The global economy, which has coped amazingly well with fallout from natural disasters and lofty energy prices, is expected to pick up a little more speed in 2006 and log another year of brisk growth. Still, risks remain, the International Monetary Fund indicates in its latest World Economic Outlook, released on Wednesday.
Sub-Saharan Africa is poised to record growth of 5,8% in 2006, its best performance in more than 30 years, as higher commodity prices, stronger agricultural output and economic reforms start to pay dividends, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Wednesday.
Rock icon Neil Young has joined the ranks of musicians ranged against the current United States administration with a new anti-war protest album that includes a track called Impeach the President. The veteran singer-songwriter said the substance of the album Living with War harked back to the protest music of the 1960s.
The United States has made no deal with Somalia to run anti-piracy patrols off its coast, a US official said on Tuesday, denying claims by the East African country’s prime minister. ”There is no such deal as alleged,” said the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ”We haven’t made any arrangement to patrol those waters.”
A restaurateur who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellphone camera, was sentenced on Tuesday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counselling. Daniel Hoyt (43), of New York, was sentenced in Manhattan Criminal Court on his guilty plea to public lewdness, a misdemeanour.
Forty-five years after taking part in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Tomas Vazquez has no fight left in him, and simply dreams of seeing the island he loves one last time before he dies. ”I am old, I’m tired,” says Vazquez surrounded by Cuban memorabilia and a dozen former comrades-in-arms. ”My only hope is to be able to spend a week in Cuba, come back and die.”
Israel warned that a new ”axis of terror” — Iran, Syria and the Hamas-run Palestinian government — is sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century. But the Palestinians accused Israel of an escalating and indiscriminate military campaign that targets civilians and entrenches its occupation.
An Zimbabwean woman will receive a 000 settlement of her lawsuit that alleged abuse by United States airport immigration officials, lawyers said. The settlement agreement was filed on Wednesday in San Francisco’s federal court. Tsungai Tungwarara, then 18, arrived in San Francisco from Zimbabwe in January 2002 to visit her mother.
Trainer Roger Mayweather had his licence revoked and was fined 000 on Thursday for stepping into the ring and triggering a brawl during last weekend’s IBF welterweight title fight between his nephew, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Zab Judah.
I’m not sure I was as excited about my first Masters as Charles Howell III was about his. He grew up three miles down the road, after all. And he was playing. I’m just scribbling, as pleasant a task as that is. Charles III said he was in awe of the Augusta National Club and the event before being invited to play here for the first time in 2001: ”Even if they made us hit wooden drivers and gutta-percha balls, I’d show up and be happy just to be there.”
Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling spent nine weeks listening in large part to his former underlings say or imply that he misled investors by saying all was well at the energy giant when accounting tricks and weak ventures fed financial rot. Now he’s fighting back, having logged three days testifying in his fraud and conspiracy trial with a fourth on Thursday and more to come next week.
Mass protests demanding legalisation of undocumented migrants has bolstered United States Latinos, but it is too early to know if they can muster voters in upcoming elections. The giant pro-immigrant rallies across the United States have been led by members of the 40-million strong Hispanic community, the country’s largest ethnic minority.
The United Nations Security Council demanded that the Sudanese government and rebels reach agreement by April 30 to end the conflict in Darfur and reaffirmed its determination to hold accountable those blocking peace and violating human rights.
The United States wants to settle the Iran nuclear crisis through diplomacy, President George Bush said on Monday, describing reports of plans to attack Iran as ”wild speculation”. While the White House is still warning Iran about its uranium enrichment, the administration went out of its way on Monday to play down reports of planning for military strikes.
The United States administration backs sending up to several hundred Nato advisers to support African Union peacekeepers protect villagers in Sudan’s Darfur region, The Washington Post reported. The newspaper said the move would include some US troops and mark a significant expansion of US and allied involvement in the conflict.
Tens of thousands of people marched through Dallas on Sunday to demand that legislators pass a law to help the estimated 11,5-million illegal workers in the United States. Many Hispanic families with small children joined the protest, part of a renewed campaign to counter efforts by conservatives in the US Congress to make illegal entry a crime.
Twelve years after the Rwanda genocide, nations still seem unwilling to commit the troops and money that would be needed to stop other mass slaughters of civilians, a top United Nations envoy said on Friday. Governments have repeatedly promised ”never again” in the years since the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwanda killings. They have gotten better at nurturing peace processes, but are still reluctant to do much more.
Internet telephony is giving traditional phone service a run for its money, and is expected to be used by 32,6-million United States householdsb in 2010, a new survey suggests. The survey released this week by eMarketer suggests that VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, is luring customers with low prices but that this is just one component in a -billion market for residential voice and data services.
If Hootie Johnson, the chairperson of the Augusta National golf club, did not already know that the wholesale changes to the most familiar golf course in the world were unpopular with those who have to play it at the Masters this week, he knows now.
Construction workers discovered 74 bone fragments over the weekend on a rooftop at a vacant skyscraper across from the World Trade Centre site in New York, the largest discovery of body parts since clean-up of the building began last fall, officials said. The skyscraper was damaged during the events of September 11 2001.
Drummer Don Alias, who kept tempo for Miles Davis, Nina Simone and Lou Reed, has died in New York aged 66, his website said on Wednesday. In a nearly 50-year career, Alias showed his versatility on drums and other percussion instruments, accompanying headliners such as Carlos Santana, Al Jarreau and Herbie Hancock.
United States rap superstar Eminem has filed for divorce from his wife Kim Mathers less than three months after he remarried her, a publicist for the singer said on Wednesday. The couple — whose stormy relationship has been the focus of much of Eminem’s music — walked down the aisle for the second time on January 14 after reconciling following their 2001 divorce.
A cockpit recording from a plane hijacked on September 11 will be played in public for the first time at a trial to decide whether Zacarias Moussaoui should be executed. Judge Leonie Brinkema agreed to a prosecution request to play the tape from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger uprising against the hijackers.
The renowned Michelin Guide, which rates restaurants and hotels, announced on Wednesday that it is producing its first review of the US West Coast. The guide will cover the San Francisco and San Jose areas as well as the increasingly chic ”Wine Country” of the Sonoma and Napa valleys.
A jury has ordered pharma giant Merck to pay ,5-million to a man claiming that the pain medication Vioxx had caused his heart attack, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. A New Jersey jury on Wednesday delivered a split decision in the cases of two men who said they had suffered heart attacks after taking Merck’s Vioxx.
Apple Computer unveiled software on Wednesday that enables its Mac computers with Intel processors to run rival Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system. Apple said that its software, called Boot Camp, was available for download starting on Wednesday, and that the application will be a feature in Leopard, the company’s next release of the Mac operating system.
United States internet search portal Yahoo! has teamed with Canada’s Research In Motion to make its services available on BlackBerry handheld devices, the companies announced on Wednesday. Yahoo! e-mail, searches and content will be available to BlackBerry users as a result of a "strategic global alliance", according to the companies.
A man was sentenced to three years’ probation on Wednesday for releasing an alligator into a Los Angeles lake, sparking a massive hunt for the elusive reptile, prosecutors said. The sentencing of one of two men charged in connection with unleashing the toothy beast came as the alligator, nicknamed Reggie, remained at large in the second largest United States city more than eight months.
Hollywood will make a transcendent leap onto the internet on Tuesday when the Oscar-winning <i>Brokeback Mountain</i> becomes the first blockbuster available for permanent download on the same day its DVDs hit the shelves. Two competing download services announced on Monday they will offer downloads of such hit films as last year’s Oscar-nominated <i>King Kong</i> and <i>Memoirs of a Geisha</i>.
While political pressure is building on United States President George Bush to do more to stop what he calls ”genocide” in Darfur, recent events suggest that the National Islamic Front government of Sudan is not particularly concerned. One sign of the regime’s confidence was its decision to block the scheduled visit this week to Darfur by the United Nation’s chief aid official, Jan Egeland.
Telling stories is still the lifeblood of the newspaper business, but industry executives are worried they’re not doing a good job explaining one of the biggest stories of the day: the turmoil roiling their own industry. ”The world changed a lot, and we changed a little,” says the outgoing chairperson of the Newspaper Association of America.
Tom DeLay rose from humble beginnings as the owner of a Texas pest control business to become known as ”The Hammer” — one of the most successful and feared politicians in the United States. DeLay rose to become the Republican leader in the House of Representatives and a key powerbroker in any decision in the US Congress, until a Texas prosecutor threw a spanner into the political works.