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TRIPOLI, LIBYA – A car bomb exploded outside a building housing the Swedish and Finnish consulates in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Friday, badly damaging it but causing no casualties, Libyan and Swedish officials said. The blast reflected the deep insecurity in the North African nation, where multiple armed militias run rampant -- many of them dominated by Islamic militants -- and the central government is too weak to rein them in.

Ebola patient allegedly diagnosed in Kagera BY EMMANUEL ONYANGO 4th August 2012 As the government tries to take measures to prevent the deadly disease of Ebola from spreading into the country, one patient has been discovered to have been infected with the viruses at Nyakage hospital in Karagwe district, Kagera region. According to one doctor from the hospital who declined to be named because he is not the authorised spokesperson, doctors at the hospital discovered a patient whose name was not immediately established with all signs of the disease when he went there for treatment on Friday. The doctor further...

According to the LA Times, Eight years ago, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted an ambitious plan to have all students take college-prep classes to raise academic standards in the nation's second-largest school district. Now, that plan is about to take effect: Beginning this fall, incoming freshmen will have to pass those classes to graduate. On Tuesday, district officials backtracked, offering details of a proposal to reduce overall graduation requirements and allow students to pass those classes with a D grade. They must change course, Los Angeles Unified School District officials said, or they would open the doors to...

West Virginia again listed as a 'judicial hellhole'State ranked No. 3 by Cheryl Caswell - Daily Mail staff Charleston Daily Mail Thursday December 15, 2011 CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The American Tort Reform Association has again placed West Virginia at the number three spot in its annual list of "judicial hellholes." The group lists Philadelphia in the top (worst) spot, and California as number two. Other states/regions that made the list are Southern Florida, Madison and St. Clair Counties in Illinois, New York City and Albany, Clark County in Nevada and McLean County in Illinois. The list is put out by...

All across America there are cities and towns that were once prosperous and beautiful that are being transformed into absolute hellholes. The scars left by the long-term economic decline of the United States are getting deeper and more gruesome. The tax base in many areas of the nation has been absolutely devastated as millions of jobs have left this country. Hundreds of cities are drowning in debt and are desperately trying to survive. Last year, city government revenues in the United States fell by another 2.3 percent. That was the fifth year in a row that we have seen...

BAGHDAD — Iraq is considering multiple options regarding the future of the US military presence, ranging from a limited mission to no trainers whatsoever, a top official told AFP on Monday. The remarks from Ali al-Alaak, the general secretary of the cabinet, come amid an apparent impasse between Washington's requirement of legal immunity for any US troops serving here beyond year-end, and a statement from Iraqi political leaders that there was "no need" for such protections. "The US is insisting on that, and Iraq is insisting on not giving that," Alaak said in an interview. He said there were a...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Mexicans are seething over the second death of a countryman at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents in two weeks, an incident near downtown El Paso that is threatening to escalate tensions over migrant issues. U.S. authorities said Tuesday a Border Patrol agent was defending himself and colleagues when he fatally shot the 15-year-old as officers came under a barrage of big stones while trying to detain illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

The bulk of U.S. military forces will depart Haiti on Tuesday, leaving United Nations forces and civilian groups to help the country rebuild its devastated capital in the wake of January's deadly earthquake. The departure, which was agreed upon by the U.S. and Haitian governments and long anticipated, signals that "we have reached a basic level of sustainment in Haiti," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley in an interview on Monday. "The military played an essential short-term role, but now this is getting back to where the focus is on development, and that expertise rests in the civilian sector."

DETROIT -- The Detroit City Council voted on a non-binding resolution Wednesday that asks for a $10 billion bailout for the city as part of the federal government’s recently approved $700 billion bailout package. The resolution was not on the city council’s agenda and was brought up at the end of the meeting by Council President Pro Tem JoAnn Watson. Watson said the city needs the funds to spread offer more employment, improve transportation and rebuild the crumbling housing industry in the area.

White society is now a hell-hole, said BNP boss on race charges By Paul Stokes (Filed: 18/01/2006) The leader of the British National Party claimed white society had turned into "a multi-racial hell-hole", a jury heard yesterday. Mark Collett and Nick Griffin deny intent to stir up racial hatred Nick Griffin, 45, and fellow party activist Mark Collett, 24, went on trial accused of race-hate charges through speeches featured in a BBC undercover documentary. Both were filmed by the programme The Secret Agent as they addressed an audience at the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, West Yorks, two years ago tomorrow....

MIDI - MEXICO (musical intro) Way down there, they are all planning to leave Load the van, they'll drink tequila and heave The U.S., they'll drag down and they won't grieve Oh, Mexico The country is a hellhole of corruption, we know We'll be so screwed if we don't stop the flow Illegals from Mexico Liberals want voters so that they can win One world dream...this is how they will begin We must share...that's because, we all are kin Oh, Mexico The country is a hellhole of corruption, we know We'll be so screwed if we don't stop the...

As the question says, I was wondering how much the Soviet Union GDP was during the 80's? I ask because I've been reading "Reagan's War", and in it, it says the following. This amounts to a hefty price tag for a superpower that had total hard-currency earnings of approximately $32 billion at the time. That seems off to me. A little on the low side. So am I just misreading that, and confusing it for the GDP? Am I confusing GDP with something else? Or was that what the Soviet Union actually had per year?

NELSPRUIT, South Africa – Heidi Le Roux sat weeping in her spacious farmhouse on the South African veld as the leaves turned gold and saffron in the glorious autumn twilight. Blonde and pretty, boasting of three young, healthy children and a devoted, hard-working husband who runs a huge multi-million dollar sugar and macadamia farm, it would seem that Heidi's life is a page out of apartheid's "glorious" past. It is a not-too-distant past when farmers were the "lords of the manor" and the future seemed bountiful and perhaps even endless. In the "New South Africa," however, nothing is as is...

There is hot and there is Houston. And Houston in August is even worse -- somewhere between a steam bath and a place of eternal repose for evildoers. Whether the mercury gets to 98, as it did Tuesday, the year's hottest here, or 99, as it could be today or Thursday, is a distinction without much difference. Jam your toe or jam your finger. Dallas may claim the temperature title, but it's a lot drier on the prairie. They play outdoor baseball there. Houston doesn't do outdoors. Even the feeble-minded and fanatical -- in other words, golfers -- have a...

GOP vows to field write-in legislative candidates by Karen E. Crummy Friday, May 3, 2002 Republicans yesterday vowed to field a slate of write-in anti-tax legislative challengers who will taunt incumbent Democrats by resurrecting the infamous state nickname: Taxachusetts. ``We're going to run a bunch more candidates now,'' said state GOP executive director Jonathan Fletcher. ``The anti-tax message resonates with voters, especially considering the state of the Legislature now and the way things aren't working.'' The Democratic-controlled House scheduled the tax debate after Tuesday's deadline for filing for legislative campaigns, hoping to ward off potential challengers. Candidates can still launch...