Keyword: dontexcerpt
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An iron-lunged pensioner has celebrated her 100th birthday by lighting up her 170,000th cigerette from a candle on her birthday cake. Winnie Langley started smoking only days after the First World War broke out in June 1914 when she was just seven-years-old - and has got through five a day ever since. She has no intention of quitting, even after the nationwide ban forced tobacco-lovers outside.
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Britain was appalled by the horrific 'honour killing' of a girl murdered by her father for daring to kiss the man she loved. Here, her sister, who narrowly escaped death herself and now lives in fear of her life, breaks her silence. Every time Bekhal Mahmod leaves the safety of her home, she wears the hijab with a black veil covering her face - even though she would give anything for the freedom not to have to. She has no family to turn to, few friends, and has to lie to new acquaintances about who she is and where she...
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While conservative pundit Ann Coulter has been dropped by several newspapers for using an anti-gay epithet regarding Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, she remains in good standing with her book publisher. The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., plans an October release for her next book, "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
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Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic candidate for president, is at it again with another rude gaffe, this one providing an unintended glimpse of the way many contemporary cosmopolitan elites characterize their homeland when abroad. In the past, Kerry has said that our soldiers were "terrorizing" Iraqi civilians in their homes. He has also warned that uneducated Americans "get stuck in Iraq" -- a supposedly botched joke. Now, he assures an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the United States is a "sort of international pariah." Kerry, who appeared on stage in Davos this past weekend...
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Steve Jobs, Apple’s showman nonpareil, provided the first public glimpse of the iPhone last week — gorgeous, feature-laden and pricey. While following the master magician’s gestures, it was easy to overlook a most disappointing aspect: like its slimmer iPod siblings, the iPhone’s music-playing function will be limited by factory-installed “crippleware.” If “crippleware” seems an unduly harsh description, it balances the euphemistic names that the industry uses for copy protection. Apple officially calls its own standard “FairPlay,” but fair it is not. The term “crippleware” comes from the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit, Melanie Tucker v. Apple Computer Inc., that is...
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ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons. Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources. Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout. “As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources....
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Islamic fears kill off children's thriller Murray Waldren and Jodie Minus November 25, 2006 A LEADING children's publisher has dumped a novel because of political sensitivity over Islamic issues. Scholastic Australia pulled the plug on the Army of the Pure after booksellers and librarians said they would not stock the adventure thriller for younger readers because the "baddie" was a Muslim terrorist.
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A statement purportedly from the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq hails the defeat of Republicans in the US mid-term polls. The audio message, whose authenticity has not been verified, was published on Islamist websites and was said to be the voice of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. The Democrats' victory in Tuesday's Congressional elections was a move in the right direction, the speaker said.
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No president in the modern age has had to face an “insurgency” of relentless criticism from not one, but two former presidents—both dedicated to undermining his policies. Bill Clinton’s appearance on Fox News yesterday is a case in point, calculated to score points through attacks on the “right-wing conspiracy” and President Bush. Jimmy Carter is still trying to build his legacy and sell books—but he’s not much more than a gadfly these days. William Jefferson Clinton is important for a number of reasons: He’s still the heart and soul of the Democratic Party; European liberals love him; and his wife...
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I was at the airport in Auckland the other day and mooching around the duty free shop. My little girl likes snow globes, so I picked out one showing some charming New Zealand sheep. No snow, technically, but when you shook it, little stars sparkled around the ovine cuties. The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that, in an expansive definition worthy of the Massachusetts Supreme Court constitutional-right-to-same-sex-marriage ruling, the twinkly fluid...
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Four out of 10 British Muslims want sharia law introduced into parts of the country, a survey reveals today. The ICM opinion poll also indicates that a fifth have sympathy with the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July 7, killing 52 people, although 99 per cent thought the bombers were wrong to carry out the atrocity. Islamic law is used in large parts of the Middle East, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and is enforced by religious police. Special courts can hand down harsh punishments which can include stoning and amputation. Forty per cent...
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Newspapers across Europe have reprinted caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad to show support for a Danish paper whose cartoons have sparked Muslim outrage. France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, La Stampa in Italy and El Periodico in Spain all carried some of the drawings. Their publication in Denmark has led to protests in Arab nations, diplomatic sanctions and death threats. Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet, but media watchdogs defend press freedom to publish the images. Reporters Without Borders said the reaction in the Arab world "betrays a lack of understanding" of press freedom as "an essential accomplishment of democracy."
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Supporters of al-Qa'eda in Iraq have used the elections staged by the United States to gain positions of political power, the American military believes. According to senior officers based in Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold in western Iraq, al-Qa'eda-linked politicians have gained seats in local elections to provincial assemblies. Al-Qa'eda was virulently opposed to the national elections held in Iraq last year, describing the votes in January and December as a "trick of Satan" and promising to kill anyone who voted. But the news that some of the organisation's supporters have gained seats at the local level illustrates both how...
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Japan on Wednesday released a video in a bid to prove Greenpeace targeted its whaling ship in an Antarctic collision this week and accused the environmentalists of violent tactics. Japan's main whaling body put a video on its website that showed Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise moving steadily forward before hitting the whaling ship Nisshin Maru, whose movement was impeded by another whaling vessel nearby. "It was a deliberate action to get media coverage," Japan's Institute for Cetacean Research said in a statement. "The Arctic Sunrise could have avoided this collision. Instead the skipper turned the boat into the path of the...
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AN INDONESIAN fisherman has pleaded guilty to pouring boiling oil over his boat captain while they were detained in Darwin Harbour. Saiful Anam, 27, pleaded guilty in the NT Supreme Court yesterday to causing grievous harm to the Hok Soen Heng, the captain of the fishing boat he was working on. The court heard the crew had been caught fishing illegally on May 7 and were detained on their boat at a quarantine point in Darwin Harbour 1.5km from shore. Anam, the cook on the boat, had served the captain the evening meal on May 12. But the captain threw...
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Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and überpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work. Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25), established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.) Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our...
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Every couple of months I pick up a paper and read something about Lord Goldsmith's view on the likely illegality of the Iraq war. And I think, "Hang on, didn't I read this story back in January?" — or October, or June, or whenever this indestructible "controversy" last reared its head. And I get to the bit about Baroness Kennedy calling for an investigation into what Clare Short has revealed — or possibly vice versa — and my eyes glaze over and round about paragraph four I flip to the books page and Barry Norman's review of Halliwell's Illustrated Guide...
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The inmate accused of strangling John Geoghan in his prison cell hated homosexuals and began plotting the attack on the child molesting former priest weeks ago, a prosecutor said yesterday. 'He looked on Father Geoghan as a prize,' District Attorney John Conte said. No question he had been planning it for well over a month.Joe L. Druce, who is serving a life term for killing a gay man 15 years ago, cut apart a book to make a perfect tool for jamming the door of Geoghan's cell and spent time stretching the socks used in the strangling, Conte said.'Druce had...
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"The metrosexual cavorts in the area between men and women; specifically in what my friend D-ball calls 'the dermal zone.'"
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