Princess Diana is remembered 15 years after her death
The gates of Kensington Palace disappeared under a growing collection of notes, photographs and bouquets on Friday as mourners paid tribute to Princess Diana on the 15th anniversary of her death. Diana, who died in a car accident in a Paris underpass along with her lover Dodi Fayed, would be 51 years old had she [...]
UN report wrongfoots Iran summit
TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran scored a point against Western efforts to isolate it by hosting a summit this week of 120 Non-Aligned Movement countries, but its bid to boost its prestige was wrongfooted by a new report on its controversial nuclear activities, analysts said. Despite star guests Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and UN chief Ban [...]
Thalidomide victims reject apology from German company
LONDON (AFP) – Thalidomide survivors yesterday rebuffed an apology by the German company that manufactured the drug, saying it was an “insulting” response to the thousands born disabled as a result of its use. In its first apology for the scandal in 50 years, Grunenthal said on Friday it was “very sorry” for its silence [...]
Romney off-message in storm-ravaged Bayou
LAFITTE, Louisiana (AFP) – One day after he was named official flag-bearer of the Republican revolution, Mitt Romney confronted the limits of his small government rhetoric Friday in the storm-ravaged Louisiana Bayou. As Hurricane Isaac petered out and headed off northwards, Romney jetted in from his nomination convention in Florida to visit the desperate residents [...]
Burning-monk photographer Malcolm Browne dies
The phone calls went out from Saigon’s Xa-Loi Buddhist pagoda to chosen members of the foreign news corps. The message: Be at a certain location tomorrow for a ‘very important’ happening. The next morning, June 11, 1963, an elderly monk named Thich Quang Duc, clad in a brown robe and sandals, assumed the lotus position [...]
Sizing each other up
It was always going to be a big event even though it involved two very small people.Chandra Bahadur Dangi, the world’s shortest man and Jyoti Amge, the world’s shortest woman met for the first time to celebrate the organisation which made them famous. The 18-year-old from India and the 72-year-old Nepalese both made headlines last [...]
Food shortages could turn the world vegetarian by 2050
The world may have to become almost entirely vegetarian, leading scientists have warned. They claim that spiralling populations mean there will simply not be enough meat for people within decades.They believe animal based food will have drop to just 5 per centof our total calories. ‘There will not be enough water available on current croplands to [...]
‘Wink at the moon’
Neil Armstrong’s wife and granddaughter were joined by hundreds of mourners who gathered to pay tribute to Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, at his funeral yesterday. He was honoured as a humble hero who saw himself as a team player and never capitalized on his celebrity. The private service at the Camargo Club [...]
Experts warn of water wars
STOCKHOLM, (IPS) – As the world faces possible water scarcities in the next two to three decades, the US intelligence community has already portrayed a grim scenario for the foreseeable future: ethnic conflicts, regional tensions, political instability and even mass killings. During the next 10 years, “many countries important to the United States will almost [...]
Democracy in tea party America
BERKELEY – When the French politician and moral philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville published the first volume of his Democracy in America in 1835, he did so because he thought that France was in big trouble and could learn much from America. So one can only wonder what he would have made of the Republican National [...]
