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/ 21 September 2005
A panel of experts on Zimbabwe admitted frustration on Tuesday that international pressure against President Robert Mugabe has failed to weaken his hold on power. Tom Woods, a top African affairs official at the United States State Department, said the grim prospect for Zimbabweans is that Mugabe will remain in power until his term ends in 2008.
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/ 20 September 2005
Former Tyco International chief Dennis Kozlowski and his top lieutenant, Mark Swartz, were each sentenced to up to 25 years in prison in New York on Monday for looting the company of hundreds of millions of dollars. The two men stood accused of using the conglomerate as a personal piggy bank.
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/ 20 September 2005
Simon Wiesenthal, the Holocaust survivor who helped track down numerous Nazi war criminals following World War II and then spent the later decades of his life fighting anti-Semitism and prejudice against all people, died on Tuesday. Wiesenthal spent more than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals.
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/ 20 September 2005
Gordon Gould, a pioneer in laser technology who coined the word ”laser” and won a decades-long struggle to secure patent rights for the most commonly used type, has died. He was 85. Gould, a resident of Sag Harbor, on Long Island, once said that his first ideas for the laser came suddenly to him in 1957.
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/ 19 September 2005
The United States will send four astronauts to the moon in 2018 in a return to its pioneering manned mission into space, Nasa administrator Michael Griffin announced on Monday. Nasa is to design a new rocket based on the technology from its ageing shuttles that are to be retired in 2010, Griffin said.
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/ 19 September 2005
Everybody Loves Raymond, a television comedy series that is being dropped off the small screen after a nine-year run, won its category in the 2005 Emmy Awards late on Sunday, beating Desperate Housewives, which had been largely expected to clinch that prize.
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/ 19 September 2005
United States weather monitors issued a hurricane watch for Florida’s western islands on Sunday as Tropical Storm Rita brewed in the western Atlantic. ”Rita is getting much better organised and strengthening as it nears the south-eastern Bahamas,” the National Hurricane Centre said on Sunday evening.
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/ 19 September 2005
Leavander Johnson had worked a long time for his big night, 16 years to be exact. His first title defence turned tragic, however, leaving the veteran boxer in a fight that most with his kind of injury don’t win. Johnson was in a drug-induced coma on Sunday following emergency brain surgery he underwent just minutes after losing his lightweight title the night before.
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/ 19 September 2005
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Sunday dangled the threat of United Nations sanctions against parties blocking a peace process in strife-torn Côte d’Ivoire, a former French colony. ”Each side must respect the commitments made so free and transparent elections can be held throughout the country,” he noted.
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/ 18 September 2005
Stanley Burnshaw, a publisher and literary critic who edited the works of his friend Robert Frost, died on Friday on Martha’s Vineyard in the United States. He was 99. Burnshaw, whose literary career spanned more than seven decades, also won critical acclaim for his own poems and books.
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/ 17 September 2005
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez said on Friday he has proof of a United States plan to invade his county at the end of a visit to the US for the United Nations General Assembly packed with diplomatic fireworks. ”I have evidence that there are plans to invade Venezuela,” the left-wing leader told ABC television in an interview.
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/ 17 September 2005
Producer Sid Luft, who is credited with reviving the career of his then-wife Judy Garland in the 1950s, has died. He was 89. Luft, whose movie production credits included Kilroy Was Here (1947), French Leave (1948) and A Star Is Born (1954), died on Thursday in Santa Monica of an apparent heart attack.
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/ 17 September 2005
The United States Catholic Church, stung by a sex-abuse scandal, is poised to launch a quiet campaign to clean its seminaries of people suspected of homosexual orientation, sparking protests from the gay community whose leaders have compared the effort to a witch-hunt.
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/ 17 September 2005
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan joined three African leaders on Friday to welcome a -million commitment by six United States-based foundations to support universities in seven countries, calling it a concrete example of the needs being discussed by world leaders at the UN World Summit in New York.
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/ 16 September 2005
New Orleans’s French Quarter with its historic facades — a pulsing microcosm full of jazz bars, piano bars, hotels, restaurants, sex clubs and galleries — might be able to return to its normal day- and nightlife since it was relatively undamaged by Hurricane Katrina. But the city is not taking any risks.
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/ 16 September 2005
Guy Green, who won an Academy Award for cinematography for the 1946 film Great Expectations, died of heart and kidney failure at his Beverly Hills home. He was 91. Green, who also directed more than two dozen films, lapsed into a coma about 10 hours before his death on Thursday, his wife of 57 years, Josephine Green, told The Associated Press.
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/ 16 September 2005
"This morning, I forgot it was my birthday until one of the Oxfam staff wished me a happy birthday. I never expected to be celebrating my 42nd birthday at the United Nations World Summit in New York," Wednesday was the opening day of the UN World Summit and the media here were flat-out covering speech after speech by world leaders.
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/ 16 September 2005
French sports daily L’Equipe could be part of a much larger conspiracy to destroy the legacy of seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong, the cycling legend’s agent said on Thursday. Bill Stapleton said apparent lapses in anti-doping protocol raised questions about integrity of the system.
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/ 15 September 2005
Frustrated United States Democrats have their last chance on Thursday after two days of sparring to coax answers from chief justice nominee John Roberts on abortion, privacy and other controversial issues before he heads to likely Senate confirmation.
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/ 15 September 2005
Robert Wise, director of top Hollywood musicals West Side Story and The Sound of Music, died overnight at his Los Angeles home, days after his 91st birthday, an official of the San Sebastian film festival said on Thursday. The death of Wise cast a pall over the festival, which was scheduled to pay a special homage to the director who also made Star Trek, the Motion Picture.
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/ 15 September 2005
”United States President George Bush and other world leaders have been speaking today, on the first day of the United Nations World Summit, about what the summit has achieved .. The presidents and prime ministers were ushered with police escorts while helicopters flew overhead,” writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 15 September 2005
As many as 18 000 people dead. More than -billion in damages. Hundreds of thousands of people left homeless. That’s not the latest estimate of Hurricane Katrina’s toll on the Gulf Coast. That’s a worst-case scenario if a major earthquake were to hit Los Angeles.
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/ 14 September 2005
Officials and Aids organisations are working to provide care to the nearly 8 000 HIV-positive people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
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/ 14 September 2005
Diplomats at the United Nations finally reached agreement on Tuesday night on a watered-down document to reform the organisation and tackle poverty just hours before leaders arrived for the start of a world summit. This final draft fell far short of ambitious proposals for an overhaul of the UN which was set out earlier this year by Kofi Annan, the Secretary General.
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/ 13 September 2005
The promising market for internet telephony heated up on Monday as online auction giant eBay announced it was taking over the rapidly growing European firm Skype Technologies for more than ,6-billion. The deal will make Skype’s youthful founders, Niklas Zennstroem (39) of Sweden and 29-year-old Danish citizen Janus Friis, exceedingly rich men.
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/ 13 September 2005
”The decisions made by world leaders at the UN World Summit this week in New York affect all of us and are a crucial chance for UN reform. As a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, I arrived on Monday ahead of the summit and am very excited to be here,” writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 13 September 2005
"As I walk through the skyscrapers lining the streets of New York City, I feel a very long way from my home in Rwanda and it is a bit surreal to be here. But I know that the decisions made here at the United Nations World Summit this week will have a huge impact on the people in my hometown," writes Grace Mukagabiro.
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/ 12 September 2005
Andre Agassi has battled the champions of three eras — Pete Sampras, Boris Becker, John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl — and now he puts Roger Federer above them all. ”He’s the best I’ve ever played against,” Agassi said after falling to Federer 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1 in the United States Open final on Sunday.
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/ 12 September 2005
Kim Clijsters can thank the bad wrist which kept her away from tennis for much of 2004 with helping turn her into a Grand Slam champion on her fifth attempt in a final. ”I think everything has definitely made me a physically stronger person,” said the 22-year-old who banked a record-setting ,2-million payday for winning the New York women’s title.
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/ 10 September 2005
Hurricane Katrina’s damage will likely lead to a ”largely temporary” slowdown in national economic growth, though the impact on the Gulf Coast economy will be more profound, United States Treasury Secretary John Snow said on Friday. Spending on storm recovery and rebuilding will likely spur growth in 2006, Snow said.
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/ 10 September 2005
Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong was given major support in his fight against doping allegations on Friday by the International Cycling Union and a Texas legal triumph. Armstrong had his denials of taking performance-enhancing drugs strongly bolstered in separate findings.
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/ 10 September 2005
Kim Clijsters persevered through five failed match-point chances to come good on her sixth for a 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3 semifinal upset of top seed Maria Sharapova on Friday at the ,75-million United States Open. The Belgian fourth seed will play on Saturday night against French 12th seed Mary Pierce.