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JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan on Sunday slammed Africa's brutal regimes, sit-tight leaders and conflicts in the midst of chronic poverty and disease. "About half of the worlds's armed conflicts and some three quarters of the UN's peacekeepers are in Africa. This is because millions of Africans are still at the mercy of brutal regimes... showing no respect for human rights, or even human life," he said in a speech in South Africa for Nelson Mandela's birthday. Annan said the former South African president showed a "wonderful" example when he quit office in 1999 at...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in central Europe would undermine global non-proliferation efforts and demanded serious discussions on the issue with Washington. "These plans will effectively remove the possibility of dealing with the threat to the nuclear non-proliferation regime with diplomatic means," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov wrote in the German newspaper Handelsblatt. The United States wants to deploy a radar system in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptor missiles in Poland by 2011-12. It says the system would counter threats from so-called "rogue states" like Iran and North Korea. Tehran...

TOKYO - Anyone who doubts that the Japanese army forced Asian women into sexual slavery in World War II should "face the truth," South Korea's foreign minister said Friday as outrage grew over comments by Japan's prime minister that there was no evidence of the enslavement. Women's rights activists in the Philippines and a group of lawmakers in South Korea also denounced the remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday that there was no proof that so-called "comfort women" were forced into prostitution during the war. But one of the harshest comments came from 81-year-old Hilaria Bustamante of...

A book reviewer on a Swedish newspaper has got himself into hot water for writing a review of a book that has not been written. To make matters worse, Kristian Lundberg claimed the book's plot was "predictable" and said the characterisations were one-dimensional. Lundberg made the comments in Helsingborgs Daglad, in an article about recently published thrillers, reports Dagens Nyheter. Among those he reviewed were Britt-Marie Mattsson's novel 'Fruktans Makt' (The Power of Fear). Unfortunately for Lundberg, while the book had been advertised in publisher Piratförlaget's autumn catalogue, Mattsson never actually got round to writing it. The newspaper has made...

Scores dead as huge tsunami slams into Java By Marianne Kearney in Jakarta and Sebastien Berger (Filed: 18/07/2006) An undersea earthquake sent a tsunami crashing into the Indonesian island of Java yesterday, killing at least 86 people and flattening homes and beach huts in resorts and villages along its south coast. An Indonesian survivor searches for his relatives among 41 bodies at Pangandaran health centre in West Java Scores more people were missing last night and the toll was expected to rise after areas of the densely-populated shore were destroyed by waves several yards high. Thousands fled to higher ground...

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, the Virginia Republican who has assumed leadership of his party's more liberal members of Congress, said yesterday that conservative groups such as the Club for Growth are hurting the party by refusing to help candidates who don't pass their "litmus test" and by attacking some incumbent Republicans. Mr. Davis said he and his group, the Republican Main Street Partnership, "don't go after Republican incumbents. Ultimately, that's not how you build a governing majority." The partnership consists of 58 members of the House and Senate, plus four governors. --snip-- Mr. Davis said his partnership, unlike the...

Germany slams brakes on emissions targets 06 July 2006 From New Scientist Print Edition. EUROPE'S efforts to meet its Kyoto protocol targets for greenhouse gas emissions are heading for trouble after Germany, the driving force behind the continent's emissions reductions for the past 15 years, slammed on the brakes. Since 1990, Germany has cut its emissions by 17.5 per cent, more than any other country in the European Union. Its Kyoto target is a 21 per cent cut, but on 28 June the environment ministry revealed that it would only require a further 0.6 per cent cut from its major...

The special master overseeing discipline and other issues within the state prison system issued a report Wednesday that rips the Schwarzenegger administration for reversing course on prison reform. Special Master John Hagar's report said that "a recent series of disturbing events signals an abrupt reversal of policy by the Governor's Office." Hagar, who works under U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson in San Francisco, linked the policy shift to the January appointment of Susan Kennedy as Schwarzenegger's chief of staff. Under Kennedy, Hagar said, prison policy developments under Schwarzenegger have signaled "a return to the Davis Administration's practice" of allowing...

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi assailed Nigeria on Thursday for handing over former Liberian President Charles Taylor for trial, saying the move set an unacceptable precedent that threatened all African leaders. Nigeria deported Taylor on March 29 to Liberia, which promptly sent him on to Sierra Leone where he awaits trial on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for backing rebels during Sierra Leone's 1991-2001 civil war. The United Nations is seeking to move the trial to the International Criminal Court in the Hague amid security fears, but the process has been stalled as no...

WASHINGTON - The nation's largest labor organization on Tuesday criticized plans to expand guest worker programs for immigrants seeking to come to the United States, parting company with longtime Senate Democratic allies who pushed successfully to include them in broad-based immigration legislation. "Guest worker programs are a bad idea and harm all workers," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a statement released the day after the Senate Judiciary Committee cleared an immigration bill. "They cast workers into a perennial second-class status, and unfairly put their fates into their employers' hands." Sweeney's statement praised numerous provisions of the overall immigration legislation,...

NEW YORK - A federal judge blasted former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman on Thursday for reassuring New Yorkers soon after the Sept. 11 attacks that it was safe to return to their homes and offices while toxic dust was polluting the neighborhood. U.S. District Judge Deborah A. Batts refused to grant Whitman immunity against a class-action lawsuit brought in 2004 by residents, students and workers in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn who said they were exposed to hazardous materials from the destruction of the World Trade Center. "No reasonable person would have thought that telling thousands of people...

Last update - 09:57 12/12/2005 Foreign Ministry slams EU talks with Hezbollah, Hamas By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent The Foreign Ministry believes that the European Union has violated international law by talking to Hezbollah and by planning to make contact with Hamas. An internal ministry document obtained by Haaretz states that contact with representatives of these two groups is contrary to international law. "Several countries have adopted a policy that includes entering into official talks with representatives of Hamas and Hezbollah, or refraining from taking harsh measures against their involvement in terrorism," the document states. "From a legal standpoint, such...

LOS ANGELES - Democratic Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, in an unexpected broadside, accused Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday of misusing the state's ballot initiative process to force his political agenda on the Legislature. Schwarzenegger is pushing four ballot measures that deal with teacher tenure, union dues, a state spending cap and redistricting. "I'm opposed to all of his initiatives," said Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly speaker, who had appeared eager to work with Schwarzenegger. "In this instance it's very clear that the initiative process is being misused," Villaraigosa said. "These are matters that could and should be addressed by the...

The state Attorney General's office denounced California City's use of eminent domain in a brief filed Tuesday, calling it "the most serious violation" of redevelopment law in the state. In the brief filed in Kern County Superior Court, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer described the case as a "poster child for this abuse." "There's tremendous economic incentive to condemn vacant land as blighted," said Deputy Attorney General Dan Siegel. "But redevelopment means what it says. It's conditional on finding urbanization and blight." California City added more than 15,000 acres to its redevelopment area in 2003, saying the land was legally...

BOSTON (AP) - The chief judge of U.S. District Court in Boston lashed out at Congress on Tuesday for putting what he called a "chokehold" on all federal district courts, stripping them of the authority to rule on deportation cases. In a scathing ruling, Judge William G. Young said he had been prepared to halt the deportation of a Nigerian national who says the government promised he could stay in the United States after he was charged with drug smuggling in 1986. But Young said Congress took that decision out of his hands in May when it passed the REAL...

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid yesterday in a speech laying out Democrats' agenda accused Republican leaders of being so consumed with partisan political "sniping" that they've neglected a troubled economy and a weak national defense. "Democrats are the party of national security," Mr. Reid said at the National Press Club. "And we have an agenda to defend America from danger." "As of this month, more time has passed since 9/11 than the time between Pearl Harbor and the defeat of Japan. During those three years and eight months -- 60 years ago -- we invaded North Africa and Normandy, we...

Hillary Clinton slams GTA GamesIndustry.biz New York senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton has launched an attack on violent videogames, singling out Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto titles as a "major threat" to morality. Clinton, who is reportedly planning to seek the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2008 election, has aligned herself with hardline right-wing Republican senators in order to pressure Congress into researching the impact of electronic media on children. "Children are playing a game that encourages them to have sex with prostitutes and then murder them," she said in a statement on the issue. "This is a silent...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) hit out at the West's "double-standards" amid a Cold-War-style dispute over Ukrainian elections, accusing it of fomenting "permanent revolutions" in Moscow's backyard. Putin again slammed US-led plans to press ahead with elections next month in Iraq (news - web sites) and said it was the height of hypocrisy for Western governments to criticise Russia for pursuing its interests in neighbouring former Soviet republics. "Today according to our estimates there are nine cities in Iraq where there are hostilities but they still want to carry out elections," he said, condemning...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top U.S. military commander in Europe criticized NATO countries who refused to provide military instructors for a training mission in Iraq, saying the result will be an increased burden on allies who are contributing. "It's important to recognize that once the alliance gets involved in an operation, it is important that all allies support the operation," Gen. James Jones, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe said Tuesday. He said "nine or 10 or 11" of NATO's 26 countries would not send instructors, even though they voted to approve a mission there. "This is disturbing. I hope it...

DOVER, United States (AFP) - Democratic hopeful John Kerry (news - web sites) branded President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s administration arrogant, blind, incompetent and guilty of "great blunders" after the disappearance of 380 tons of high explosives in Iraq (news - web sites). Kerry pounced on reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency that the explosives that could be used in conventional or nuclear bombs had disappeared, as proof Bush had failed as US commander in chief. "George W. Bush, who talks tough, talks tough, and brags about making America safer has once again failed to deliver,"...