tuesday that he will sign a Bill to permit federal funding of research using human embryos that cannot develop into fetuses. At the same time, he said he will again reject a Bill that would clear the way for the government to pay for largely unrestricted stem-cell research on viable embryos.
Shock jock Don Imus, who has made a career out of outrageous comments, was suspended on Monday for making racist remarks by both the radio and television networks that carry his programme. CBS Radio and MSNBC suspended Imus for two weeks for saying the mostly black Rutgers University women’s basketball team looked like a bunch of ”nappy-headed hos”.
In the battle over next-generation DVDs, pornography could prove to be the XXX factor that helps determine a winner. Thirty years ago, VHS toppled Betamax in part because of the adult film industry, and now some see blue movies playing a key role again as backers of HD-DVD and Blu-ray manoeuvre to make their formats the standard.
A controversial raise for a World Bank employee who has been romantically involved with the bank’s president, Paul Wolfowitz, was not the work of the bank’s ethics committee, as originally alleged by Wolfowitz’s office, according to the watchdog group that leaked the information.