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/ 26 September 2006
A car dealership in Ohio has decided not to run a advertisement proclaiming a ”jihad” on the United States car market, a Muslim activist group said on Monday. The Ohio Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a letter from the dealership offering an apology and saying the radio ad, which had never been aired, was a misguided attempt at humour.
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/ 25 September 2006
An authoritative United States intelligence report pooling the views of 16 government agencies concludes the US’s campaign in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. Its conclusions contradict assertions made by President George Bush and White House officials during the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
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/ 23 September 2006
Pakistan’s leader cited a book deal during an appearance with United States President George Bush on Friday to avoid talking about a purported US threat to bomb his country back to the Stone Age after the September 11 attacks. With his memoir due out on Monday, President Pervez Musharraf managed to plug his book while smoothing diplomatic waters after talks with Bush on their partnership in the war on terrorism.
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/ 23 September 2006
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday he favours creating a new United States military command responsible for Africa, as the Pentagon aims to guard against potential threats to US security arising from the continent. Pentagon officials have expressed an awareness of the growing strategic importance of Africa and potential threats to US security emerging from the continent’s many war-ravaged regions.
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/ 21 September 2006
Billionaire Virgin Group chairperson Richard Branson on Thursday committed an estimated -billion over the next 10 years, or all of the profits from his airline and rail businesses, to combating global warming. ”We are very pleased … to be making a commitment to invest 100% of all future proceeds … from our transportation interests … into tackling global warming,” Branson said.
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/ 21 September 2006
The United States space shuttle Atlantis returned safely to its Florida home port on Thursday, capping a successful mission to resume International Space Station construction after the 2003 Columbia accident. After 12 days in space, including six at the half-built -billion space station, Atlantis dropped from its orbital perch into Earth’s atmosphere.
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/ 21 September 2006
After railing against United States global dominance at the United Nations this week, hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared with some of his most prominent American critics to debate issues including his views on the Holocaust and Iran’s nuclear programme.
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/ 20 September 2006
Fifteen African leaders open a crucial summit meeting on Darfur in New York on Wednesday at which Sudan is expected to consent to extending the mandate of a cash-strapped African Union force in the strife-wracked Sudanese region. The meeting brings together heads of state of the AU’s Peace and Security Council.
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/ 20 September 2006
United States President George Bush and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed over Iran’s nuclear ambitions in addresses to the United Nations on Tuesday, but Washington agreed to allow more time for talks with Tehran. Bush accused Iran’s rulers of squandering their nation’s wealth to fund terrorists and nuclear arms research.
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/ 19 September 2006
Hurricane Gordon strengthened as it bore down on Portugal’s Azores Islands on Tuesday and emergency services in the mid-Atlantic islands went on alert. Gordon bore winds of 160kph at 8am EDT (12am GMT), making it a category two-storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
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/ 18 September 2006
The United States Capitol was shut down briefly on Monday after a man was arrested for racing past security into the building, Capitol police said. The suspect breached security with his car first and then got out and ran past guards into the building, Sergeant Kimberly Schneider said. He was captured just inside the building.
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/ 18 September 2006
Astronauts on shuttle Atlantis conducted a final inspection of their spacecraft’s heat shield on Monday as they began early preparations for their return to Earth. They used a sensor-laden robot arm to scan the shuttle’s wings and other surfaces that bear the brunt of super-hot temperatures.
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/ 18 September 2006
Patricia Kennedy Lawford, the sister of President John F Kennedy and wife of English actor Peter Lawford, who tirelessly supported the political campaigns of her brothers, died on Sunday at the age of 82. A life-long lover of the arts who devoted much of her time to charity work, Lawford died surrounded by family at her home in New York from complications from pneumonia.
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/ 18 September 2006
Four decades after Captain Kirk and crew zoomed off at warp speed to ”the final frontier”, the iconic sci-fi series Star Trek returns to broadcast television this week with an extensive digital face-lift. CBS Paramount Domestic Television is digitally remastering all 79 episodes of the original series to enhance the show’s 1960s-era visual effects with 21st-century computer-generated graphics.
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/ 18 September 2006
It’s the stuff of science fiction: a prosthetic arm that can be moved just by thinking about it and can feel heat and the pressure of a handshake. It became a reality for United States marine Claudia Mitchell two years after she lost her arm in a motorcycle accident, researchers said last week.
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/ 18 September 2006
If anything gives the world’s second-richest man sleepless nights at his home in Omaha, Nebraska, it is the certainty that a nuclear holocaust will wipe out the planet. Warren Buffett is convinced the world will end in catastrophe — the only variable in the equation is when the big bang will happen.
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/ 17 September 2006
Argentina’s Marco Antonio Barrera boxed his way to a unanimous decision over Rocky Juarez on Saturday, pleasing no one but himself with a workmanlike performance to keep his WBC super featherweight title in a fight that drew boos from the crowd for a lack of action.
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/ 16 September 2006
In an important policy shift, the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday announced that it is urging the use of the pesticide DDT to control the spread of malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that kills about one million people a year, most of whom are infants and young children in Africa.
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/ 15 September 2006
A jilted girlfriend tried to hire a hit man to kill her boyfriend’s new love in Arizona after spotting her rival’s picture on his <i>MySpace</i> social networking web page, police said on Thursday. Heather Kane (22) was arrested after giving a $400 down payment to an undercover officer posing as a contract killer, according to Detective Jerry Gissel of the Mesa Police Department.
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/ 14 September 2006
Africa has emerged as a leading front in the United States military campaign against al-Qaeda, which Washington believes would like to create a new safe haven in the continent’s vast, hard-to-govern regions. Small groups of US special forces have begun traversing the hinterlands of more than a dozen countries in the Horn of Africa.
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/ 13 September 2006
Wearing just a small white towel and a smile, Bob prowls the dark halls of the East Side Club, looking into dozens of its closet-sized rooms and hoping eye contact with another man will lead to sex. ”It’s better than going to a bar and taking your chances,” said Bob, a 46-year-old garden supplies salesman from New Jersey who declined to give his last name.
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/ 12 September 2006
Tour de France winner Floyd Landis asked the United States Anti-Doping Agency (Usada) on Monday to throw out the positive doping test that tainted his cycling triumph two months ago. The motion cites blunders by the French lab performing the tests, including a sample number that was not that of Landis on a confirming ”B” sample positive.
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/ 12 September 2006
Two of Lance Armstrong’s teammates in the 1999 Tour de France admitted taking the banned performance-enhancing substance EPO in preparing for that race, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. In a story posted on its website, the newspaper said Frankie Andreu and another rider, who did not want his name disclosed, both admitted wrongdoing in interviews with the Times.
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/ 11 September 2006
A United Airlines flight was diverted to Dallas on Monday out of ”an abundance of caution” on the September 11 anniversary after two unclaimed objects were found aboard the plane, United States security officials said. Transportation Security Administration spokesperson Yolanda Clark said United Flight 351 from Atlanta to San Francisco was diverted for security reasons.
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/ 11 September 2006
Roger Federer freely admits that he even shocks himself at times. Speaking after winning the US Open and three Grand Slam events in the same year for the second time in three years, the Swiss star says he never expected to achieve so much. ”I always knew I was talented, I had potential and everything,” he said.
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/ 11 September 2006
United States President George Bush laid a wreath at Ground Zero on Sunday as he began two days of commemorations marking the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Bush and his wife Laura silently placed a floral wreath upon reflective pools of water that mark the former locations of the twin towers.
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/ 10 September 2006
Maria Sharapova showed grit, firepower and the ability to come up big when it counted most to whip Justine Henin-Hardenne and capture the US Open in straight sets on Saturday. The 19-year-old Russian defeated world number two Henin-Hardenne 6-4 6-4 at Arthur Ashe Stadium by displaying the tenacity normally seen by her more seasoned rival.
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/ 9 September 2006
Former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami on Friday condemned the September 11 attacks against the United States as an atrocity and said suicide bombers did Islam an injustice and would not go to heaven. Three days before the fifth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3 000 people, the Shi’ite cleric urged Muslims to work against ”Islamaphobia”.
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/ 8 September 2006
Two-time defending champion Roger Federer continued his mastery over Americans at the US Open, beating fifth seed James Blake on Thursday to reach the semifinals. The 25-year-old Swiss superstar overpowered Blake 7-6 (9-7), 6-0, 6-7 (9/11), 6-4 to extend his wining streak against United States opponents to 27 matches.
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/ 8 September 2006
Technicians at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida started filling space shuttle Atlantis‘ fuel tank for a launch attempt on Friday after nearly two weeks of delays due to weather problems and technical glitches, officials said. Lift-off is targeted for 11.41am (3.41pm GMT) and meteorologists predicted a 70% chance the weather would be suitable for launch.
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/ 7 September 2006
The African Union may keep its forces in Darfur beyond September 30 if Sudan refuses to allow them to become part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation, a senior United States State Department official said on Wednesday. Sudan has so far rejected a UN Security Council resolution calling for the creation of a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.
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/ 7 September 2006
World number two Rafael Nadal crashed out of the United States Open on Wednesday losing to unseeded Mikhail Youzhny, who has made a habit of ousting Spanish top seeds at the ,5-million event. The Russian defeated the two-time French Open champion and Wimbledon finalist Nadal 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 in a quarterfinal match.