All Global News on One Page

Share this page Fourth suspect arrested over Canada terror plot Canadian police have arrested a fourth suspect over a plot to support anti-coalition fighters in Afghanistan.
Federal police say the suspect was arrested in Ottawa as part of “standard operating procedures” after carrying out a search warrant.
The person has not been charged or named by police.
Three men have already been charged under Canada's anti-terrorism act with conspiring with people in Iran, Afghanistan, Dubai and Pakistan.
Hiva Alizadeh and Misbahuddin Ahmed were held in custody following a court appearance on Thursday, while Khurram Sher was charged with terrorism-related offences following a brief court appearance on Friday.
Police said on Thursday the first three suspects arrested were “part of a domestic terrorist group operating in Canada”. RCMP officials also warned that the arrests were linked to a group fighting Western forces in Afghanistan.

Share this page Carter and American freed from North Korea reach US Former US President Jimmy Carter has arrived back in the US with an American whose release he won from North Korea.
Mr Carter and Aijalon Gomes touched down in Boston, where the plane was met by Mr Gomes' family.
Mr Gomes, who had been living in South Korea, was jailed in January after crossing into North Korea from China.
The insular nation's state-run news agency said leader Kim Jong-il had granted the former president's request to “leniently forgive” Mr Gomes.

Share this page Beck under fire for rally on civil rights anniversary Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck is under fire for scheduling a rally at the site and on the anniversary of an iconic 1963 civil rights demonstration.
He, Sarah Palin and other conservative luminaries will speak on Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, 47 years after Martin Luther King Jr gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Mr Beck says the rally is an apolitical tribute to US military personnel.
But civil rights leaders say Mr Beck's message runs counter to Dr King's.
“It's an affront to what the civil rights movement stood for,” Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who spoke at the , told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We didn't do anything in anger and never tried to divide people. Glenn Beck is a very divisive force.”
The 1963 march was a pivotal moment in the US civil rights movement. Dr King's at the Lincoln Memorial that day foresaw a united nation, free from racial discrimination. It is one of the most celebrated works of American oratory.
Mr Beck, a host on Fox News Channel, is a prominent voice in the anti-establishment Tea Party movement. Last year he accused President Barack Obama of racism, saying he had a “deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture”.
He has promoted the “Restoring Honour” rally on Saturday as a non-political tribute to US troops aimed at restoring “the values that founded this great nation”.
He says when he was planning the rally in the US capital he was unaware that Saturday 28 August would be the anniversary of the 1963 march.
“It's not the date, it's the message,” he said on his television show on Thursday.
“I've heard it over and over again in the media that because of this event, on the date of this event, I'm somehow or another hijacking Dr Martin Luther King's speech. I'm not big enough to do that. No-one is.”
Meanwhile, a coalition of civil rights groups will hold a separate “Reclaim the Dream” rally elsewhere on Washington's National Mall.

Source:BBC

Chipmaker Intel has cut its profit forecast after warning sales of computers were weaker than expected.
It said it now expected revenue of between 10.8bn (7bn) and 11.2bn in the July to September period, from a previous forecast of 11.2bn to 12bn.
As the world's biggest provider of the microprocessors, Intel is seen as an technology industry bellwether.
Analysts said the warning added to evidence of the US's sluggish economic recovery.
This is traditionally a time for strong computer sales as families buy laptops for children going back to school or college.
But Intel said it was seeing “weaker than expected demand for consumer PCs in mature markets”.
Last week, PC maker Dell gave a similar message while Hewlett-Packard said it saw some “softness” in the consumer laptop market.

Source:BBC

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ruled against a marketing firm that posted favourable reviews of its clients' gaming applications on iTunes.
Reverb Communications employees posed as ordinary reviewers in a ploy that the FTC called “deceptive advertising”.
The firm must now remove all of the reviews posted by its employees.
The ruling is the first under new FTC guidelines, introduced last year, that cover bloggers and celebrity endorsements as well as online reviews.
were the first change to the FTC's views on testimonials in nearly 30 years.
The update was necessary to bring advertising standards into the digital age, as the practice of posting false reviews – or “astroturfing” – remains largely unpoliced on the web.
Almost exactly a year ago, while the FTC was still developing its revised guidelines, Reverb Communications was widely rumoured to be engaging in astroturfing.
The FTC's ruling cites a period stretching between November 2008 and May 2009, during which employees posted reviews with praise such as “amazing new game,” “one of the best” and “one of the best apps just got better”.
Mary Engle, director of the FTC's Division of Advertising Practices, said: “Companies, including public relations firms involved in online marketing need to abide by long-held principles of truth in advertising.
“Advertisers should not pass themselves off as ordinary consumers touting a product, and endorsers should make it clear when they have financial connections to sellers.”
, Reverb executive Tracie Snitker said that negotiations with the FTC had reached an impasse.
“Rather than continuing to spend time and money arguing, and laying off employees to fight what we believed was a frivolous matter, we settled this case and ended the discussion,” she said.

Source:BBC

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke has expressed surprise at the slowing US economy and laid out four possible policy responses in a key speech.
He told fellow central bankers at the Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming that the recovery had slowed to “a pace somewhat weaker” than forecast.
With interest rates already at zero, he said the Fed would take further unconventional measures if needed.
Top of the list was more “quantitative easing” – mass purchases of debt.
“The issue at this stage is not whether we have the tools to help support economic activity and guard against disinflation,” Mr Bernanke said.
“The issue is instead whether, at any given juncture, the benefits of each tool, in terms of additional stimulus, outweigh the associated costs or risks of using each tool.”
He said that the unorthodox policy options each contained risks and would only be used if the outlook worsened further.

Source:BBC

Several Ohio strippers are protesting outside a church whose members want to put their strip club out of business.
The bikini-clad dancers are picketing a congregation that has photographed customers' number plates and asked if their wives know where they are.
The Fox Hole club's owner has told the pastor he will call off his protest if the church ceases its demonstrations.
But the pastor has refused, saying, “as a Christian community, we cannot share territory with the devil”.
“Light and darkness cannot exist together,” Pastor Bill Dunfee told the Associated Press news agency, “so the Fox Hole has got to go.”
The strippers have been sitting in deckchairs outside New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio, during Sunday services.
Some hold signs bearing Christian messages such as “Jesus loves the children of the world” and citing Bible verses.
The strip club is about nine miles (14.5km) from the church.
“Everybody has sinned, and that doesn't mean I'm not going to get into heaven,” Fox Hole stripper Laura Meske, 42, told AP.
“I believe in Jesus. I don't believe what they preach. They preach hate.”
The confrontations between the two camps have reportedly been largely friendly, with Mr Dunfee and congregants greeting and chatting to the strippers outside the church.

Source:BBC

The mayor of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina says he wishes he had ordered residents of the city to evacuate earlier, before the storm swept in devastating the city.
“There was an eight-hour window when I could have done it [ordered a mandatory evacuation] a little bit earlier,” Ray Nagin told the BBC.
“It was the first one that had been done in history of New Orleans.”
Mr Nagin was speaking ahead of the fifth anniversary of the disaster that killed 1,836 people and ravaged New Orleans.
As mayor during the storm and the flooding that engulfed the city soon after, Mr Nagin was an impassioned and vociferous critic of the Bush administration's response to the disaster, famously losing his temper during an expletive-laced .
Blasting the slow pace of federal relief efforts, Mr Nagin said at the time: “I need reinforcements, I need troops, man. I need 500 buses, man… This is a national disaster. Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country and get their asses moving to New Orleans.”
Reflecting on his outburst today, he says: “For a politician it's never a good thing to lose your control, to lose your temper.”
But he thinks his words did have a positive effect.
“Something needed to be said,” he says. “Certain people were saying that everything was OK, people weren't suffering and I knew different. I was frustrated and lashed out. I guess it helped because we started to get the army, to get some movement.”
The Bush administration was accused of racism for the tardy manner in which aid was sent to New Orleans. Mr Nagin says he has spent a lot of time thinking about why the federal response was so shoddy, and he says he has reached a firm conclusion.
“Race and class played a lot in the lack of response, in the lack of financial support that we're still struggling to get in the city of New Orleans,” he says.
“If this had been a much more affluent place, a place that was not as populated by African Americans, I am firmly convinced that it would have been a different kind of response. I'm sorry to say that as an American, but that's the reality we dealt with.”
He says that in some ways, the lessons have not been learned.
“When I look at what's happening in Haiti I see a lot of similarities, a lack of response, a lack of rebuilding, slowness of dollars to really flow, to get to the people and impact them in a significant way,” he says.
“It really reminds me of what we went through here in New Orleans.”
Mr Nagin stood again for New Orleans mayor in 2006. He won, but term limits forced him to stand down in May. The city he once ran is still struggling to recover.
Though the population is growing and there is plenty of construction activity, parts of the Lower Ninth Ward – the area most affected by the hurricane – remain dilapidated, with abandoned houses daubed with signs confirming her unsuitability for habitation.
Mr Nagin says he is confident the city will fully recover. He cites one of the most memorable images he has from those traumatic days in August and September 2005.
“I remember the first time that I flew up in a helicopter to witness the devastation for myself.
“It was beyond anything I could have imagined. I was literally in tears at the end of that flight. I saw people on roofs, trying to throw water to them, dead bodies in the water.
“Then we came up the river and stopped in front of Jackson Square, and I could see that it looked like a postcard. And at that point in time I knew we could rebuild because the cultural assets that make New Orleans so unique were still intact.”

Source:BBC

The US economy grew 1.6% in the second quarter, revised down from a first estimate of 2.4%.
The figures were better than most analysts had expected.
Recent data on the US economy had raised worries that the US was entering a double-dip recession, dragging the rest of the world with it.
The revised figure was mostly due to the largest surge in imports in 26 years, and a slower build-up of stocks by companies.
Economists had estimated the revision would be sharper for the April-to-June period, down to about 1.3%.
Nevertheless, it still marks a big drop on the growth figure for the previous three months, which stood at 3.7%.
The US economy has now grown for four straight quarters, although that annualised growth rate averaged only 2.9%.
Experts say that the economy needs to grow at about 3% just to keep the unemployment rate, currently 9.5%, from rising.
The US Commerce Department has confirmed what many people already felt: the economic recovery – which had looked promising earlier in the year – is struggling. The problem with weaker growth is that while many economists talk about the increased risk of a double dip recession, a lot of Americans never felt like they emerged from the first dip.
Such a low level of economic activity means that those out of work will find it difficult to get a job and many companies will be nervous about spending money to grow their business. This poses a problem for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke who is addressing the world's central bankers on Friday.
When he speaks at the annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he will be under pressure to show the Fed stands ready to act to try to prevent another recession.
Business investment in new machinery, computers and software drove much of the growth last quarter, increasing nearly 25%.
Import surge
But much of that spending involved the purchase of imported goods. Imports surged 32.4%, the most since 1984. That was much larger than the 9.1% increase in exports.
However, the Commerce Department figures also showed that personal consumption by US consumers was higher than expected.
Their spending rose at a 2% annual rate, slightly higher than the first quarter's 1.9%.
In the past week, economic data has revealed deep concerns about the health of the US economy.
Sales of new home sank to the lowest levels in half a century, and the manufacturing cuts back capital spending sharply.
The US economy emerged from recession with a 1.6% growth rate in the third quarter of 2009. Are you in the US? What is your reaction to the figures? Send us your comments using the form below. The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide.

Source:BBC

Paul Bremer was the top civil administrator in Iraq until transferring sovereignty back to the Iraqi interim government in 2004. He argues that, despite the good work done in Iraq, a continued role for US government officials in the country is vital to ensure an open, democratic nation.
As American troops end their combat role in Iraq, Americans, and citizens of countries that fought alongside us liberating Iraq, can take a certain measure of satisfaction with the progress there.
To be sure, anti-democratic extremists continue their attacks. Iraqis still struggle to establish a new government and to provide essential services, like electric power.
But amidst the fevered commentary, a bit of perspective seems appropriate. Having lost many American and Iraqi friends in this war, I'm fully aware that every casualty is painful.
But it's worth remembering that Iraqi and American casualties are 95% lower than three years ago. And while still below demand, electricity production is 40% above pre-war levels.
We Americans, in particular, might moderate our criticism of the lengthy efforts to establish representative government. Remember: it took us seven years to win our independence, 12 years to write our constitution and 20 years before we even had political parties.
Establishing democratic rule in Iraq will not be easy, certainly no easier than it was in America. But to say that something is difficult is not to say that it's undesirable or impossible.
The bigger picture confirms that the vast majority of Iraqis want their country to be ruled by a government chosen by its citizens, not by a tyrant which, until liberation in 2003, had been Iraq's sad history.
Over the past five years, millions of Iraqis have braved terrorist threats to vote in four elections and in one referendum, in which they approved the most progressive constitution in any Arab country in history.
That revolutionary document acknowledges fundamental human rights, the equality of the sexes and freedom of religion.
It establishes the rule of law, the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary.
Of course, the constitution is only a document and must be respected in practice. Still, the bottom line: today for the first time in the country's history, Iraqis are citizens, not subjects, of their government.
The delay in forming a government is frustrating, even disappointing.
But the lively Iraqi debate about establishing a government is itself refreshing and, ironically, a measure of how far Iraq has come. Under Saddam, such talk would have resulted in torture or death. Today, nowhere else in the Arab Muslim world is this kind of open discussion encouraged or even tolerated.
This underscores the stakes in Iraq.
For if the ancient land of Mesopotamia can establish a representative government, guided by modern constitutional principles, the example shows that other Arab Muslim countries, too, can be ruled by their people.
Democracy in a major Arab nation also refutes the claim by Islamic extremists that Islam is in fundamental discord with the modern world and must wage war on it.
America must not walk away from the still-limited success in Iraq. Iraq lives in a dangerous neighbourhood. The ancient pre-Islamic frontier between Arab and Persian civilisations runs along its eastern border.
With a population of only 30 million, Iraq will never be able to generate conventional forces alone able to balance Iran with twice the population base. And a nuclear-armed Iran, which the American government rightly declares “unacceptable”, would threaten Iraq, the entire region and broader American interests.
So America has ongoing interests in Iraq's success and stability.
Our security agreement calls for the withdrawal of all American forces by the end of next year. But that agreement also provides that the two countries can undertake “strategic deliberations” about defending Iraq against internal and external threats.
The American government should soon begin quiet discussions with the Iraqis about how, after next year, we can continue to support Iraq as it moves along the difficult road to an open, democratic society. This essay was broadcast on on BBC Radio 4 and will soon be available to listen again .

Source:BBC

The porn film industry has come under fire from Aids campaigners, who have filed a complaint against adult entertainment mogul Larry Flynt.
The Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has submitted an official complaint in California because Flynt's actors are not required to use condoms.
AHF president Michael Weinstein said it was “our duty to pursue action on the issue of safety in the workplace”.
A spokesman for Mr Flynt said he delivered “what the consumer wants”.
Michael Klein, president of Larry Flynt Productions, said: “We won't budge when it comes to condomless productions.”
Federal law requires that all porn actors are tested for HIV 30 days before the start of filming.
Mr Klein said the company adhered to those standards and that none of the actors they used had ever tested positive.
The AHF said it had studied 100 films made by Mr Flynt's company and a condom was seen to be used in one single scene.
It said the movies demonstrated unsafe, “potentially life-threatening” behaviour.
It has submitted a complaint to California's workplace health and safety watchdog.
“We see it as our duty to pursue action on the issue of safety in the workplace – in these instances, unprotected sex acts taking place in albeit non-traditional workplaces,” Mr Weinstein said in a statement.
According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, workers in the adult film industry are 10 times more likely to be infected with a sexually-transmitted infection than members of the general public.

Source:BBC

Share this page Leonardo DiCaprio 'attacker' to face trial A woman accused of attacking Leonardo DiCaprio with a broken bottle at a Hollywood party in 2005 has been ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles.
Aretha Wilson, 40, faces one count of assault with a deadly weapon. Her lawyer said he expected the case to begin within 60 days.
DiCaprio required a dozen stitches to his face and neck after the party.
The judge, who saw photographs of the star's injuries, said he did not consider them “trivial or moderate”.
The photographs, showing cuts to the actor's ear and neck, have not been made public.
The star of Titanic and Inception was not in court for the hearing.
Extradition
Ms Wilson has remained in jail since pleading not guilty to the charge earlier this month after failing to secure bail of 150,000 (96,600).
She had previously been ordered not to contact or come within 500 yards (457m) of DiCaprio.
Ms Wilson could face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
She is accused of sneaking into a party hosted by Paris Hilton's former boyfriend, Rick Salomon.
According to police, she mistook DiCaprio for a former boyfriend and attacked him with a bottle.
DiCaprio later filed a formal criminal complaint and a warrant was issued for Ms Wilson's arrest.
Ms Wilson fled to Canada afterwards and had to be extradited to the US last month to face charges.
Her next scheduled appearance in court is on 9 September.

Source:BBC

US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke is to deliver a key policy speech as the US economy faces a sharp slowdown.
He is expected to tell fellow central bankers at the Jackson Hole conference in Wyoming what options, if any, remain to turn the stalling recovery around.
However, further monetary stimulus could face opposition from Europe and from colleagues within the Fed.
The US government is likely to revise estimated second-quarter GDP down heavily just before the speech.
The new estimate is expected to be 1.4%, down from 2.4% previously.
A spate of poor housing and manufacturing data over the summer points to a major economic slowdown in the second half of the year.
Existing home sales fell 27% in July from a year earlier, as a special tax credit for home-buyers expired.
If the sales data translates into further falls in US house prices, this would lead to renewed losses for mortgage lenders and weigh further on consumer spending.
Moreover, regional manufacturing reports over the summer point to a sharp slowdown in industrial production, as a temporary spurt in orders from companies rebuilding their inventories comes to an end.
The US economy is also likely to be hit by a reduction in government spending.
The federal government's emergency stimulus package is coming to an end, and is unlikely to be expanded much thanks to Republican opposition in Congress.
At the same time, many state governments, including California and Illinois, are being forced to slash spending to avoid possible bankruptcy.
To top it all, the US trade deficit has surged back to pre-recession levels, meaning that much of the spending that is happening in the US economy is benefiting foreign and not domestic producers.
Mr Bernanke has been criticised from some quarters for showing a lack of leadership since the US economy began to recover strongly a year ago.
His failure to lay out a strong policy position may, however, reflect pronounced disagreements both inside and outside the Fed.
As an academic noted for his work on the 1930s Great Depression and on Japan's economic malaise, Mr Bernanke was at the forefront of radical measures to address the financial crisis in 2008-09.
These included cutting interest rates to almost zero, unprecedented emergency lending for banks and so-called quantitative easing – the mass-purchase of debts, including 1.25tn mortage debts, to hold down borrowing costs.
But his unorthodox policies during the crisis have made many colleagues nervous, and with the economy seemingly in recovery, many began to urge a withdrawal of these measures.
These more hawkish voices include Thomas Hoenig, the head of the Kansas City Reserve, who is hosting the Jackson Hole event.
Mr Hoenig worries that holding interest rates so low for so long could simply inflate new financial bubbles like the housing bubble that precipitated the current recession.
The ability to borrow money cheaply has led speculators to begin driving up the price of risky assets again – notably currencies in high interest-rate countries in Latin America and elsewhere.

Source:BBC

Boeing is delaying delivery of its first new-generation 787 Dreamliner aircraft until early 2011.
Japan's All Nippon Airways was due to take delivery of the aircraft at the end of this year.
The 787 project has already been delayed for more than two years, following a series of hitches.

US health officials say they have found salmonella in chicken feed used at two farms involved in a major egg recall.
“We do not know at this point how, when or where this feed may have been contaminated,” said Jeff Farrar of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
More than 550 million eggs from Wright County Egg and Hillandale Farms in Iowa were recalled earlier this month.
There have been some 1,400 more cases of salmonella-related illnesses than average in the US since 1 May.

Former US President Jimmy Carter has secured the release of an American citizen detained in North Korea.
Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 31, was sentenced to eight years' hard labour in April, after being found guilty of illegally entering the country from China.
Mr Carter met senior North Korean officials after arriving in Pyongyang on Wednesday.
He has now left to fly back to the US with Mr Gomes, a devout Christian who had entered North Korea in January.
The state-controlled North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said that the North's Deputy Prime Minister Kim Yong-nam had informed Mr Carter of his countryu's willingness to return to international negotiations, known as the six-party talks.
“(Kim Yong-nam) expressed the Republic's commitment to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and resume the six-way talks,” KCNA said.
Mr Carter met senior North Korean officials after arriving in Pyongyang on Wednesday on what was described as “a private humanitarian trip”.
On his arrival, Mr Carter was met by North Korea's nuclear negotiator, Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's state news agency KCNA said.
Later he held “cordial” talks with the country's deputy leader, Kim Yong-nam, the agency said.
Six-nation talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions have also been stalled for several months.
Mr Carter's visit comes at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and the outside world, in the wake of the sinking of a South Korean warship.
International investigators say a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan, which went down near the disputed inter-Korean border on 26 March with the loss of 46 sailors.
Since then, the US and South Korea have embarked on a series of joint military exercises – sparking an angry response from Pyongyang.
South Korea refuses to re-enter new talks until it has secured an apology from the North for the ship sinking – something North Korea has refused to offer as it denies any role in the ship incident.
Mr Gomes, a devout Christian who had entered North Korea in January, had been teaching English in South Korea.
He reportedly crossed into North Korea in January. He is thought to have gone there on a one-man peace mission.
He was visited by a US official and two doctors in a hospital in Pyongyang earlier this month. North Korea said in July that Mr Gomes had tried to commit suicide.
In visiting North Korea, Mr Carter is following in the footsteps of another former US President, Bill Clinton, who last year secured the release of two US journalists detained in North Korea for crossing the border.
The journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were pardoned and returned to the US with Mr Clinton.

Source:BBC