No image available
/ 16 January 2008
Scientists in Uruguay have found the fossil remains of a 1 000kg rodent that lived two million to four million years ago — the largest rodent found to date. The giant creature probably ate soft food such as fruit or tender plants, Andres Rinderknecht and Ernesto Blanco reported on Wednesday.
No image available
/ 16 January 2008
A federal judge in Washington has ordered Libya and six of its officials to pay more than -billion in damages to families of seven Americans killed in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner, lawyers for the families said in a statement late on Tuesday.
No image available
/ 10 January 2008
What’s in store for tech fans in 2008? Plenty. If the stirrings of the present are any indication of what’s on the horizon, technology buffs can look forward to products that are better, faster, and less expensive than those we rely on today. The best news of all is that some of the most exciting products should appear earlier in 2008 rather than later on.
No image available
/ 10 January 2008
As adult obesity balloons in the United States, being overweight has become less of a health hazard and more of a lifestyle choice, the author of a new book argues. ”Obesity is a natural extension of an advancing economy. As you become a First World economy and you get all these labour-saving devices and low-cost, easily accessible foods, people are going to eat more and exercise less,” health economist Eric Finkelstein says.
Iranian speedboats swarmed three United States navy ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, radioing a threat to blow them up and prompting a stiff US warning ahead of President George Bush’s trip to the Middle East, Pentagon officials said on Monday.
The United States Supreme Court will on Monday take up the thorny issue of lethal injections in a bid to determine if this method of executing death-row inmates conforms with the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. The review comes after death-penalty opponents have demonstrated that lethal injection can in fact be painful.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf conceded that a gunman may have shot Benazir Bhutto but said the opposition leader exposed herself to danger and bore responsibility for her death, CBS News said on Saturday. Musharraf was also quoted as telling the CBS 60 Minutes programme that his government did everything it could to provide security for Bhutto.
No image available
/ 24 December 2007
A heavy snowstorm pelted the American Midwest, causing deadly road accidents and power failures and grounding flights for Christmas holiday travellers, United States media reported on Monday. The storm left at least 11 dead in car crashes across the central US over the weekend, local papers said.
No image available
/ 21 December 2007
With the first showdown only days away, United States presidential hopefuls will take a break for Christmas and let their television ads propagate some holiday cheer, but not exempt of political undertones. As expected, it looks like all the candidates have cleared their agendas of rallies and meetings at least on December 25, though the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, is held only nine days later.
No image available
/ 20 December 2007
Christmas is going to the dogs — and cats — in the United States, where many of the 71,1-million US households that have a furry family member include them in their holiday celebrations. That doesn’t just mean buying them a present, but includes throwing a party for them, having them photographed with Santa, or giving them a spa treatment.
No image available
/ 19 December 2007
Time magazine named Russian President Vladimir Putin its person of the year for 2007 on Wednesday, saying he had returned his country from chaos to ”the table of world power” though at a cost to democratic principles. ”He’s not a good guy, but he’s done extraordinary things,” said Time managing editor Richard Stengel.
No image available
/ 11 December 2007
Human evolution has been moving at breakneck speed in the past several thousand years, far from plodding along as some scientists had thought. People today are genetically more different from people living 5 000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30 000 years ago.
No image available
/ 11 December 2007
The guitar is slick, the bass and drums mesmerising, and if it weren’t for the lyrics, you would think the LeeVees were just another up-and-coming American rock band. But with lyrics that ponder what goes best with latkes — potato pancakes traditionally eaten at Hanukkah — or how to spell Hanukkah, the LeeVees position themselves squarely in the middle of a rising musical genre whose proponents call it new Jewish music.
No image available
/ 8 December 2007
The intelligence came from an exotic variety of sources: there was the so-called Laptop of Death; there was the Iranian commander who mysteriously disappeared in Turkey. But pivotal to the United States investigation into Iran’s suspect nuclear-weapons programme was the work of a little-known intelligence specialist, Thomas Fingar.
No image available
/ 7 December 2007
The new head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) plans to slash as much as 15% of the organisation’s staff in its first significant job cuts, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s plans are aimed at reducing deficits and maintaining the relevance of the group.
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
For the Facebook generation, love now comes with a drop-down menu. With profiles on the Facebook social networking site almost de rigueur on campuses, students can define their relationship status with menu choices ranging from ”married” to that perennial favorite, ”It’s complicated.”
No image available
/ 5 December 2007
United States President George Bush is not known for changing his mind. Unmoved by the collective wisdom of the US intelligence community, he still insists that Iran is a threat, even if it did give up its nuclear weapons programme four years ago.
No image available
/ 4 December 2007
The United States will slap travel and financial sanctions on about 40 more people with ties to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has cracked down hard on dissent, a senior US official said on Monday. ”Mugabe’s tyranny needs to end,” said US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer.
No image available
/ 30 November 2007
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Ethiopia next week for meetings on the conflicts in the volatile African Great Lakes region and Sudan and Somalia, said the State Department on Thursday. Rice, a rare visitor to the African continent, will make her third trip to sub-Saharan Africa since becoming Secretary of State in 2005.
No image available
/ 29 November 2007
Overtaken as the largest funder of global HIV/Aids programmes, the World Bank is now focusing on easing the economic damage inflicted by the syndrome in Africa and finding ways of controlling its spread through better prevention, care and treatment. Global funding for HIV/Aids reached -billion in 2007 compared to ,6-billion available in 2001.
No image available
/ 28 November 2007
United States President George Bush invited Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the White House to renew long-stalled peace talks on Wednesday but faced deep scepticism over chances for a deal. Finally embracing a hands-on approach, Bush will ceremonially inaugurate the first formal Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in seven years.
No image available
/ 27 November 2007
The National Football League’s (NFL) Sean Taylor, a star defensive player for the Washington Redskins, died on Tuesday after being shot at his home near Miami, local television stations in Washington reported. Taylor (24), who was the Redskins first pick in the 2004 draft, was shot in the leg, severing his femoral artery, during an apparent home robbery on Monday.
No image available
/ 27 November 2007
President George Bush launched a United States drive to create a Palestinian state on Monday, with Israelis and Palestinians nearing an agreement to address the toughest issues of their decades-old conflict. His legacy dominated by war in Iraq, Bush began three days of Middle East diplomacy in separate Oval Office meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators neared an agreement on Monday on a peace agenda ahead of a new drive by United States President George Bush to restart long-dormant talks to create a Palestinian state. Expectations were low for three days of meetings in Washington and nearby Annapolis, Maryland.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
A 6,2-magnitude earthquake hit near the city of Iwaki in Japan on Monday, the United States Geological Survey said, revising it to a slightly stronger quake than it initially reported. Strong earthquakes have also hit Indonesia and India since Sunday, killing at least three people in central Indonesia.
No image available
/ 26 November 2007
United States President George Bush meets Palestinian and Israeli leaders on Monday in a last-ditch push for Palestinian statehood before he leaves office in 14 months. Expectations are low for three days of talks because Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all face political challenges at home.
No image available
/ 22 November 2007
”If the United States wants to win a war, it ought to be the war on malaria,” says one of Africa’s best-known singing stars, Youssou N’Dour. The Senegalese superstar, who played at the Kennedy Centre in Washington on Monday, takes time to throw the spotlight over to malaria, which in Africa kills almost a million children a year.
No image available
/ 21 November 2007
A breakthrough in stem-cell research could give United States President George Bush and his anti-abortion allies a political benefit in a debate Democrats have long been planning to use in next year’s elections. Stem cells extracted from embryos a few days old can morph into any type of tissue.
No image available
/ 21 November 2007
Condoleezza Rice taught crisis management at Stanford University but experts say the top United States diplomat will need more than academic prowess to mediate an end to six decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ”The question is, will she have that diplomatic skill to pull it off?” asked Daniel Levy, a former Israeli mediator.
No image available
/ 20 November 2007
The United Nations has slashed its estimates of how many people are infected with HIV/Aids, from nearly 40-million to 33-million. In a report to be issued on Tuesday, the UN says revised estimates on HIV in India account for a large part of the decrease.
No image available
/ 14 November 2007
Thousands of people who volunteered to test an experimental Aids vaccine that may have actually raised the risk of infection will be told if they got the actual shot. Merck and academic researchers said they would ”unblind” the study, meaning everyone would find out who got the active shot and who got a dummy injection.
No image available
/ 9 November 2007
A divided United States Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General on Thursday, setting aside concerns he might support interrogation methods decried worldwide as torture. On a largely party-line vote of 53-40, the Senate approved his nomination to succeed Alberto Gonzales.