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/ 27 January 2008
‘We’re running out of oil!” We’ve been hearing this warning at least since the 1970s oil shocks, but recently it has been proclaimed with increasing insistence. The idea goes back to 1956, when Shell geologist M King Hubbert declared that the world had enough oil for only about 50 more years, writes Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero.
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/ 24 January 2008
A Russian university has bought one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, the first time that such sophisticated technology has been exported to the former Soviet Union, makers IBM said on Thursday. The Moscow State University has selected a Blue Gene device capable of 27,8-trillion operations per second to use in research on nanotechnology.
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/ 22 January 2008
The United States Federal Reserve on Tuesday slashed a key interest rate by a hefty three-quarters of a percentage point, the biggest cut in more than 23 years, after a two-day global stocks rout sparked by fears of a US recession. ”The Fed is very, very, very worried,” said John Tierney, an analyst at Deutsche Bank.
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/ 18 January 2008
Bobby Fischer, who died on January 17 aged 64, was a high school dropout who may have been the greatest chess player of all time, but ended his life in eccentric seclusion. The United States-born player had lived for the last two years in Iceland after serving eight months behind bars in Japan.
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/ 18 January 2008
Former world chess champion Bobby Fischer has died of an unspecified illness, a spokesperson for the late champion said on Friday. He was 64. Fischer, who beat Russian Boris Spassky in 1972 to become world champion, was considered by some chess experts to be the greatest player of all time.
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/ 15 January 2008
Hollywood star Wesley Snipes used a novel interpretation of United States tax laws to avoid paying anything on the -million he earned from blockbusters including Blade and Demolition Man. When investigators closed in on the actor he allegedly fled to South Africa on a false passport.
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/ 10 January 2008
Impoverished Zimbabwean farmers have to show they are loyal members of the ruling party if they want free equipment that the government is offering, and opposition supporters have been threatened with dogs, independent democracy monitors said on Thursday.
Oil at a barrel should give exporters every incentive to pump more, but their difficulty in doing so shows the world is struggling to sustain production. A growing number of leading industry figures now question mainstream forecasts for supply, suggesting the era of ”plateau oil” is nearer than many had admitted.
Some time before 2050, satellites collecting solar power and beaming it back to Earth will become a primary energy source, streaming terawatts of electricity continuously from space. That’s if you believe a recent report from the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office.
Some time before 2050, satellites collecting solar power and beaming it back to Earth will become a primary energy source, streaming terawatts of electricity continuously from space. That’s if you believe a recent report from the Pentagon’s National Security Space Office.
Gunmen killed a United States government aid agency official and his driver in Khartoum on Tuesday, US and Sudanese officials said. The unknown assailants opened fire as the official from the US Agency for International Development was heading home in an embassy vehicle shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, diplomatic sources said.
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/ 6 December 2007
In Texas, amorous couples get engaged in Loving — and then go to Looneyville via Hoop and Holler. Earth is also in Texas, and lies about 2 400km away from Mars and Venus, both in Pennsylvania. And the good people of Rising Sun, Maryland, probably have close ties to their kinfolk in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, Toast in North Carolina and Two Egg, Florida.
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/ 2 December 2007
Venezuelans vote in a tightly contested referendum on Sunday on whether to allow left-wing President Hugo Chávez to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections or hand him his first defeat at the polls. The anti-American firebrand, who has easily won one election after another against a fragmented opposition, is in the hardest campaign of his life.
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/ 29 November 2007
A trio of British bankers dubbed the ”Natwest Three” face 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing ,3-million tied to the collapse of Enron. The men, who worked for Natwest’s investment banking arm, concocted a deal in 2000 with two senior Enron executives who have since been jailed.
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/ 28 November 2007
A vast archive of German war records opened its doors to the public on Wednesday, giving historians and Holocaust survivors, who have waited more than 60 years, access to concentration-camp records detailing Nazi horrors. The 11 countries that oversee the archive have finished ratifying an accord unsealing about 50-million pages.
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/ 27 November 2007
Three British bankers whose extradition to the United States caused a political storm last year are on the brink of a plea agreement that could involve an admission of wrongdoing over an alleged -million fraud related to the collapse of Enron.
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/ 22 November 2007
Oil steadied above a barrel on Thursday, after falling just shy of the milestone in the previous session, as the dollar tumbled to fresh record lows. United States light crude for January delivery was down one cent at ,28 a barrel by 2.40pm GMT. Oil briefly surged to a lifetime peak of ,29 a barrel on Wednesday.
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/ 15 November 2007
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is expected to appoint a caretaker government on Thursday to oversee elections he has promised for January but which the opposition say will be a sham under emergency rule. ”We don’t expect fair and free elections under General Musharraf and his mini martial law,” said Farhatullah Babar, an opposition spokesperson.
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/ 8 November 2007
Oil recouped early losses to resume its march towards the -milestone on Thursday as resurfacing worries of tight winter supplies and continuing dollar weakness put the brakes on some early profit-taking. By 12.57pm GMT, United States crude for December delivery stood 57 cents up at ,94.
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/ 7 November 2007
West African military chiefs have charged that the United States has failed to consult adequately with countries that will be affected by a planned American military command for Africa. The group said the plan ”had not been fully understood” by African countries.
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/ 7 November 2007
Oil prices jumped to a new trading record above $98 a barrel on Wednesday amid expectations of declining United States supplies. The weak dollar and the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’s apparent reluctance to pump more crude into the market also boosted prices.
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/ 2 November 2007
The dollar struck a new all-time low against the euro on Friday as technical factors offset positive United States jobs data, dealers said. In European trade, the euro rose to a record $1,4525. It later fell back to $1,4484, compared with $1,4422 in New York late on Thursday.
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/ 30 October 2007
United States State Department investigators looking into the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last month offered immunity deals to Blackwater security guards. The investigators from the agency’s investigative arm did not, however, have the authority to offer such immunity grants.
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/ 12 October 2007
The United States should reconsider funding anti-HIV/Aids strategies in Uganda, where recipients of such money violate the rights of homosexuals, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. The watchdog group, in a letter to US officials on Thursday, said Ugandan officials and the media have intensified attacks on the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
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/ 11 October 2007
An injured survivor and relatives of three Iraqis killed in Baghdad on September 16 when employees of private security company Blackwater USA opened fire on civilians sued the firm in a United States court on Thursday. The Centre for Constitutional Rights said it filed the suit charging that Blackwater and its affiliates violated US law in committing ”extrajudicial killings and war crimes”.
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/ 10 October 2007
Iraqi authorities on Wednesday condemned the killing in Baghdad of two women by foreign security guards, as the firm which hired the contractors defended its action. Tuesday’s bloodbath comes just days after Iraq vowed to punish United States security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago.
Iraq has vowed to punish United States security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not provoked when they opened ”deliberate” fire in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 civilians. The US embassy was tight-lipped on Monday on whether those involved in the September 16 killings would be handed over for prosecution.
President George Bush said on Friday that the United States does not use torture during interrogations, amid renewed debate about his administration’s methods in the war on terror. ”This government does not torture people. We stick to US law and our international obligations,” Bush said.
The United States company at the centre of the scandal over the role of private security guards in Iraq brushed aside accusations that it was a cowboy outfit on Tuesday, even as details emerged about a incident in which an allegedly drunken member was involved in a fatal shooting.
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/ 29 September 2007
Burma or Myanmar? As the military regime has cracked down on pro-democracy protests in the Asian country this week, a war of words has flared again over what to call the troubled nation. The United States and the BBC prefer the old name, Burma, while the United Nations, Japan and other nations have adopted Myanmar.
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/ 28 September 2007
In 1974 Richard Nixon, the United States president, was ready to support the release on humanitarian grounds of prisoner number seven, but his efforts were thwarted by unwavering Soviet opposition. So Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s former deputy, dubbed ”the loneliest man in the world” remained locked up.
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/ 25 September 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad clashed with an United States university president who called him a ”petty and cruel dictator” at a forum on Monday where Ahmadinejad criticised Israel and the US and said Iran was a peaceful nation. Ahmadinejad also said in an appearance at Columbia University that Iran’s nuclear programme was purely peaceful.