| World News  | Qantas jet lands with gaping hole in fuselage
The Examiner
MANILA, Philippines (Map, News) - A Qantas jumbo jet carrying 345 passengers made an emergency landing Friday with a gaping hole in its fuselage after a mysterious "explosive decompression," officials said. There were no injuries, but some passengers vomited after disembarking the Boeing 747-400, said Octavio Lina, Manila International Airport Authority deputy manager for operations. The cabin's floor gave way, he said, exposing some of the cargo...
photo: WN / marzena
|  | State Department Probes Iraq Oil Contracts
CBS News
The State Department's inspector general is investigating Iraqi oil contracts after four Democratic senators complained that department employees may have encouraged lucrative oil deals between Iraq and several Western companies. Any backstage meddling would have violated Bush administration policy, which has been to discourage such deals until Baghdad passes a law that will...
photo: DoD / Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet, U.S. Air Force
|  | Serbia to restore envoys to EU states despite Kosovo: minister
Turkish Press
Serbia's Environment Minister Oliver Dulic (pictured in 2007) has said Serbia's new government has decided to reinstate its European Union-based ambassadors who were withdrawn after most EU states recognised Kosovo's independence. (AFP/File) Serbia's new government decided Thursday to reinstate its European Union-based ambassadors who were withdrawn after most EU states recognised Kosovo's independence, a minister said. "I consider the decision...
photo: AP / Darko Vojinovic
|  | In Sudan, stability or civil war? -
Yahoo Daily News
By Robert Muggah Thu Jul 24, 4:00 AM ET Geneva - While the world seems focused on the International Criminal Court's request to arrest Sudan's president Omar al Bashir for genocide, a single dusty town in central Sudan may hold the key to the country's future stability. At first glance, Abyei seems much like any other settlement in Africa's largest country. Bleating goats are routinely chased off its runway so that fixed-wing...
photo: USAF file / A1C Marc I. Lane
| Business News  | AP Executive Morning Briefing
Lexington Herald-Leader
The top business news from The Associated Press for the morning of Friday, July 25, 2008: New market demand spurs Honda to record quarter TOKYO (AP) - Honda Motor Co. reported record profit for a fiscal first quarter Friday as sales growth in new markets offset the damage from a stronger yen and soaring material costs. Honda, Japan's No. 2 automaker, earned a better-than-expected 179.6 billion yen ($1.68 billion) in the April-June quarter, up 8.1...
photo: creative commons
|  | Power outages widespread in Texas after Dolly
The Miami Herald
HARLINGEN, Texas -- Business at reopened restaurants was humming, grocery store parking lots were packed and residents of south Texas were venturing out on the newly dry roads again as the remnants of Hurricane Dolly moved well away from the Rio Grande Valley. But thousands were still without power Thursday and cleanup was ongoing following the Category 2 storm. Officials also warned that Dolly's aftereffects were not necessarily gone for good....
photo: US Navy file / PM1 Brien Aho
|  | Lufthansa faces major strike, union says
Turkish Press
The tailfin of a Lufthansa plane. Lufthansa, the leading German airline, faces a major strike next week after members of the German trade union Verdi have voted for a strike to press demands for higher wages. (AFP/File) Lufthansa, the leading German airline, faces a major strike next week after members of the German trade union Verdi voted on Friday for a strike to press demands for higher wages. Ground personnel and flight crews would stop...
photo: public domain
|  | Dollar lower before key economic data
Turkish Press
A woman holding several euro and US dollar notes. The dollar has fallen against the euro and yen as the market awaited publication of US housing figures and data on consumer sentiment in the world's biggest, but struggling, economy. (AFP/File) The dollar fell against the euro and yen on Friday as the market awaited publication of US housing figures and data on consumer sentiment in the world's biggest, but struggling, economy. In morning deals,...
photo: Public Domain / -
|  | Warning of food crisis in eastern Africa
Nation
Rising food prices are putting millions of people in East Africa at risk of severe hunger and destitution, the UK-based charity Oxfam has warned. Droughts, war and poverty have put an estimated nine to 13 million people in the region in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, it says. The situation has been made worse by rising food prices, with wheat and rice particularly expensive. It is the second serious drought in the region in three...
photo: P.Virot/WHO photo
|  | Google to face charges over Down syndrome video
The Times
Google is to face criminal charges in Italy over a video which appeared on one of its sites showing a disabled teenager being taunted by his peers. Italian prosecutors have indicated that they will press charges against four Google executives over a video which was posted on one of the search giant's Italian sites in 2006, which showed four youths making fun of a disabled teenager in a classroom in the...
photo: creative commons /
| Entertainment News  | What's all the fuss about graphic sex?
Belfast Telegraph
Miranda Richardson is one of Britain's hottest actresses, having played a range of roles from Queenie in Blackadder to an IRA volunteer in The Crying Game. Her latest movie, based on a Fay Weldon novel, was partly filmed in Northern Ireland. She spoke to Lorna Allen In 1985 Miranda Richardson set cinema screens alight with her mesmerising debut film performance as the last woman to be hanged in England in Mike Newell's Dance with a Stranger....
photo: AP
|  | Crimson lips are hot
Inquirer
MANILA, PhilippinesTake a cue from stars Jessica Alba, Penélope Cruz, Mischa Barton and Dita Von Teese who have recently been seen at the red carpet, wearing glamorous red lips. There is just something about crimson lips that makes a woman look and feel alluring. The color red translates to power, and when it is put on lips is sexy, sultry and dramatic. It requires confidence from its wearer and demands attention from its onlookers. And when...
photo: AP
|  | Bawdy little beauties
Sydney Morning Herald
THERE are no prizes for guessing why asparagus has always been considered an aphrodisiac. You just have to check out its appearance. The shapes of plants have long offered clues to their uses. As early as the 16th century, herbalists believed that the appearance of a plant revealed its medicinal purpose. This theory, called the doctrine of signatures, became popular because of the obvious resemblance between plant parts and human sexual organs....
photo: Creative Commons
|  | Katie Couric is right to criticise sexist US
The Daily Telegraph
Katie Couric, America's highest earning television news anchor, has whipped up quite a storm with her comments that she, like Hillary Clinton, is a victim of sexism. The presenter of CBS Evening News (who has a 72 million dollar five-year contract to host the show) told an Israeli paper she found herself in "the last bastion of male dominance and realising what Hillary Clinton might have realised not long ago: that sexism in American society is...
photo: AP
|  | Shilpa Shetty
The Times Of India
I was always an active kid. And pretty conscious about fitness from an early age. I remember I attended Yoga classes when I was in school itself. And used to intently watch Baba Ramdev's yoga techniques on television, and quietly try them out when no one was around. During school days I also trained in...
photo: AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi
| Health News  | Nassau teen charged under social host law arrested again
Newsday
A North Valley Stream teen charged last month under 's social host law was arrested again Thursday night after a surprise police search of his family's house turned up a stash of 11 ounces of marijuana, police said. Ron Subdhan, 17, was arrested after Nassau police and probation officers showed up unannounced for a 6:30 p.m. Thursday search of the family's 759 Wyngate Dr. West home, police said. Subdhan is out on bail on a charge of endangering...
photo: public domain / Freetoast
|  | Weekends Tough on the Diet
Healthfinder
Saturday can be toughest for those trying to drop pounds, study finds. By Kathleen Doheny HealthDay Reporter this article to news version (SOURCES: Connie Diekman, M.Ed., R.D., director, university nutrition, Washington University, St. Louis, and past president, American Dietetic Association; Susan Racette, Ph.D., assistant professor, Washington University, St. Louis; June 12, 2008, Obesity, online ) FRIDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- Anyone who...
photo: WN / Denise Yong
|  | Too much water may become killer poison for human being
Pravda RU
Neither doctors, nor dietitians know why the general public believes that a human being ought to drink not less than two liters of water a day. They do know, however, what consequences the abundance of water in the body can lead to. Too much water may become killer poison for human being BREAKING NEWS Russian strategic bombers scare NATO Condoleezza Rice's sexual worries in the White House Russia resumes arms shipments to Middle East Albino...
photo: WN / Sweet Radoc
|  | Wards, ICUs remain shut due to shortage of nurses
The Star
KUALA LUMPUR: The shortage of nurses in Malaysia has caused several wards and intensive care units in newer hospitals to remain closed. Revealing this on Friday, Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said the situation existed in hospitals including those in Serdang, Sungai Buloh, Ampang and Sungai Petani. "Many new hospitals are not able to open wards, intensive care units and operating theatres, which need a lot of basic nurses," he told...
photo: Creative commons
|  | Slender mother Halle Berry shows off her post-pregnancy figure
The Daily Mail
Halle Berry flaunted her trim and toned physique as she wandered around Los Angeles yesterday, just four months after giving birth to her first child. The 41-year-old looked stunning dressed down in jeans and a red-pink top on her way to visiting a friend in Studio City. Oscar winner Halle and her model boyfriend Gabriel welcomed their daughter Nahla in March and have since focused their attentions on parenting. Toned: A trim Halle Berry has shed...
photo: AP Photo/Gregory Bull
|  | Canadian men more likely to be obese
Canada Dot Com
It takes a strong man to admit when he's wrong. Now new Canadian data suggest it takes a strong man to admit he has a weight problem. According to the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey, men aged 25 to 44 are considerably more likely than their female counterparts to be obese.A man stands at a bus stop. According to the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey, men aged 25 to 44 are considerably more likely than their female counterparts to be...
photo: WN
|  | Consumers be warned!
Independent online (SA)
The huge hike in the price of cooking oil in the past year has led to widespread over-use of oil in restaurants and fast-food outlets, a biodiesel manufacturer alleges. The abuse of cooking oil by "frying establishments" has been much in the news in recent years, thanks in the main to Professor Lodewyk de Kock of the University of the Free State, who established the SA Fryer Oil Initiative in a bid to get the industry to clean up its act. Cooking...
photo: WN / patricia
| Politics News  | US envoy says Iraq insurgency has lost its clout
The Examiner
BAGHDAD (Map, News) - The insurgency that bedeviled U.S. forces for years and killed thousands of Iraqis and Americans has withered to the point where it is "not even much of a challenge any more" to Iraq's future, Ambassador Ryan Crocker said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. Crocker, a veteran Mideast envoy who plans to wind up a nearly two-year tour here in January, would not rule out that Iraq could again descend into...
photo: AP / Susan Walsh
|  | Bush's 'Surge' Gets Mixed Reviews
Middle East Online
President George W. Bush’s Iraq War troop “surge,” which is now ending, got a mixed report card from congressional investigators, who found that many of Bush’s stated goals remain unmet. The Government Accountability Office reported that violence in Iraq has dropped over the past year, but that the training of Iraqi security forces still lags, Sunni insurgents have not been defeated, cease-fires with Shiite militias are fragile, and political...
photo: White House / Chris Greenberg
|  | Analysis: Bush's policy shifts affect Obama
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama wants to sound like the voice of reason on U.S. foreign policy - the guy who would abandon Bush administration policies he sees as shortsighted, self-defeating or just plain wrong. Problem is, George Bush keeps beating him to it. The administration's turnabout on a timeline for a U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq and its new willingness to sit down and talk with adversaries Iran and North Korea make it hard for Obama...
photo: Public Domain /
|  | Body Language: What McCain and Obama Reveal -
Yahoo Daily News
Staff Writer 15 minutes ago Barack Obama spoke in front of 200,000 Germans in Berlin on Thursday at the start of a European tour, while John McCain talked to small business leaders at a fourth-generation German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. But regardless of the audience, people undoubtedly paid as much attention to the nonverbal performance as they did to what each presidential candidate said....
photo: (AP Photo / Laramie Boomerang, Andy Carpenean)
|  | Thai anti-govt protesters vent anger at oil firm
The Star
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters marched on Thailand's state-owned oil company on Friday, calling for its renationalisation a day after violent clashes between pro- and anti-government groups outside the capital. Members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) blocked the main gates outside the headquarters of PTT PCL, the oil and gas firm which was semi-privatised in 2001 by the PAD's sworn enemy, former Prime Minister Thaksin...
photo: Creative commons
|  | Petulant Peters denies wrongdoing
TVNZ
Jul 25, 2008 New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is back on home ground and fighting to save his political career after a storm of allegations about his party's handling of cash gifts from donors. Peters has returned from a trip to Singapore as Foreign Affairs Minister and walked into a wealth of questions about the controversy. While he has been overseas a firestorm has raged over his party receiving secret donations from wealthy donors. But...
photo: AP
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