Former governor of Illinois indicted on corruption charges

Friday, April 3, 2009 Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of the US state of Illinois, was indicted on Thursday on charges of corruption for allegedly planning to “sell” Barack Obama’s Senate seat when the latter vacated it to become President. Five of his advisers, including Blagojevich’s brother Robert, were also indicted. The others are former fundraiser, Christopher Kelly, former chief of staff John Harris, former aide Lon Monk, and the lobbyist William Cellini. A jury indicted Blagojevich on sixteen felony counts, among them wire fraud, extortion conspiracy, and racketeering conspiracy.…

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Markets dragged down by credit crisis

Friday, August 10, 2007 Global stock markets fell today, in a mass sell-off stemming from the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rebounded late in the day after falling more than 250 points, ending the day down about 31 points. The UK’s FTSE-100 index fell 232.90 points to 6038.30, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 406.51 points to 16764.09. Central banks across the world are injecting funds into their banking systems to add liquidity, fearing that many financial firms with subprime ties will be insolvent.…

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Clinical signs a ‘reliable measure’ of HIV treatment progress

Monday, May 5, 2008 Researchers have found that, in terms of survival, assessing the status of a HIV/AIDS patient by clinical examination is almost as reliable as laboratory blood testing during their course of treatment. Poor access to laboratory tests should therefore not be a barrier to rolling out antiretroviral (ARV) drug programmes for HIV in developing countries, they say. The findings were published in The Lancet recently. Patients on first-line ARVs in the developed world are monitored regularly for the amount of HIV circulating in their blood. When this…

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Controversial development training cited in religious discrimination lawsuits

Friday, May 23, 2008 A controversial development training course called “Landmark Forum” is cited in religious discrimination lawsuits in United States federal courts in New York and Washington, D.C. The seminars are run by a San Francisco, California-based for-profit training company called Landmark Education. The company evolved from Erhard Seminars Training “est”, and has faced criticism regarding its techniques and its use of unpaid labor. The sperm bank and surrogacy company Los Angeles-based Growing Generations is named as a defendant in the New York lawsuit, and the Democratic political action…

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African nations gather to support a ban on cluster bombs

Thursday, April 3, 2008 A 39-nation coalition in Africa passed a declaration on Tuesday to ban cluster bombs in a nearly unanimous vote. The gathering in Lukasa, Zambia was the first meeting of the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) in Africa. “Africa is ready for Dublin,” summarised Zambian delegate Robert Mtonga, referring to the upcoming May 19-30 meeting in Ireland to discuss a global ban on the weapons. “Too often Africa’s voice is pushed to the margins in international decision-making. But in banning cluster bombs worldwide, a common African voice will…

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