Attorney General Alberto Gonzales attended a meeting last November that discussed the imminent enacting of a plan to fire United States federal prosecutors, the Justice Department said in documents released on Friday. The documents showed a much greater involvement for Gonzales than previously acknowledged in the controversial dismissal of eight prosecutors.
The international advocacy group Oxfam is taking on United States coffee retailer Starbucks over the chain’s reluctance to grant Ethiopian coffee farmers the right to control their coffee trademarks, something the company has promised to do earlier this year. Oxfam ran an ad in the Seattle Timesrecently urging the corporate icon to give Ethiopian farmers a greater share of the retail value of their coffees.
Russia has told Iran that it will withhold fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant unless Tehran suspends its uranium enrichment programme as the United Nations Security Council demands, the New York Times reported on Monday.
Sudan’s president on Monday denied his government was involved in widespread human rights abuses in Darfur, where an estimated 200Â 000 people have been killed in what the United States says is the first genocide of this century. Shown a picture of a map depicting burned villages in Sudan’s vast western region during an interview, President Omar al-Bashir called it a ”fabrication”.
Wallid bin Attash, a captured al-Qaeda operative, has confessed that he was the mastermind of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, according to a transcript of a military hearing released on Monday. Attash said he bought the explosives and recruited members of the team that rammed an explosives-laden boat into the side of the American destroyer.
President George Bush on Monday warned it was too early for United States troops to "pack up and go home" from Iraq, on the fourth anniversary of a war clouded by pessimism and political angst on the home front.
The United States Supreme Court examines on Monday a case raising questions over free-speech rights in US high schools as it hears arguments over a student’s unfurling of a quirky banner proclaiming ”Bong Hits 4 Jesus”. In 2002, the student, then 18, unveiled the huge banner as the Olympic flame passed in front of a crowd.
Climate change is of real concern in all parts of the world, but there is disagreement over whether the problem is urgent enough to require immediate, costly measures or whether more modest efforts will be satisfactory, according to an international poll released on Wednesday.
An independent review of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) operations in Africa says the lender’s work is confused, vague, lacks transparency and suffers from a large gap between rhetoric and practice. "The fund should be clearer and more candid about what it has undertaken to do," says the report.
The United States called on Sunday for the immediate release of Zimbabwean opposition leaders detained after riot police thwarted a planned mass protest against President Robert Mugabe’s government. The US embassy reported that one person was killed, ”a number” were injured and 100 people were arrested, including Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
Barack Obama, a star of the Democratic party and a frontrunner in the presidential race, was forced on to the defensive this week over past financial dealings. Disclosure of his share dealings in two companies was a knock to Obama, who is campaigning on a platform of higher ethical standards in politics and tougher restrictions on political funding and lobbying.
The downfall of Lewis ”Scooter” Libby, one of the leading figures in the Bush administration, was completed recently. The man who had swaggered round the White House as chief of staff to the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was subdued as he listened to the verdict in courtroom 17 of the United States District Court, within walking distance of his former office.
Brad Delp, the lead singer of the 1970s and 1980s rock band Boston was found dead at his home in southern New Hampshire on Friday, local police said. Delp (55) was apparently home alone and there was no indication of foul play, Atkinson, New Hampshire, police said.
Brad Delp, the lead singer of the 1970s and 1980s rock band Boston, was found dead at his home in southern New Hampshire on Friday March 9, local police said. Delp (55) was apparently home alone and there was no indication of foul play, Atkinson, New Hampshire, police said.
The FBI improperly obtained credit reports and other information on individuals through errors in using its power to investigate terrorism or espionage suspects, the Washington Post reported. The findings prompted an ”incensed” Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to order the FBI to place new safeguards over its use of so-called national-security letters
Libyan security personnel routinely torture detainees, the United States State Department said in a report describing the country’s human rights situation as poor. The state also restricted civil liberties and freedoms of speech, press, assembly and association, the report said.
The continuing genocide in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region was the world’s worst human rights abuse last year, the United States said on Tuesday in a global report that found freedoms were eroding in numerous other nations, including US allies Afghanistan and Iraq. The State Department also criticised Russia for a ”further erosion of government accountability”.
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz hopes the United States will be a leader, not a follower, when it comes to committing new funds for the world’s poorest countries in negotiations of the bank’s 40 biggest donors starting in Paris next week. Wolfowitz said he also hoped for new money from emerging lenders like rich oil-producing countries.
Federal Reserve chairperson Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday this week’s sharp stock market drop had not changed the Fed’s view that the United States economy was sound, remarks that helped shaken markets regain confidence. His remarks came a day after the US stock market suffered its worst slide since 2001.
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/ 28 February 2007
Human rights activists have welcomed the request by the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday that it issue summonses against a senior Sudanese government official and an Arab militia leader who allegedly played key roles in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Darfur since 2003.
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/ 23 February 2007
Mordkhe Schaechter, who dedicated his life to preserving Yiddish as a living language, has died in the United States, aged 79, the <i>New York Times</i> reported on February 17. Schaechter, who was born in Romania, died in a hospital in the north Bronx after a long illness, his daughter said.
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/ 22 February 2007
The United States on Wednesday condemned police crackdowns on peaceful protest in Zimbabwe and urged President Robert Mugabe’s government to let people exercise their political rights. Protests broke out over the weekend after Mugabe declared his plan to postpone elections scheduled for next year and continue his presidency.
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/ 15 February 2007
Scientists have captured an image of the Aids virus in a biological handshake with the immune cells it attacks, and said on Wednesday they hope this can help lead to a better vaccine against the incurable disease. They pinpointed a place on the outside of the human immunodeficiency virus that could be vulnerable to antibodies that could block it from infecting human cells.
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/ 14 February 2007
United States President George Bush said on Wednesday he did not know if the leaders of Iran ordered members of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to provide improvised explosive devices to militias in Iraq. His comments contrasted with comments by US officials in Baghdad, who had said earlier that the highest levels of the Iranian government were involved.
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/ 13 February 2007
The visit this week of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to the United States has elements of a homecoming as she defends her government’s development policies before a three-day World Bank gathering of international experts and delegates from at least 20 countries.
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/ 12 February 2007
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied on Monday that Iran is supplying sophisticated weapons to Iraqi militants and said peace would return to Iraq only when United States and other foreign forces leave. ”The US administration and [US President George] Bush are used to accusing others,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview with US television network ABC.
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/ 8 February 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday she is cautiously optimistic that it may be possible to begin carrying out a September 2005 agreement on ending North Korea’s nuclear programs. ”I am cautiously optimistic that we may be able to begin, again, to implement the joint statement of 2005,” Rice told a congressional panel.
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/ 8 February 2007
No extra United States combat troops will be stationed in Africa as a result of plans to create a US military command for the continent. The headquarters will have a strong focus on helping African nations train their security forces and will include more US government civilians than other regional command centres.
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/ 7 February 2007
The United States Federal Reserve sent record payouts of more than -billion in cash to Baghdad on giant pallets aboard military planes shortly before the US gave control back to Iraqis. The money came from Iraqi oil exports, surplus dollars from the United Nations-run oil-for-food programme and frozen assets belonging to the ousted Saddam Hussein regime.
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/ 6 February 2007
President George Bush has approved a Pentagon plan to create a new military command for operations in Africa to coordinate action and counter potential threats from the continent, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday. ”This command will enable us to have a more effective and integrated approach than the current arrangement,” Gates told a congressional panel.
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/ 6 February 2007
A shortage of African peacekeepers probably means that nations of the continent will not be able to provide enough troops to meet the United Nations target for deployment in Darfur. Cameron Hume, who heads the United States diplomatic mission in Sudan, said the African Union probably could deploy no more than 10 000 peacekeepers at any one time.
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/ 5 February 2007
President George Bush on Monday proposed more than -billion in new spending for the United States military — much of it for the Iraq war — in a budget that would curb domestic programmes from health to education. Bush also warned that even more spending for Iraq could be needed, as he unveiled a ,9-trillion budget certain to stoke anger among Democrats.