Around the World
Associated Press
Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:08 UTC
© AP Photo/Wichai Taprieu
In this Dec. 1, 2008 file photo, Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, left, is seen at a Buddhist temple in Chiang Mai province, northern Thailand.
Bangkok, Thailand - A court dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud Tuesday and temporarily banned the prime minister from politics, bringing down a government that has faced months of strident protests seeking its ouster.
The Constitutional Court ruling set the stage for thousands of protesters to end their weeklong siege of the country's two main airports, but also raised fears of retaliatory violence by a pro-government group that could sink the country deeper into crisis and cripple its economy.
Reuters
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:47 UTC
Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday he would bring down U.S. planes bombing villages if he could, in a sign of growing tension between Afghanistan and its Western backers as the Taliban insurgency grows in strength.
As Western dissatisfaction with Karzai has grown over his failure to crack down on corruption and govern effectively, the Afghan president, facing elections next year, has hit back over the killing of dozens of civilians in foreign air strikes.
In recent weeks, Karzai has repeatedly blamed the West for the worsening security in Afghanistan, saying NATO failed to target Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan and calling for the war to be taken out of Afghan villages.
Agence France Presse
Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:35 UTC
The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and "more freedom."
"Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication," the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator.
He said conjugal life caused "too much ups and downs.
Agence France Presse
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:35 UTC
Gazing at the Soviet-era factory that looms over his northern Vietnamese commune, Quang Van Vinh remembers what the farmland here looked like before it became known as a "cancer village."
"This used to be a vast garden of bamboo, banana, jackfruit and longan trees," says the 62-year-old, visiting his long-abandoned childhood home, now a muddy wasteland of brick kilns. "It's sad that there's almost no sign of life anymore."
Vinh says things changed quickly in the Red River village in 1962 after the Lam Thao fertiliser plant was built and started pumping wastewater into streams and rice fields, and black smoke into the sky.
Agence France-Presse
Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:59 UTC
Hundreds of thousands of Somalians face a major famine because of violence and a drought that is ravaging the centre and south of the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday.
"We are seeing a major deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Somalia," said Pascal Mauchle, head of the organisation's delegation for the country.
"Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the fighting and drought. External factors, such as the global food crisis and the skyrocketing prices resulting from it, have made the economic situation even worse. The chronic nature of the crisis has completely exhausted people's coping abilities."
Mauritius News
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:25 UTC
It has been reported that The Chief Executive Officer of State Bank, Chaitlall Gunness, has been killed in the terrorist attacks of hotel Taj in Mumbai.
Riaz Khan
Associated Press
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:04 UTC
© AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad
A Pakistani examines burnt trucks caused by insurgents' attack at the Fasial terminal in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Monday, Dec. 1, 2008
Peshawar, Pakistan - Militants in northwestern Pakistan attacked trucks ferrying supplies to NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan on Monday, killing two people and destroying a dozen vehicles, witnesses and police said.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed eight people and wounded 40 others at a military checkpoint in the region's Swat Valley, police said.
The spasm of violence comes amid a spike in tensions between Pakistan and rival India over last week's terror attacks in Mumbai, which New Delhi has blamed on Pakistani militants.
PC World
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:51 UTC
The terrorists that attacked various locations in south Mumbai last week used digital maps from Google Earth to learn their way around, according to officials investigating the attacks.
Investigations by the Mumbai police, including the interrogation of one nabbed terrorist, suggest that the terrorists were highly trained and used technologies such as satellite phones, and global positioning systems (GPS), according to police.
MercoPress
Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:35 UTC
Russian oil companies could soon begin searching for oil in deep Gulf of Mexico waters off Cuba, a top diplomat said just days before Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visits the island.
Russian oil companies have "concrete projects" for drilling in Cuba's part of the gulf, said Mijail Kamynin, Russia's ambassador to Cuba, to the state-run business magazine Opciones.
Kamynin also said Russian companies would like to help build storage tanks for crude oil and to modernize Cuban pipelines, as well as play a role in Venezuelan efforts to refurbish a Soviet-era refinery in the port city of Cienfuegos, according the article published this weekend.
Russia Today
Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:59 UTC
The terrorists in the Indian city of Mumbai, who killed more than 150 people and injured over 300, used the same tactics that Chechen field militants employed in the Northern Caucasus, says Russian counter terrorism presidential envoy Anatoly Safonov.
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