Former White House aide Lewis ”Scooter” Libby was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction in a case which also put a glaring spotlight on the flawed United States case for waging war against Iraq. Libby, formerly one of the most trusted aides to US Vice-President Dick Cheney, was convicted in March for lying to federal investigators.
United States Democratic Representative William Jefferson, accused of hiding 000 of intended bribes in his freezer, was charged on Monday with soliciting bribes and paying off a Nigerian official. Jefferson (63) a member of Congress since 199, faces a maximum of 235 years in prison if convicted.
United States President George Bush said on Thursday he would urge major industrialised nations at a summit next week to join a new global framework for fighting climate change after the Kyoto Protocol lapses. ”The US will work with other nations to establish a new framework on greenhouse-gas emissions for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012,” he said.
President George Bush has chosen Robert Zoellick, a former United States trade representative, to replace Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, a senior official said on Tuesday. Bush plans to announce his selection on Wednesday and expects the bank’s board to accept it, the administration official said.
The United States slapped fresh sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur conflict on Tuesday as it seeks a tough new United Nations Security Council resolution to punish Khartoum. US President George Bush expressed frustration with the Sudanese government over the plight of Darfur civilians.
The United States plans to slap fresh sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur conflict on Tuesday and seek a tough new United Nations Security Council resolution punishing Khartoum, top US officials said. China, one of Sudan’s main allies, criticised the sanctions even before they were officially announced by President George Bush.
The United States will slap fresh sanctions on Sudan over the Darfur conflict on Tuesday and seek a tough new United Nations Security Council resolution punishing Khartoum, top US officials said late on Monday. The Darfur conflict has cost at least 200Â 000 lives and forced more than two million people from their homes, according to the United Nations.
United States President George Bush on Thursday warned of heavy fighting and bloodshed to come in the next ”critical” weeks and months in Iraq, and told Iran it faces tougher sanctions over its nuclear defiance. In a White House news conference, Bush also said that US forces would pull out of Iraq if asked to do so by the Baghdad government.
The United States House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday to combat the criminal use of internet spyware and other scams aimed at stealing personal information from computer users. Spyware, said the Bill’s Democratic sponsor, Representative Zoe Lofgren, ”is one of the biggest threats to consumers on the internet”.
A day after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as World Bank president under an ethics cloud, the United States faced the tough task of healing rifts with Europeans and satisfying calls that his successor be picked on merit, not just nationality. Wolfowitz’s resignation on Thursday followed pressure by European opponents.
Paul Wolfowitz resigned as World Bank president, ending turmoil over his leadership, but the next battle loomed for the United States over how and if it should continue to appoint the head of the institution. Wolfowitz’s resignation on Thursday, forced by his handling of a high-paying promotion for his partner, takes effect on June 30.
A wildfire raged across the north-eastern American state of New Jersey on Wednesday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate in the latest in a series of such blazes to strike the United States this month. The fire was ignited when an F-16 jet fighter on a routine training mission dropped a flare on dry pinelands.
Jerry Falwell, the outspoken evangelical Christian leader who became a strong but divisive right-wing force in United States politics, died on Tuesday aged 73, an official at his Liberty University said. Falwell was found unconscious late on Tuesday morning in his office at the university in his hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz implored the lender’s board on Tuesday to keep his job, promising changes in his management style in the wake of a damaging favouritism scandal. The board of executive directors is to continue deliberations on his fate on Wednesday.
United States astronomers on Tuesday presented the most solid proof yet of the existence of dark matter, a mysterious substance believed to make up more than a quarter of the universe. Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a ring of dark matter in a galaxy cluster about five billion light years away from Earth.
Nola Ochs wanted to study history, but the 95-year-old Kansas woman made it herself when she graduated from university, becoming the world’s oldest recipient to date of a bachelor’s degree. Ochs lived the life of a farm housewife for years in Jetmore, Kansas, and began taking university correspondence courses at the age of 67.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz broke bank rules in arranging a hefty compensation package for his girlfriend, a situation that has caused a ”crisis in the leadership” at the institution, according to a report released by a special bank panel. Wolfowitz described the report’s findings on Monday as ”unfair and unwarranted”.
A majority of countries on the World Bank board believe Paul Wolfowitz should resign as president of the World Bank, bank board sources from rich and developing nations said on Friday. ”It is now very clear that a majority of members think Mr Wolfowitz must resign,” said one board source from a developing country.
United States President George Bush was readying his veto pen again after US lawmakers voted to fund the Iraq combat in phases of just a few months, the latest twist in the political feud over control of the unpopular war. The legislation now moves to the more closely divided Senate.
Senior United States Democrats on Wednesday urged President George Bush to help end the ”historic crisis” over Paul Wolfowitz’s leadership of the World Bank as the bank’s board delayed a decision over his fate until next week. The 24-nation board said it had agreed to delay until Friday the deadline for Wolfowitz to respond to a bank panel report.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II had the last laugh over United States President George Bush on Tuesday a day after the gaffe-prone Bush nearly put her age at well over 200 years. The queen hosted a return banquet for Bush and his wife Laura at the British embassy and, as she rose to give her toast, a mischievous grin came over her face.
More than 100 United States lawmakers sent China’s President Hu Jintao a letter on Wednesday warning of ”disaster” for the 2008 Olympic Games if Beijing fails to do more to stop carnage in Chinese ally Sudan’s Darfur region. The United Nations says around 200Â 000 people have died and more than two million have been made homeless since conflict flared in Darfur in 2003.
The World Bank has never fired its president in its more than 60-year history. That could change this week. The bank’s board of shareholder nations will meet as soon as Tuesday, possibly followed by a second meeting, to decide whether Paul Wolfowitz will be forced out or given the chance to negotiate his departure.
United States President George Bush welcomed Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and her husband to the White House on Monday, in what will become the first formal British royal visit with a US leader in 16 years. The monarch and Prince Philip were to be greeted on the south lawn of the White House with a 21-gun salute.
The wildlife poacher has a new ally — the internet — say activists who plan to tame this illegal trade in live animals and the remains of their slaughter, such as ivory, skins and tusks. ”Illegal trade has increased exponentially because of the ease of selling by internet,” said Lynne Levine, a spokesperson for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
United States President George Bush and the Democrats are set to take a fresh stab at crafting a measure to fund the Iraq war on Wednesday, one day after Bush vetoed a bill setting an Iraq withdrawal timeline. While the two sides were to meet at the White House hoping to hammer out new legislation to fund US troops, there was little sign of compromise on a pull-out.
The United States Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a case brought by two detainees at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, who were contesting the legality of the base’s military courts. The court did not give any reason for refusing to hear the case, but said three of the nine judges had been in favour of proceeding with the hearing.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz told an investigatory panel on Monday he is the victim of a ”smear campaign” aimed at forcing him to resign, as he gained renewed support from United States President George Bush. Wolfowitz told the World Bank panel he will not quit in the face of a ”bogus charge”.
The United States Supreme Court sided with Microsoft on Monday in a case that restricts the reach of US patents overseas. In a 7-1 decision, the court found that Microsoft is not liable in a patent dispute with AT&T. The decision could affect other lawsuits against Microsoft and save the company billions because of the global scope of its operations.
World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz will defend his handling of a promotion and pay increase for his girlfriend on Monday to a special panel, whose investigation will ultimately determine if he wins his fight to stay on as head of the development institution.
Negotiations between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan government, which restarted on April 26 in the northern Sudanese town of Juba, have given new hope to a 10-month-old peace process designed to end of one of the longest-lasting and most brutal wars in Africa.
An Iraqi al-Qaeda member accused of assassination plots against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and other attacks was transferred by the CIA to the United States military prison at Guantánamo this week, the Pentagon said on Friday.