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/ 28 February 2007
The United Nations Security Council favours a rapid deployment of UN peacekeepers in eastern Chad and north-eastern Central African Republic to protect civilians caught in the spillover of fighting in Sudan’s Darfur region, diplomats said on Tuesday.
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/ 28 February 2007
Human rights activists have welcomed the request by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday that it issue summonses against a senior Sudanese government official and an Arab militia leader who allegedly played key roles in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Darfur since 2003.
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/ 27 February 2007
Wall Street fell sharply in early trading on Tuesday, joining a global stock decline on growing concerns about slowing economies in the United States and China. Worries that US stocks are about to embark on a major correction fed the drop, which took the Dow Jones industrials down more than 120 points.
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/ 27 February 2007
A South African teenager had a message for government ministers and officials attending a high-level United Nations meeting on ending discrimination and violence against girls: ”It’s time to listen to us!” Quilinta Nepaul (17) said participants at annual meeting should read a report reflecting the views of over 1 300 young people from 59 countries.
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/ 26 February 2007
Internet titan Google has begun selling an online suite of business software in a new challenge to software powerhouse Microsoft. "Google Apps Premier Edition" packages communication and collaboration programs that are hosted on the internet giant’s computers. They are available to use by businesses for a $50 (about R350) yearly fee.
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/ 26 February 2007
Despite much public ado about piracy at YouTube, research released on Friday shows that the Google-owned website is thriving and many visitors are looking for home-made works. "It turns out a lot of the content people are seeking is user generated," Hitwise general manager of global research Bill Tancer said.
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/ 26 February 2007
Sweden’s Henrik Stenson defeated US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy of Australia two and one on Sunday to win the -million World Golf Championships (WGC) Accenture Match-Play Championship. Stenson became just the second European to win the elite event and denied Ogilvy’s bid to join Tiger Woods as a back-to-back winner of the tournament.
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/ 25 February 2007
Once an evening of backslapping and merrymaking within the narrow confines of Hollywood, the Academy Awards this year looks like a United Nations exercise in diversity. The 79th annual Oscars on Sunday feature their most ethnically varied line-up to date, with stars and stories that reflect the world’s growing multiculturalism.
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/ 25 February 2007
Sleeping on the job goes against the grain of American capitalism, but even United States businesses are now flirting with work-time ”power naps” like those taken by more laid-back colleagues abroad. Not surprisingly, other businesses see the power nap as a money-making opportunity, to sell chairs, cocoons, pods and other devices.
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/ 24 February 2007
The Oscars will not be given out until Sunday night, but show producer Laura Ziskin noted on Friday that there is already been a winner — diversity. Ziskin, along with academy president Sid Ganis and show director Louis J Horvitz, spoke with reporters from the Kodak Theatre’s red carpet about what is in store for this year’s show.
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/ 24 February 2007
In an explosive display, virtual-world banes now mirror the havoc of the real one as terrorists have launched a bombing campaign in Second Life. People controlling animated avatar members of a self-proclaimed Second Life Liberation Army (SLLA) have set off computer-code versions of atomic bombs.
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/ 23 February 2007
Oscar-winning songwriter Ray Evans, whose long collaboration with partner Jay Livingston produced such enduring standards as Mona Lisa, Buttons and Bows, Silver Bells and Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera), has died. He was 92.
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/ 23 February 2007
Robert Adler, the co-inventor of the wireless television remote control, has died at the age of 93 in Idaho, Zenith Electronics said in a statement. His best-known and arguably most fought-over invention was the TV remote control he developed with Euguene Polley, introduced by Zenith in 1956.
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/ 23 February 2007
Mordkhe Schaechter, who dedicated his life to preserving Yiddish as a living language, has died in the United States, aged 79, the <i>New York Times</i> reported on February 17. Schaechter, who was born in Romania, died in a hospital in the north Bronx after a long illness, his daughter said.
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/ 22 February 2007
A sword-wielding Wisconsin man who rushed to the aid of a woman he thought was being raped in the apartment upstairs was carted off to jail after police discovered his neighbour was just watching porn. The cries for help pouring through the floorboards sounded far too real to James van Iveren.
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/ 22 February 2007
The United States on Wednesday condemned police crackdowns on peaceful protest in Zimbabwe and urged President Robert Mugabe’s government to let people exercise their political rights. Protests broke out over the weekend after Mugabe declared his plan to postpone elections scheduled for next year and continue his presidency.
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/ 21 February 2007
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recommended on Tuesday peacekeeping operations of up to 11 000 personnel for Chad and the Central African Republic to stanch the spillover from the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Eastern Chad is marked by ”uncertainty, vulnerability and victimisation of the local communities”, Ban said.
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/ 20 February 2007
Police called to a Long Island man’s house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set. The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes.
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/ 20 February 2007
"Patch Tuesday", when Microsoft releases repairs for problems in its software, came and went last week with six critical fixes — including the first one that touches Vista, the new operating system billed as the most secure Windows version yet. This isn’t to say that Vista had previously appeared clean.
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/ 19 February 2007
English soccer star David Beckham is struggling to find a suitable mansion in his future hometown of Los Angeles after he and his wife reportedly looked at more than 20 homes in the -million to -million range, the Los Angeles Times said on Sunday.
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/ 18 February 2007
An asteroid may come uncomfortably close to Earth in 2036 and the United Nations should assume responsibility for a space mission to deflect it, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists said on Saturday. Astronomers are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45 000 chance of striking Earth on April 13 2036.
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/ 17 February 2007
Oil jumped more than 2% on Friday to above a barrel after the United States warned that Nigerian militants are planning to expand attacks in Africa’s top oil producer. US crude settled ,40 higher at ,39 a barrel, reversing earlier losses caused by milder US weather.
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/ 17 February 2007
A judge said on Friday that he would allow full television coverage of rock producer Phil Spector’s murder trial, despite an aversion to cameras in Los Angeles courts since OJ Simpson’s controversial 1995 acquittal. Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said it was time to put aside the ”fear of cameras in the courtroom” in Los Angeles.
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/ 16 February 2007
Intel on Monday touted a diminutive new microprocessor that it said could deliver "supercomputer-like" performance to home computers and handheld devices. Intel said its unprecedented programmable processor can perform more than a trillion calculations per second — a "teraflop".
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/ 16 February 2007
MySpace claimed vindication on Thursday after a judge threw out a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 13-year-old girl who claims she was sexually assaulted by a man she met on the website. The decision bodes well for the youth-oriented social networking website in similar suits.
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/ 16 February 2007
In a Valentine’s Day gift to the world, Google has dropped the invitation-only policy for Gmail and made the free e-mail service available to anyone. "Gmail sign-ups are now open worldwide," Google associate product manager David Murray said in a posting on the California internet search engine’s website on Thursday.
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/ 15 February 2007
The left knee feels good enough for Ernie Els not to expect anything to hold him back this year. It is strong enough for him not to think twice at the top of his swing as to how much it might hurt when he shifts his weight. Most of all, he believes it is strong enough to scale a figurative mountain bigger than Shasta.
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/ 15 February 2007
Scientists have captured an image of the Aids virus in a biological handshake with the immune cells it attacks, and said on Wednesday they hope this can help lead to a better vaccine against the incurable disease. They pinpointed a place on the outside of the human immunodeficiency virus that could be vulnerable to antibodies that could block it from infecting human cells.
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/ 15 February 2007
Leaders of the United States Islamic community are fearful that sectarian slaughter tearing Shi’ite and Sunni communities apart in Iraq is testing unity among Muslim immigrants in the US. Imams, analysts and community leaders say the daily round of truck bombings, kidnappings and slaughter pitching former Sunni and Shi’ite neighbours into civil war in Baghdad has raised tension among Muslim immigrants nationwide.
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/ 14 February 2007
United States President George Bush said on Wednesday he did not know if the leaders of Iran ordered members of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to provide improvised explosive devices to militias in Iraq. His comments contrasted with comments by US officials in Baghdad, who had said earlier that the highest levels of the Iranian government were involved.
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/ 14 February 2007
You might ignore your cellphone if your ringtone is Beethoven’s Fur Elise, but what if it’s a gruff voice that yells ”Pick up the damn phone?” Now that musical ringtones have become commonplace, Time Warner’s Cartoon Network is planning to use the voices and personalities of its cartoon characters to alert cellphone users to incoming calls.
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/ 13 February 2007
A powerful storm and likely a tornado hit the New Orleans area early on Tuesday, killing an elderly woman, injuring at least 15 other people and damaging dozens of business and homes in a region still trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Trailers provided by the government’s emergency agency were tossed around and homes collapsed.