Adele Wins Big at Brit Music Awards
London. Soulful songstress Adele capped a momentous year of Grammy Awards triumph and medical woes with a double win at the U.K.'s Brit music awards Tuesday, taking prizes for album of the year and best British female solo artist before making an obscene gesture after the show's host cut her acceptance speech short. Teen-friendly English troubadour Ed Sheeran won two trophies, including British male solo artist, at an energetic ceremony in London. It has been a dramatic year for down-to-earth north London diva Adele, who based her chart-topping songs of heartbreak on a rocky relationship. Her sophomore album "21" won six Grammys last week and has sold more than 6 million copies in the...
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Senegal's Youssou Ndour injured during rally: spokesman
AFP - Senegalese music icon and opposition activist Youssou Ndour was injured in the leg after being hit by a projectile at the scene of a banned rally in Dakar, his entourage told AFP. "Youssou Ndour was injured in the left leg, he has been seen by a doctor, but he doesn't want to make a big issue out of it and we won't be giving any...
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The Koran and the N.Y.P.D.
When Afghan workers at the Bagram Air Base saw our troops put copies of the Koran and other Islamic religious works into a pile of burning trash in a dumpster, they didn't hesitate. They yelled for them to stop. They ran and "reached into the fire," according to a Times report, and pulled the burning books out. When General John Allen, the NATO commander in Afghanistan, heard what had happened, he didn't hesitate either. He apologized, completely and unreservedly, to President Karzai, his government, "and most importantly, to the noble people of Afghanistan." He said that it had been a mistake. ("I assure you ... I promise you ... this was NOT intentional in any way.") He said that there...
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Syrian forces kill 57 civilians as Red Cross demands truce
Syrian forces killed 57 civilians on Tuesday as they blitzed the city of Homs and a village in Idlib province, monitors said, as the Red Cross sought a truce to deliver aid and the United Nations demanded unimpeded access for aid groups. The escalation comes...
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Obama to address pro-Israel lobby amid heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear program
WASHINGTON — The White House says President Barack Obama will address the annual conference of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, next month. The White House says Obama will speak at the...
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In Latest Greek Bailout, Warning Signs for Europe
European leaders have approved their latest aid package for Greece, raising hopes that the worst phase of the sovereign debt crisis is over and a persistent source of stress on the global markets has been removed. But Greece’s 130 billion euro ($172 billion) bailout highlights the weaknesses in Europe’s response to the crisis, some analysts say. The worry is that these problems could flare up and undermine recovery efforts in countries like Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. “I don’t want to be a Cassandra, but the idea that it’s over is an illusion,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard University and co-author of “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial...
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Tribal clashes in southern Libya kill more than 50 civilians
JALO, Libya — A Red Crescent worker says more than 50 civilians were killed in the past 24 hours in tribal warfare in southern Libya. Moussa Bazama, an ambulance...
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French police detain Strauss-Kahn in sex ring probe
French police detained former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn for questioning Tuesday over allegations he took part in orgies in Paris and Washington with prostitutes paid for by businessmen. The 62-year-old former Socialist minister, who until last year was seen as the frontrunner to replace Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France, had been summoned as a witness but prosecutors said he was now a suspect. He turned up voluntarily at a police station in the northern city of Lille for his appointment for questioning about his role in the latest sex scandal to beset his ruined career. After his arrival, prosecutors said he would be detained on suspicion of "abetting aggravated pimping by an...
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Protest over burning of Korans in Afghanistan
The items are thought to have been burned as part of routine disposal of rubbish at the base. The protesters demanded to meet the country's president over the issue and threatened to demonstrate again if their demand was not met. US Gen John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, apologised and ordered an investigation into the incident, which he was "not intentional in any way." The incident stoked anti-foreign sentiment that already is on the rise after nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and fuelled the arguments of Afghans who believe foreign...
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Pakistan to ask Interpol to arrest ex-president
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will ask Interpol to arrest ex-President Pervez Musharraf for his failure to prevent the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the interior minister said Tuesday. Rehman Malik said the government was seeking Musharraf's arrest because he allegedly failed to provide adequate security for Bhutto, who was killed in a gun and suicide bomb attack in 2007. Musharraf, a one-time U.S. ally, went into...
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Al-Qaeda ditches Iraq to take fight to Assad
BAGHDAD: The departure of al-Qaeda fighters from Iraq to join the rebellion against the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, has had one benefit, Iraqi officials said. Violence had dropped in parts of the country by as much as 50 per cent in just a few months. Iraqi officials refused to give precise figures or estimate how many al-Qaeda fighters had left the country for Syria. But, they said, the impact of the departure was especially apparent in Ninewah province, which borders Syria...
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Afghanistan to Spy on Its Soldiers
By DION NISSENBAUM KABUL—Afghanistan is rolling out an ambitious plan to spy on its own soldiers, the most serious attempt so far to halt a string of attacks by Afghan troops on their Western comrades-in-arms, according to Afghan and American military leaders. As part of the effort, agents of the National Directorate of Security, the country's spy agency, will be deployed to army units across the country to monitor Afghan soldiers at every step, from recruitment and training to deployment and home leave, these people said. The intent is to identify and weed out any potential troublemakers before problems turn deadly, Afghan Defense Minister Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview....
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South Sudan: UN urges ethnic groups to show how to 'make your own peace'
Special Representative for South Sudan Hilde Johnson20 February 2012 The top United Nations official in South Sudan has urged warring ethnic communities in the country to find peaceful solutions to their disputes and to serve as an example to other groups about how...
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Ban calls for global economic model that promotes greater social justice
Photo: David Shankbone20 February 2012 Calling on people to tap into the spirit of recent public protests worldwide against inequality, corruption, repression and a lack of decent jobs, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today stressed the need for economic development to ensure greater social justice for everyone. Mr. Ban, in a message...
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UN's popularity in Haiti hits new low
Members of the UN Security Council have been visiting Haiti, home to one of the organisation's most controversial peacekeeping missions. The UN mission, known as Minustah, consists of 11,000 peacekeepers who were sent to provide security and build government institutions in a country plagued by corruption, poverty and violence. But after eight years, the mission’s popularity is at an all-time low due to a series of scandals, from allegations of sexual abuse to accusations of spreading cholera. The UN says it will take four more years to bolster Haiti's security forces, in order for it to become fully independent. Al Jazeera's Kristen Saloomey reports from Port au Prince, Haiti's...
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25 Sensory Integration activities for hyperactive kids
Sensory Integration activities can be wonderful for helping active kids to get their energy out, focus and direct their attention. These activities work in several ways. First, they meet children's needs for sensory input. Some children have especially high needs for touch, for instance, and they will seek out sensory sensations if their needs aren't met. Second, they give the body something to focus nervous energy on so the mind can concentrate. Just as it may be easier to pay attention in a meeting if you're doodling or to pay attention in church if you're knitting, kids have an easier time focusing if they have fidgets for their fingers or weights on their bodies....
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McCain says US, Egypt 'must remain friends'
CAIRO (AP) — Sen. John McCain said Monday U.S. relations with Egypt are changing a year after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak but the two countries "must remain friends." McCain was speaking at a business conference in Cairo just before meeting with the country's military leaders, who took power after Mubarak stepped down in the face of a popular uprising. U.S.-Egypt relations are at their lowest points in decades, strained over the government's crackdown on foreign-funded nonprofit groups working for democracy in Egypt. Egyptian authorities have referred 16 Americans and 27 others who worked for the various groups to a criminal trial expected to begin on Feb. 26. McCain chairs one of the four...
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Syria unrest: West stirring civil war, says China paper
The official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party has accused the West of provoking a civil war in Syria. In a front page commentary, the People's Daily said that Western support of Syria's opposition would lead to "large-scale civil war". In that case armed intervention would become unavoidable, it added. A Syrian opposition...
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Iraq VP: Death squad charges politically motivated
LARA JAKES Associated Press= BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq's embattled Sunni vice president on Monday slammed government charges that he ran death squads as politically motivated and called on "all honest Iraqi people" to rise up in his defense. In a half-hour speech, Tariq al-Hashemi vigorously defended himself against charges that he said were based on coerced statements. He also questioned why he was being singled out by the Shiite-led government, noting that many insurgents and militias are still free after killing thousands of people in the years Iraq teetered on the brink of civil war. His comments starkly underscored the divisive sectarian tensions the case has injected into Baghdad's already...
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Suu Kyi's party warns Myanmar polls may not be fair
YANGON (Reuters) - The party of Myanmar Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi complained on Monday about attempts to stifle its campaign for April parliamentary by-elections. The National League for Democracy (NLD), which boycotted the 2010 election, said several attempts to hold campaign rallies had been blocked and accused the country's biggest party of making promises that were tantamount to vote-buying. "There are increasing restrictions on the election campaign of the NLD, posing threats to the upcoming by-election, making it difficult to be free and fair," Nyan Win, a top NLD official and its campaign manager, told a news conference. The April 1 by-election vote for 48 vacant...
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Putin: Russia needs stronger military
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has backed the modernisation of his country's military, less than a fortnight before the presidential vote. "We must not tempt anyone with our weakness," he wrote in a newspaper. Mr Putin is widely expected to win the 4 March election...
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Myanmar lifts campaign restrictions on complaints
AYE AYE WIN Associated Press= YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar election authorities lifted restrictions on political campaigning Monday in an unusually swift response to complaints by pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party. The National League for Democracy said earlier in the day that the restrictions risked making upcoming by-elections unfair. The state Union Election Commission's decision to lift all restrictions was unusual. Bureaucratic wheels grind slowly even where there are no political hurdles in the country where an elected, nominally civilian government took office almost a year ago after a half-century of military rule. NLD spokesman Nyan Win had said the party was facing...
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Zimbabwe's president says mediator can be fired
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe's president says he reserves the right to disregard mediation efforts by South African President Jacob Zuma to settle disputes in the nation's troubled coalition. President Robert Mugabe charged that officials surrounding Zuma, the region's chief Zimbabwe mediator, were interfering in his role to resolve disputes in the coalition, formed after violent elections in 2008. His comments were reported Monday in the state Herald newspaper. Mugabe, in excerpts of a state radio interview to be broadcast late Monday, the eve of his 88th birthday, cited a Botswana leader chosen by regional counterparts to mediate in the southern African kingdom of Lesotho whom, he...
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NATO: 3 service members killed in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — NATO says three international service members have been killed during an operation in western Afghanistan. The international military coalition did not provide details of the incident or the nationalities of the dead. Afghan officials said on Monday the incident happened in Herat province, where Italian troops are based. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide car bomber attacked a police station in southern Afghanistan's largest city on Monday, killing one police officer in the blast, officials said. The attacker drove a Toyota Corolla up to the checkpoint outside of...
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BRICs vulnerable to global risks: report
BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have not become less vulnerable to global shocks despite their strong economic growth over the past four years, a survey showed on Monday. Risk consultancy Maplecroft said its Global Risk Atlas, which highlights potentially...
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Santorum hits Obama on prenatal tests, health care
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum sharply criticized President Obama's health care law Sunday for requiring insurance companies to cover certain prenatal tests, saying some procedures are used to identify abnormalities and "encourage abortions." "The bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions," Santorum said on CBS'...
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UN inspectors arrive in Tehran for nuclear talks
The five-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency will hold two days of talks in Iran Tighter sanctions and high inflation have squeezed the ability of working-class Iranians to feed themselves. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images A team of UN inspectors has arrived in Tehran for talks on Iran's disputed nuclear programme, a day after Iran ordered a halt to its oil sales to Britain and France in apparent retaliation for tightening EU sanctions. The five-member team from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will hold two days of talks in Iran, but western diplomats have played down any hopes of a major breakthrough....
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3 dead in Wash. avalanche were expert skiers
STEVENS PASS, Wash. (AP) - Authorities say three men killed in an avalanche in Washington state were all expert skiers. King County Sheriff's Sgt. Katie Larson says the men were among three groups of people skiing out-of-bounds at the Stevens Pass ski area who were caught up in the avalanche Sunday. The others managed to dig them out and performed CPR, to no avail. All of skiers were well-equipped and experienced. None of the others was seriously injured. Larson says the victims were believed to be in their 30s and 40s. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE....
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Time to act over looming food crisis in Africa's Sahel
PAUL O'BRIEN THE WIDELY documented signs of a looming food security crisis in the Sahel region of Africa, where acute food shortages threaten some 12 million people, are a cause of increasing alarm. A series of factors including rising food prices, migration from insecurity in Libya, failed harvests and the impact of climate change on the Sahara desert are having an impact. The international community has a clear opportunity to act early to avert a crisis on the scale recently experienced in east Africa. If the global community had acted faster in the earlier half of last year, there is widespread agreement that a famine could have been prevented in Somalia. Instead, repeated calls by aid...
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Ban welcomes political deal reached at Somali constitutional conference
Special Representative Augustine Mahiga. UN Photo/Stuart Price19 February 2012 Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed the political agreement reached by Somalis at a national constitutional conference, saying the accord "sets out clear steps for ending the transition and putting in place a constitutional order" in...
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Chisora arrested and released after brawl
Boxer Dereck Chisora was arrested on Sunday after an with fellow British heavyweight David Haye following a WBC title clash in Munich on the previous night. Saturday's incident, which left Haye's manager Adam Booth with nasty facial cuts, erupted during a news conference after Ukrainian Vitali Klitschko had with a unanimous points decision over Chisora. Haye attended the fight as a television pundit. Bavarian police spokesman Gottfried Schlicht said Chisora had been arrested and questioned shortly before he had been due to depart from the airport. "The police are pressing charges against Chisora for bodily injury but that is not a reason for him to stay in prison," Schlicht said half about...
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Egypt delays announcing final date for presidential vote
CAIRO (Reuters) - The judicial committee supervising Egypt's first presidential election since Hosni Mubarak was...
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Hundreds Mourn NYPD Shooting Victim
Hundreds of people filled a Bronx church yesterday for the funeral of the 18 year old teen killed by police on February 2nd. The Crawford Memorial United Methodist Church was packed with family and friends of Ramarley Graham to pay their last respects. The young man's father, Franclot Graham, kissed...
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Wrongheaded UN Vote on Syria: US-NATO "Arm Twisting" at the General Assembly
On February 4, Russia and China vetoed the Arab League's one-sided Syria resolution (SC/10536). It illegitimately called for Assad to step down. Under international law, no nation or combination thereof, may interfere in the internal affairs of others, except in self-defense if attacked. SC/10536 also called for "further measures" for noncompliance. It resembled SC/1973 on Libya. Aggressive war followed, ravaging the country lawlessly. Russia and China want replicating Libya avoided. Passing SC/10536 risked giving Washington, NATO partners, and rogue Arab League allies responsibility to protect authority to intervene. As a result, this unholy alliance circumvented SC authority for...
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Eurozone nears deal with Greece
The Eurozone and Greek officials are near agreement on releasing bailout funds, after Greece has agreed to new austerity measures. Greece had a week to find an additional 325 Million euros in savings, which it did by slashing 100 Million from the military, and the remainder from public sector wages, health and social spending. The Troika of the EU, IMF and ECB also wants a further 325 Million Euros in savings to be found this week. The measures had to be passed so that Greece can receive 14.5 Billion Euros in funding by March 20. Greece has to repay its bondholders which include French, and German banks, and other private lenders such as hedge funds, pension funds and...
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Muslim students across Northeast monitored by NYPD
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department monitored Muslim college students far more broadly than previously known, at schools far beyond the city limits, including the Ivy League colleges of Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, The Associated Press has learned. Police talked with local authorities about professors 300 miles away in Buffalo and even sent an undercover agent on a whitewater rafting trip, where he recorded students' names and noted in police intelligence files how many times they prayed. Detectives trawled Muslim student websites every day and, although professors and students had not been accused of any wrongdoing, their names were recorded in reports prepared for...
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Egypt recalls ambassador from Syria as violence rages
Cairo has recalled its ambassador to Syria as President Bashar al-Assad's forces continue their campaign against opponents of his rule. No reason for the envoy's recall was...
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‘More US troops predict growth, more aid does not’
Out. Everywhere. Yesterday. Those three words sum up the mood here at home when it comes to American military presence outside US borders. President Barack Obama is signalling he wants to get out of Afghanistan so badly he’s even taking a few political gambles to accelerate a pull-out. There’s also a more general sense that putting soldiers in other countries has proved a bad investment for everyone involved, rendering those nations sadder, rougher and poorer. Given the parlous budgetary conditions in the US, the thinking goes it would be better to slash US defence spending. America needs money at home. This week, Obama proposed reductions in military spending, saying a cut...
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Roadside bomb kills 4 civilians in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan official says a roadside bomb has killed four civilians in southern Kandahar province. An Afghan man shovels snow into a wheelbarrow as he clears his fire wood shop during a snowstorm in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012. (AP...
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Book Review - 'Mirage' is alternative history of 9/11
Title: The Mirage Publishers: Harper Author: Matt Ruff An alternate history of the events surrounding 9/11 creates a unique and compelling read in Matt Ruff's The Mirage. In this parallel world eerily similar to ours,...
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Seven killed in Iraq violence
BAGHDAD ' Gun and bomb attacks in Iraq on Sunday killed seven people, among them four police informants, a policeman and two anti-Qaeda militiamen, and wounded four others, security officials said. "A group of suspected Al...
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U.S. finds itself aligned with Al Qaeda in Syria
Syrian government forces have killed over 7,000 protesters since March 2011, according to human rights activists within Syria, which makes the Assad regime more than worthy of UN condemnation. However, the situation is much more complex than Western leaders would have us believe for it appears the U.S. and its allies, once again, find themselves in league with Al Qaeda in opposing a Mideast dictator. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton illustrated the diplomat’s tendency to simplify this weekend in declaring that the U.S. stands with “the people” in Syria against the tyrant Assad. Secretary Clinton also mentioned that a peaceful political process in Syria was...
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Corals transplanted from FL lab to Atlantic waters
FORT LAUDERDALE BEACH, Fla. — Researchers are hoping some lab-raised corals will thrive in the Atlantic Ocean off South Florida. The staghorn coral specimens have...
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Real Greek rebound is far off say analysts
AFP - The eurozone bailout Greece is desperate to clinch this week may rescue its banking and financial system but the path to real economic recovery will be long and hard, economists have warned. "If the (economic recovery) memorandum is implemented, it can certainly save Greece from bankruptcy," said Miranda Xafa, head of EF Consulting and a former board member for Greece at the International Monetary Fund. "But no one can save Greece from recession at this point" she told AFP last week amid on-again, off-again, on-again hopes for a rescue agreement. The Greek parliament has...
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Iran 'poised for big nuclear jump'
They said Tehran had put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous bunker - machines that can produce enriched uranium much more quickly and efficiently than its present machines. While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasised that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to. Still, the senior diplomats suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them. The reported work at Fordo appeared...
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Paul says US 'slipping into a fascist system'
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says the U.S. is "slipping into a fascist system" dominated by big government and big businesses. The Texas congressman held a fiery rally Saturday night across the street from a World War I Memorial, upstaging simultaneous Republican Party banquets being held on both sides of the nearby Missouri and Kansas line. Paul said the U.S. got off track during the era of President Woodrow Wilson, who led the nation through World War I and unsuccessfully advocated for the nation's involvement in a forerunner of the United Nations. Although campaign aides were aware, Paul told reporters after his speech that he did not know his rally...
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Romney Ariz. co-chairman steps down
KASIE HUNT Associated Press= SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mitt Romney parted ways with his Arizona campaign co-chairman after allegations of misconduct made by a man with whom Romney's co-chairman previously had a relationship. Pima County Sheriff Paul Babeau, who is running for Congress in Arizona, resigned from Romney's campaign after the Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly magazine, reported that Babeau had threatened to deport the man, a Mexican immigrant, if he revealed the nature of the relationship. Babeau held a press conference Saturday and acknowledged he is gay. He denied the allegations of misconduct against him. "Sheriff Babeu has stepped down from his volunteer position with the...
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World leaders plan crackdown on Somali pirates
David Cameron and other world leaders are expected to announce the moves at a meeting in London on Thursday. The aim of the gathering will be to hammer out a plan to improve stability in Somalia, which for more than 20 years has been lawless and beset by pirate gangs, rival clan militias and Islamist terrorists. Drastic action is needed: more than 4,000 Somali pirates have been captured and released since 1999, nearly five times the number that have been successfully prosecuted. Not...
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U.S. makes emergency shipment of protective gear to troops in Afghanistan
As catastrophic injuries from improvised explosive devices continue to mount in Afghanistan, officials are working to bring better pelvic protection to U.S. troops. But American efforts trail those of the British military, whose troops have been using pelvic protection units since the end of 2010. In December, the Department of Defense's Joint IED Defeat Organization, noting the successful use of the British body armor, made an emergency $19 million shipment of 45,000 ballistic overgarments and an additional 165,000 antimicrobial undergarments to troops in Afghanistan. Although some U.S. troops — notably Marines fighting alongside British troops — previously had been wearing the...
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Nearly 700 Haitian convicts released during moratorium on deportations
Kesler Dufrene, who last year slaughtered three people in North Miami after being let out of immigration custody, wasn’t the only convict released to the streets because of a moratorium on deportations to Haiti. According to newly released federal statistics, 687 Haitians slated for deportation were released to the streets in 2010 because of the year-long moratorium on deportations to the earthquake-ravaged island. Of those, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took 90 back into custody and deported them to Haiti once the moratorium was...
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