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/ 18 January 2006
Marrying for money, it turns out, works. A study by an Ohio State University researcher shows that a person who marries — and stays married — accumulates nearly twice as much personal wealth as a person who is single or divorced. And for those who divorce, it’s a bit more expensive than giving up half of everything they own.
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/ 18 January 2006
Well before President George Bush said in 2003 that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger, a high-level state department intelligence assessment deemed the deal ”unlikely” for several reasons, The New York Times said on Wednesday.
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/ 12 January 2006
After a seven-year journey, United States space probe Stardust is scheduled to deliver to Earth on Sunday samples of rare dust it has collected from stars and comets that scientists believe could offer vital clues about the solar system’s origins.
United States Vice-President Dick Cheney was expected to be released from hospital on Monday after being taken in for treatment overnight suffering shortness of breath, his office said. Cheney was retaining fluid in connection with medication he was taking for a foot problem, a spokesperson said.
The pace of China’s economic growth poses a dire threat for the planet unless Beijing and other industrial countries change their outdated model of production and consumption, an environmental activist warned. ”Our global civilisation today is on an economic path that is environmentally unsustainable,” said Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute.
Producers of half the world’s greenhouse gases are angling for more private investment to create cleaner energy technologies and help slow global warming. The White House said its talks with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea will enhance rather than replace the Kyoto climate treaty that President George Bush rejected because of its mandatory cuts in carbon dioxide, methane and other gases.
Jailed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein told two of his lawyers that if he is sentenced to death for war crimes, he would rather die by firing squad than by hanging, The Washington Times said on Tuesday. ”I don’t value this life that much. Every human being has his time to go,” Saddam was reported as saying.
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/ 29 December 2005
Tiger Woods makes the turn on Friday onto the back side of 30, celebrating his landmark birthday with 10 major titles and a fighting chance at surpassing Jack Nicklaus’ career record in the next decade. World number one Woods, in the midst of a six-week break until late January, has practically owned the golf world since turning professional in 1996, a decade of dominance unmatched in the history of golf
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/ 26 December 2005
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has become the most popular member of the Bush administration and a potential candidate to succeed her boss in the White House, even as Americans lose confidence in the president she serves and patience with the Iraq war she helped launch.
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/ 24 December 2005
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed on Friday to offer Iraq -million to help its post-war economic recovery, the first loan of its kind for the conflict-torn country. The loan is designed to support the Iraqi government’s economic programme over the next 15 months.
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/ 24 December 2005
The new year has been postponed — but not for long. A leap second will be inserted in the world’s clocks just before midnight — Greenwich mean time — on New Year’s Eve, the United States Naval Observatory reported on Friday. That means midnight GMT will occur one second later than it would have otherwise.
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/ 23 December 2005
A teenager can get a new nose, a woman a more ample cleavage or become a virgin again — virtually any operation can be supplied for this year’s holidays. While the United States is a very religious country, it is also the one that lives up to a reputation of Christmas extravagance.
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/ 22 December 2005
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday agreed to cancel ,3-billion owed by 19 of the world’s poorest countries, after reports that it was back-tracking on the debt-relief plan sparked an outcry. The IMF had previously said it wanted one last ”spot check” of the nations’ economic policies.
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/ 22 December 2005
United States President George Bush was forced late on Wednesday to settle for a face-saving compromise on a key counterterrorism law that fell far short of his goal to see it expended indefinitely. Republican and Democratic senators agreed to extend the main provisions of the USA Patriot Act for only six months.
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/ 19 December 2005
As United States President George Bush appealed on Sunday for patience with his Iraq policies, analysts agreed the coming months were crucial to his hopes of getting out of an increasingly unpopular war. In a prime-time television speech, Bush went to extraordinary lengths to win backing for his efforts to quell an insurgency still raging 33 months after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
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/ 13 December 2005
For those too young to have lived through them, it can feel like the Depression and World War II happened in black and white. So, the brilliance in a trove of rarely seen colour photographs of the era is startling: a female railroad worker sports a red kerchief and matching nail polish; factory rows of B-25 bombers sprout like yellow corn.
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/ 11 December 2005
Eugene McCarthy, a former United States senator and an indomitable anti-war activist whose firm stance against the Vietnam War forced a re-evaluation of the US role in the conflict, has died at the age of 89, Democratic Party officials said. McCarthy passed away in his sleep at his retirement home in the US capital early on Saturday.
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/ 8 December 2005
In a rare concession to critics of the Iraq war, United States President George Bush agreed on Wednesday that ”mistakes have been made” but said US-led reconstruction and security efforts were making solid progress. ”Reconstruction has not always gone as well as we had hoped, primarily because of the security challenges on the ground,” he said.
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/ 8 December 2005
They are the addicts who slake their craving in public, snatch a fix in boring business meetings, on the subway, or even risk a hit during rows with their spouses. But Americans hooked on the BlackBerry hand-held computer, dubbed by wags as the ”CrackBerry” for the hold it has on users, may soon be tasting cold turkey, if a patent dispute forces its maker to turn off the service.
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/ 6 December 2005
China is challenging United States interests and values in Africa, shielding ”rogue states,” harming the environment and thwarting anti-corruption drives, according to a new independent survey of US policy on the continent. Beijing and the United States are on opposite sides in a new struggle for influence and resources in the new ”playing field” of Africa, said the survey.
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/ 6 December 2005
The National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, published by the White House national security council, is more a statement of United States war aims than a detailed blueprint. The central objective is defined in terms of the nature of the country US troops will leave behind when they eventually depart.
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/ 1 December 2005
In full page ads placed in leading United States newspapers on Thursday, Venezuela’s state-owned oil company vaunted its ”humanitarian” assistance to low-income US residents struggling with soaring heating costs. ”We’re not just any oil company,” said the ad, describing a programme providing 45,4-million litres of heating oil at unspecified ”deeply discounted prices” to low income families.
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/ 1 December 2005
The maker of the BlackBerry handheld computer, Research in Motion, moved closer to a potentially devastating court injunction in the United States market on Wednesday after a judge denied its request to end a patent-violation lawsuit. In the US, more than two million people use the BlackBerry for wireless e-mail and other functions.
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/ 30 November 2005
The United States economy grew at a lively 4,3% pace from July to September, the best showing in more than a year. The performance offers fresh testimony that the country’s overall economic health managed to improve despite the destructive force of Gulf Coast hurricanes.
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/ 30 November 2005
The White House, in its most detailed public plan yet for success in Iraq, said on Wednesday it expects to reduce United States forces there in 2006, but warned the country is likely to face violence ”for many years to come”. The White House released the strategy to set the stage for a speech a few hours later by President George Bush.
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/ 29 November 2005
A horse-drawn wagon pulled up to the White House on Monday with a 5,6m Christmas tree that will adorn the Blue Room, marking the official start of the holiday decorating season. First Lady Laura Bush walked outside to receive the Fraser fir that was pulled up the driveway to the North Portico by two horses.
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/ 24 November 2005
United States gay-rights advocates on Wednesday denounced a Vatican edict that bans anyone with ”homosexual tendencies” from entering the Roman Catholic priesthood. The ”instruction” damages the church and will hamper the recruitment of new priests, said a Catholic group that has campaigned for tolerance of homosexuals.
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/ 23 November 2005
Hollywood negotiated an agreement on Tuesday with the creator of BitTorrent software, popular for downloading pirated movies over the internet, in a deal aimed at reducing illegal traffic in online films. The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent his website, www.bittorrent.com, from locating pirated versions of popular movies.
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/ 23 November 2005
A millennium has passed, but the massacre is still chilling: a king and queen of ancient Cancuen, more than 30 nobles and pregnant women, are overwhelmed by their attackers and murdered with spears and axes. Deep in Guatemala’s Peten rainforest, the ruins of the sprawling palace in the old royal city have revealed skeletons and the last-minute panic that overtook Cancuen before it was overcome by marauders.
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/ 22 November 2005
”Dirty bomb” suspect Jose Padilla, a United States citizen held without charges for more than three years, faces charges of conspiring to ”murder, kidnap and maim persons” overseas, under an indictment unsealed on Tuesday. A grand jury in Miami returned the indictment against Padilla and four others.
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/ 22 November 2005
Hugh Sidey, whose personal portraits of America’s chief executives appeared in Time magazine’s The Presidency column over four decades, died on Monday. He was 78. His brother, Ed Sidey, said other relatives told him Sidey had suffered a heart attack in Paris.
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/ 22 November 2005
United States media organisations are now skewering President George Bush over his case for ousting Saddam Hussein, but few questioned the pro-war juggernaut in the run-up to battle. Now, with the White House’s once-feared public-relations machine misfiring, Bush’s approval ratings plumbing their lowest depths, many commentators and journalists are piling on.