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/ 22 September 2007
Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani startled a United States gun-lobby audience on Friday when he interrupted his speech to take a phone call from his wife — and it didn’t seem to be an emergency. ”Hello, dear. I’m talking to the members of the NRA right now. Would you like to say hello?” he chirped.
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/ 20 September 2007
United States Federal Reserve Chairperson Ben Bernanke told Congress on Thursday that the credit crisis has created ”significant market stress” and offered fresh assurances that regulators will take steps to curb fallout related to the mortgage mess.
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/ 18 September 2007
Chinese and Russian spies are stalking the United States at levels close to those seen during the tense covert espionage duels of the Cold War, the top US intelligence officer warned on Tuesday. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell was to raise the spectre of a new era of clandestine intelligence wars during a House of Representatives hearing on a contentious new law on wiretapping.
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/ 17 September 2007
United States President George Bush was planning to announce on Monday he had chosen former federal judge Michael Mukasey as his nominee for Attorney General, the White House said. Mukasey (66) would replace Alberto Gonzales, who resigned last month.
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/ 16 September 2007
Former Federal Reserve chairperson Alan Greenspan, in a memoir to be released on Monday, criticised President George Bush and congressional Republicans for abandoning fiscal discipline and for putting politics ahead of sound economics. In his book, Greenspan said he was surprised Bush was unwilling to temper his campaign promises with fiscal reality once elected.
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/ 16 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Sunday faced a new clash with congressional Democrats over the unpopular war in Iraq as Senate Democrats reportedly reached a deal that would allow soldiers to spend more time at home. ”If we were to be driven out of Iraq, extremists of all strains would be emboldened,” Bush said on Saturday.
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/ 14 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling war-weary Americans the US military role there will stretch beyond his presidency. Bush acknowledged Americans’ frustration with the war but insisted progress was being made.
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/ 13 September 2007
Hurricane Humberto blasted across south-east Texas on Thursday as it headed toward Louisiana, packing strong winds and triggering fears of flooding, United States forecasters said. Humberto emerged as a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and mushroomed into a hurricane moments before slamming ashore.
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/ 12 September 2007
Nasa’s Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit have resumed their three-year-old mission after surviving giant dust storms that nearly destroyed the twin robots, the United States space agency said. The rovers had been placed in hibernation mode in July to protect them from the Martian dust storms.
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/ 11 September 2007
Anti-war Senate Democrats bluntly told Iraq commander General David Petraeus on Tuesday his troop surge strategy was an abject failure in its prime objective — forcing a political settlement. Several senior Senate Republicans also questioned the administration’s approach as the general endured a grilling on a second day of high-stakes testimony to Congress.
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/ 11 September 2007
The United States trade deficit declined slightly in July as record exports of farm goods, autos and other products offset a big jump in foreign oil prices. The deficit with China hit the second-highest level yet, reflecting strong demand for Chinese-made goods despite a string of high-profile recalls.
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/ 11 September 2007
A man awaiting trial on child-sex charges in the southern state of Arkansas in the United States tried to saw off his right leg in an apparent escape bid, police said on Monday. Days before he was due to appear in court on charges of rape and engaging children in sexually explicit conduct, Jerry Scholes sawed down to the bone of his right calf.
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/ 10 September 2007
The top United States commander in Iraq on Monday said the number of US troops in Iraq could be cut by next summer to roughly 130 000, its level before this year’s ”surge” of 30 000 forces. General David Petraeus also strongly endorsed US President George Bush’s decision to add forces this year.
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/ 8 September 2007
The Bush administration defended its economic record on Friday, following a report that showed the economy lost 4 000 jobs in August, the first job loss in four years. The administration said that the tax cuts enacted in Bush’s first term in office were ”helping keep our economy strong, flexible and dynamic”.
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/ 8 September 2007
More than two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — the species completely gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, United States government scientists forecast on Friday.
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/ 7 September 2007
It’s official: Your toddler is smarter than a chimp, at least at some things. A unique study comparing the abilities of human toddlers to chimpanzees and orangutans found that two-year-old children have social learning skills superior to the apes, researchers said on Thursday.
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/ 5 September 2007
A United States bomber mistakenly flew with nuclear warheads over the US last week, but the air force on Wednesday said the flight was not a threat to public safety. The air force has started an investigation into the incident and a review of all operational procedures.
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/ 3 September 2007
United States President George Bush hopes to spur momentum for a world trade pact and a global target on climate change at this week’s Asia-Pacific summit but the Iraq debate at home looms as a distraction. Bush will meet in Sydney with the leaders of Australia, China, Japan, Russia and other members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum.
United States Republican Senator Larry Craig on Tuesday vehemently denied he was gay, despite pleading guilty after being arrested by police probing lewd incidents in an airport bathroom. Craig (62) was arrested in the Midwestern city of Minneapolis-St Paul in June by a plainclothes police officer.
United States President George Bush signalled on Saturday his unwillingness to consider early US troop reductions in Iraq, saying new offensive operations were just in their ”early stages”. The statement followed a fervent plea by John Warner, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, who publicly asked the president to initiate at least a symbolic withdrawal.
On the campaign trail or in the debating chamber, there’s just no escaping it. Like the spectre at the feast, the Iraq war is dominating the White House race in a contest in which every word counts. The eight hopefuls chasing the Democratic Party nomination for the 2008 elections to replace President George Bush seem united in their calls to end the unpopular conflict.
The United States Justice Department is giving Britain’s largest airline a break, even as it faces one the largest antitrust fines in years. Representatives of British Airways are scheduled to plead guilty on Thursday to two counts of conspiracy and face a likely fine of -million for colluding with Virgin Atlantic over fuel surcharges.
United States internet giant Google is to begin running advertisements along with video clips on its popular video-sharing website YouTube, according to a statement on the YouTube official blog. The ads will run as ”animated overlays that appear on the bottom 20% of a video”, said Google late on Tuesday.
Fruit bats that roost in caves are apparently the source of Marburg virus, which causes a deadly hemorrhagic fever related to Ebola virus, researchers said on Tuesday. Tests of 1 100 bats of various species turned up the virus in only one common species of fruit bats.
The Bush administration is preparing a case to designate the Horn of Africa nation of Eritrea a ”state sponsor of terrorism” for its alleged support of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in Somalia, the top United States diplomat for Africa said on Friday. Officials are compiling evidence of Eritrean backing for the extremists to support the designation.
In a bold bid to turn back a rising financial storm, the United States Federal Reserve on Friday cut a key bank lending rate and signalled a willingness to take more dramatic action to cushion the economy from tightening credit. The US central bank tried to calm financial markets by lowering the discount rate that governs Fed loans to banks.
A leading United States newspaper called on Congress on Tuesday to pursue its investigation of departing White House adviser Karl Rove, whom it accused of pursuing a ruthless brand of politics as ”blood sport.” Rove announced on Monday that he was resigning his White House post by the end of the month.
Nasa engineers on Monday pored over new imagery of the space shuttle Endeavour‘s underbelly to decide if its damaged heat shield needed repair, as astronauts prepared for the mission’s second spacewalk. The three-dimensional images of a gouge in the shield were taken on Sunday by a camera, and measured by a laser.
United States astronauts prepared early on Saturday for the first spacewalk of the shuttle Endeavour mission following discovery of damage in the spacecraft’s protective shield. The two spacewalkers, mission specialists Rick Mastracchio and Dave Williams, were to spend the night at a special airlock to prevent decompression sickness.
Researchers studying bird flu viruses said on Thursday they may have come up with a way to vaccinate people before a feared influenza pandemic. Experts have long said there is no way to vaccinate people against a new strain of influenza until that strain evolves. That could mean months or even years of disease and death before a vaccination campaign began.
A coal mine collapsed in central Utah after a 4.0-magnitude earthquake, trapping six miners, Fox News reported on Monday. The United States Geological Survey reported a 4.0 earthquake occurred on Monday morning at 2.48am local time, 156km from Salt Lake City, Utah. A magnitude 4 quake is capable of causing moderate damage.
Nasa on Saturday is to launch space probe Phoenix on a nine-month journey to Mars’ arctic region, where it will dig through ice for clues to past or present microbial life on the red planet. The Phoenix Mars Lander is scheduled for blast-off from Cape Canaveral on August 4, with a first attempt at 9.36am GMT.