The scandal began with a botched burglary that initially attracted little attention but ended two years later with the first and only resignation of a president. To many Americans, Watergate is a dimming memory, if that. A majority of living Americans were not yet born or were children when President Richard Nixon was forced from office in 1974.
Key figures from the Watergate era, closely involved in events that culminated in the 1974 resignation of president Richard Nixon, blasted late on Tuesday a former top FBI official who leaked information about White House wrongdoings and brought the scandal to a head.
The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm for destroying Enron Corporation-related documents before the energy giant’s collapse. In a unanimous opinion, justices said the former Big Five accounting firm’s June 2002 conviction was improper.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was set on Thursday for a groundbreaking summit at the White House, seeking strong United States commitments to a viable Palestinian state and a halt to Israeli settlement expansion. Abbas is looking for renewed support for an independent and contiguous Palestinian state.
The CIA is conducting a war game this week to simulate an unprecedented, September 11-like electronic assault against the United States. The three-day exercise, known as ”Silent Horizon,” is meant to test the ability of the government and industry to respond to escalating internet disruptions over many months.
In the shadow of the Washington Monument, within sight of the White House, unfamiliar, even un-American, things, are happening. A man in fine white cottons throws a ball to another, who hits it with an oddly wide bat. Other men, dressed in the same way, catch the ball and throw it through the air.
First came Madonna’s steamy smooch with Britney Spears, then Janet Jackson ignited fury by baring a breast. Now new battlelines are being drawn up in America’s culture wars — over TV condom ads. ”Condoms are the line in the sand,” said Randy Sharp of the American Family Association, which is behind a mass e-mail campaign to safeguard one of television’s last taboos.
The Zimbabwe government has published a Bill that will allow the government to set fees for private schools, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday. The Education Amendment Bill is expected to be debated when Parliament resumes next month, the Herald newspaper said.
A beast of burden turned the tables on a United States woman, giving her a load to bear when the camel sat on her and pinned her to the ground. On the bright side — if there is one to such a situation — the woman in Bethlehem, West Virginia, had her cellphone in her hand at the time.
A new version of the Netscape browser, the early leader in the internet field, was launched on Thursday with new updates aimed at fighting viruses, spyware and other security problems. Netscape takes a page from the growing Firefox browser, with which it shares many technical origins.
Claiming invasion of privacy and humiliation, a staff attorney for a United States senator has filed suit against a woman who published details of their sexual relationship on her blog, or web log. Robert Steinbuch, a counsel for Republican Senator Michael DeWine, filed the civil suit on Monday.
The arrest of accused airline bomber Luis Posada Carriles in Florida poses a thorny problem for United States President George Bush, who has vowed to battle terrorism anywhere, analysts said. Federal agents arrested Posada Carriles (77) on Tuesday two hours after he held a secret press conference with selected reporters.
Former South African leader Nelson Mandela told on Monday, ahead of a meeting with United States President George Bush, how he backs the US leader’s call for global ”liberty” but disagrees with some of Bush’s methods. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate insisted, however, it is just a disagreement among friends.
Jesus Christ is having trouble convincing United States courts to let him keep his name. It’s not the Messiah who is facing this problem, of course, but an American business-owner who, about 15 years ago, adopted the name of the Christian God’s son. The man, born Peter Robert Phillips Jnr, started his legal battle in 2003.
An investigation over the sourcing and accuracy of roughly 160 news stories by a freelance journalist at a leading internet news site concluded that the existence of more than 40 people quoted in the articles could not be confirmed. The stories appeared on Wired News and covered subjects that ranged from computer viruses to the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Karl Rove watched the early returns trickle in on a big screen at the British embassy on Thursday night, and then when the shape of result began to emerge, he donned a red rosette and walked away. It was a suitably ambivalent gesture for United States President George Bush’s ever-present political mastermind.
United States civilian authorities in Iraq cannot properly account for nearly -million that was supposed to have been spent on reconstruction projects in south-central Iraq, government investigators said. There are indications of fraud in the use of the ,6-million, according to a report released on Wednesday.
An explosion shattered windows outside a building that houses the British consulate in New York City in the early hours of Thursday, but there were no injuries or structural damage, CNN said. The blast came as Britain is holding general elections, and police are investigating its origins, CNN said.
Two teenagers who drifted at sea for six days in a small sailing boat without food or water told on Monday how they prayed to be rescued from the shark-infested waters of the Atlantic. Josh Long (17) and Troy Driscoll (15) were found on Saturday off Cape Fear in North Carolina, having drifted for more than 160km.
President George Bush signed the biggest rewrite of United States bankruptcy law in a quarter of a century on Wednesday, making it harder for debt-ridden Americans to wipe out their obligations. ”Bankruptcy should always be a last resort in our legal system,” Bush said.
South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on Monday for the Vatican to name Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze as pope to facilitate a better understanding of the poor in developing countries. He was writing in the newspaper USA Today as Roman Catholic cardinals began deliberating on their next pope.
Almost 11-million children in developing countries die before the age of five, most of them from causes that are preventable in wealthier countries, the World Bank said in a report. About 2 000 of these children die in a week, said Francois Bourguignon, the bank’s chief economist.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday urged donors who pledged ,5-billion for war-torn Sudan to provide the cash quickly, and the African Union to send peacekeepers to prevent more death and suffering. In the past, ”we’ve learned that donor pledges often remain unfulfilled”, he said.
The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that measures were being taken to destroy potentially deadly samples of the 1957 influenza virus, sent out unintentionally for tests to more 3 700 laboratories in 18 countries. The influenza virus to be destroyed, known as H2N2, vanished in 1968.
Mike Tyson is returning to the ring. The former heavyweight boxing champion will fight for the first time in nearly a year, facing journeyman Kevin McBride on June 11 at Washington’s MCI Centre, a boxing source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity on Monday.
Two images dominated US television screens during the prolonged battle over Terri Schiavo, who tragically plunged into an acrimonious national debate on right-to-die ethics. One showed a pretty brunette smiling into a camera for a family snapshot. The second shows an emaciated woman unable to control her grins and grimaces, blissfully unaware of the arguments over her fate.
After their application to the federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia, was again declined on Thursday, Terri Schiavo’s parents filed another appeal to the US Supreme Court. The court can deny the stay, grant it or refer it to the entire court for a decision. Meanwhile, actor Mel Gibson called the situation a dark day for the United States.
Media-entertainment giant Time Warner has agreed to pay -million to settle charges that its America Online (AOL) division fraudulently overstated ad revenues and internet subscribers from 2000 to 2002, regulators said on Monday. The penalty of -million will be distributed to ”harmed investors” of the company.
With demonstrators shouting religious slogans outside, United States Supreme Court justices this week argued and fretted over whether the Ten Commandments displayed on government property cross the line between church and state. Arguments in cases from Texas and Kentucky were the court’s first consideration of the issue since 1980, when justices ruled that they could not be displayed in public schools.
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/ 23 February 2005
The United States State Department on Tuesday accused Zimbabwe of a ”pattern of intimidation” of journalists amid reports some foreign newsmen had fled the country after being questioned by the authorities. Spokesperson Richard Boucher also said the the forthcoming parliamentary elections needed to be ”free and fair”.
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/ 18 February 2005
Microsoft said on Thursday it was recalling about 14-million power cords for the software giant’s Xbox gaming consoles due to a potential fire risk. ”This is a preventative step we’re choosing to take despite the rarity of these incidents,” said Robbie Bach, senior Vice-President of the Home and Entertainment Division.
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/ 18 February 2005
The difference between man and machine is shrinking. Scientists have developed a robot that ”learns” to walk like a toddler, improving its step and balance with every stride. The robot uses its curved feet and motorised ankles to spring its legs forward, its arms swinging at every step to help with balance.