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/ 13 December 2006
The United States Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Tuesday for the fourth straight time as worries about inflation continued to trump concerns about the slowing economy. At its final meeting of 2006, the central bank left its target for the federal funds rate at 5,25%.
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/ 13 December 2006
Jeane J Kirkpatrick, a political science professor whose support for Ronald Reagan conservatism catapulted her into the post of United States ambassador to the United Nations, has died at 80. She was the first woman to hold the post. Initially a liberal Democrat, Kirkpatrick championed human rights, opposed Soviet Union communism and supported Israel.
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/ 12 December 2006
World crude prices fell on Monday largely in reaction to warmer-than-normal temperatures in the United States, despite expectations that the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) oil cartel is poised to trim its production. New York’s main contract closed down 81 cents at ,22 per barrel.
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/ 11 December 2006
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company, Wikia, is ready to give away — for free — all the software, computing, storage and network access that website builders need to create community collaboration sites. Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go even further to provide customers with 100% of any advertising revenue from the sites they build.
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/ 11 December 2006
Squirrels hit the genetic lottery with their chubby cheeks and bushy tails. It’s hard to imagine picnickers tossing peanuts and cookies at rodents if they looked like rats. But good looks alone don’t get you through Chicago winters. Nor do they help negotiate a treacherous landscape of hungry cats, cars and metal traps. So how do they do it?
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/ 10 December 2006
The debate over how to punish Iran for its refusal to suspend sensitive nuclear fuel work resumes in New York on Monday with Western diplomats confident that the United Nations Security Council will approve targeted sanctions against Tehran by Christmas.
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/ 9 December 2006
Republican leaders in the United States Congress broke no rules but were negligent in their handling of a scandal involving a fellow lawmaker’s advances toward male aides, an ethics committee said. The House of Representatives’ ethics committee issued its findings on Friday after an investigation into the SMS sex scandal surrounding Republican Mark Foley.
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/ 9 December 2006
President George Bush and South African President Thabo Mbeki are asking for a stronger international push to make Sudan let the United Nations strengthen a peacekeeping force in the that country’s Darfur region. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has refused to allow the dispatch of thousands of UN troops to Darfur to boost 7 000 African peacekeepers already there.
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/ 8 December 2006
Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan will ask on Friday how the international community can allow the ”horror” in Sudan’s Darfur region to continue and say there is more than enough blame to shared all around. In a speech to be given in New York, Annan says blame can be shared by those valuing abstract notions of sovereignty over human lives.
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/ 8 December 2006
You’ve booked your seat on the spaceship and passed the medical — but what to wear for that flight into the final frontier?. Orbital Outfitters has the answer. The new Los Angeles-based company on Thursday promised to dress the first space tourists and crew members in style.
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/ 8 December 2006
”Heeere’s Johnny!” — the introduction for United States talk-show host Johnny Carson for 30 years — has been ranked the most memorable TV catchphrase in a top 100 list covering 60 years of US television shows, cartoons, commercials and quotes from news programmes.
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/ 7 December 2006
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday endorsed African peacekeepers to help prop up the interim government in chaotic Somalia but also urged the authorities to pursue peace talks with their Islamist rivals. A resolution adopted by the 15-nation council said Somalia’s transitional federal government offered ”the only route to achieving peace and stability”.
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/ 7 December 2006
United States ambassador John Bolton, whose temporary appointment ends shortly, was back at the United Nations on Tuesday, his wit and prickly relationship with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan intact. Just hours after he made clear he would not seek a renewal on Monday, Bolton and his wife Gretchen attended a White House dinner in honor of Annan.
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/ 7 December 2006
It may be one problem airline security officials never envisioned — a passenger lighting matches in flight to mask odours from her flatulence. The woman’s actions resulted in an emergency landing on Monday in Nashville of an American Airlines flight bound for Dallas from Washington, DC, said Lynne Lowrance, a spokesperson for Nashville’s airport.
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/ 7 December 2006
Technology heavyweight Microsoft will unveil an online library on Thursday that will compete with Google’s controversial project to digitise the world’s books, the company said. Microsoft said it would launch a United States test of Live Search Books featuring tens of thousands of out-of-copyright books.
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/ 7 December 2006
Most internet users already know it: spam is on the rise again as the senders of unwanted e-mail advertisements find new ways to circumvent filtering systems. A study released last month by the security firm Postini found that unwanted messages now account for 91% of all e-mail, and over the past 12 months the daily volume of spam rose by 120%.
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/ 6 December 2006
United States troops should begin withdrawing from combat and Washington should launch a diplomatic and political push to halt a ”grave and deteriorating” crisis in Iraq, a high-level panel studying the war said on Wednesday. US President George Bush said he would take the highly anticipated report ”very seriously”.
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/ 6 December 2006
National Basketball Association Commissioner David Stern, in a story in the New York Times on Tuesday, admits the league made mistakes in introducing a new ball that has proved unpopular with players. ”I won’t make a spirited defence with respect to the ball,” Stern told the Times.
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/ 6 December 2006
New York City banned most artificial trans fats from restaurants on Tuesday, forcing national fast-food chains and mom-and-pop diners alike to phase out artery-clogging oils from their cooking. The law will require restaurants including McDonald’s to eliminate trans fats by July next year.
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/ 6 December 2006
An influential bipartisan panel is expected to recommend on Wednesday that United States forces withdraw from combat over the next year and focus on training Iraqis, offering President George Bush the outlines of an exit strategy from the unpopular war.
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/ 6 December 2006
Internet search giant Yahoo! announced on Tuesday that it was revamping its structure and management to better cash in on its popularity and potential as an advertising vehicle. Dan Rosensweig will step down as chief operating officer in March of next year and the company will be divided into three groups, one devoted to technology and two that will be ”customer focused”, according to Yahoo!
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/ 5 December 2006
United States defence secretary nominee Robert Gates admitted on Tuesday the US is not winning the war in Iraq, and said he was open to all options to stop the conflict spiralling into regional chaos. Gates also cautioned against any attack on Iran expect as an ”absolute last resort” and also came out against a strike on Syria.
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/ 5 December 2006
Painter Roy Newell, one of the original American abstract expressionists and a favourite of artist Willem de Kooning, died of cancer in November in Manhattan, his wife said. He was 92. Newell, a Manhattan native, was renowned as a perfectionist who would spend decades creating a single painting.
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/ 5 December 2006
Tributes poured in at the end of November following the death of Bernard Rimland, considered the godfather of modern autism research. Rimland (78) died at a southern California care facility in the second-last week of November after losing a fight against cancer, said the director of the Autism Research Institute founded by the late doctor.
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/ 5 December 2006
Nasa said on Monday it plans to build a permanently occupied base on the moon, most likely at the lunar south pole. The habitat will serve as a science outpost as well as a testbed for technologies needed for future travel to Mars, and construction will follow a series of flights to the moon scheduled to begin by 2020.
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/ 5 December 2006
Libya detained an outspoken critic of the country’s leader Moammar Gadaffi a month ago and he has not been heard from since, United States-based Human Rights Watch said on Monday. Libya’s internal security agency detained Idrees Mohamed Boufayed, a doctor who had lived in exile in Switzerland for the past 16 years, in Tripoli on November 5.
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/ 4 December 2006
The Wall Street Journal, whose wide pages and text-rich look have long been an icon of the United States newspaper business, is about to undergo several changes that include cutting 7,6cm off its width. Along with the size reduction, which is equivalent to about one of its columns, the newspaper will add more colour and graphical elements, including greater use of photographs.
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/ 2 December 2006
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About 1,2-million people in countries hard hit by HIV/Aids are receiving life-extending drugs thanks to two major United States and international funds, double from a year ago, but many millions more need help, the funds said on Friday. The figures were announced on World Aids Day as activists around the world turned a spotlight on the scourge of Aids and pleaded for more action
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/ 2 December 2006
The United States Supreme Court stepped into a dispute over free speech rights on Friday involving a suspended high school student and his banner that proclaimed ”Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. Justices agreed to hear the appeal by the Juneau, Alaska, school board and principal Deborah Morse of a lower court ruling that allowed the student’s civil rights lawsuit to proceed.
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/ 1 December 2006
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has said it will spend all its assets within 50 years of them both dying, as the trustees want to focus the foundation’s work in the 21st century. The foundation has also announced that it will split its internal structure in two, an asset trust and a programme foundation.
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/ 30 November 2006
A Missouri millionaire and one-time secret Santa has spread holiday cheer and crisp bills to residents of Chicago’s south-west side. The businessman made headlines earlier this month when he revealed he is the man who has been anonymously handing out cash to strangers during the holidays for nearly 26 years.
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/ 30 November 2006
Microsoft will announce availability of business versions of its long-awaited Vista operating system on Thursday, according to analysts invited to a release event in New York City. The final version of Microsoft’s Office 2007 business applications software is to be available along with Vista.