During his lifetime Charlie Haughey, nicknamed "The Boss", evaded his accusers. Yesterday the extent of the corrupt cash for favours culture operated by the former Irish prime minister was exposed in excruciating detail.After nine years of investigation, an official tribunal revealed that the long-serving Fianna Fáil party leader, who died earlier this year at the age of 80, "misappropriated" funds raised for a ministerial colleague's liver transplant, sold passports to an Arab sheikh, and accumulated the equivalent of €11m (£7.3m) in clandestine payments from wealthy businessmen. The inquiry, which covered the highest levels of government in Dublin, found that Mr Haughey had "devalued the quality of a modern democracy".The reputation of the present prime minister, or taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, was also tarnished by confirmation that it was his practice to sign blank cheques later used by Mr Haughey for his personal benefit. ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk
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Editor - 18:35:00 12-19-06
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 Iraq Executes 13 Men Convicted of Crimes |
Iraqi authorities executed 13 men by hanging Tuesday after they were convicted of murder and kidnapping, lining them up in hoods and green jumpsuits with their hands bound behind their backs.Television images showed two men standing together on a gallows with nooses around their necks. Several of them stooped, and one had his arm around the shoulder of another as the hooded men stood in a row shortly before they were hanged.The footage also showed a bearded man without a hood as he listened to an official tell him his appeal had been rejected and the sentence was death. "OK," the prisoner said impassively.The government executed the men after an appeals court and the presidency approved the verdict, said Busho Ibrahim, undersecretary of the Justice Ministry...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/20/ap/world/mainD8M487600.shtml
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Editor - 18:27:00 12-19-06
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| Most Americans have had premarital sex, study finds |
Almost all Americans have premarital sex, says a report published Tue that analyzes federal data over time & suggests programs focusing on sexual abstinence until marriage may be unrealistic. "The reality of the situation is that most people had premarital sex, and it's been that way for several decades," says Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute, a New York City-based non-profit organization that studies reproductive and sexual health. The study, which used statistics from the 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, asked about 40,000 people ages 15-44 about their sexual behavior and traced the trends in premarital sex back to the 1950s. Of those interviewed in 2002, 95% reported they had had premarital sex; 93% said they did so by age 30. Among women born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 did. At the same time, people are waiting longer to marry; 2005 data show median age at first marriage is just over 25 for women and 27 for men...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-19-premarital-sex_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 18:25:00 12-19-06
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| Hopes dim for missing climbers in China |
There is only a "slim" chance that two Colorado climbers missing since November are still alive in a region of 20,000-foot peaks in China's southwest, an official said Tuesday.Christine Boskoff, a top female climber, and Charlie Fowler, a well-known climber, guide and photographer, were reported missing after they failed to return to the United States on Dec. 4.Their last known contact was a Nov. 8 e-mail sent after they returned from the North Face of the previously unclimbed 19,094-foot Haizi Mountain, also known as Yala Peak, in Sichuan province."We are still searching," said Gao Min of the Sichuan Mountaineering Association. "Personally, I think their chance of survival is slim. We have done our best to search for them."Yang Shitao, an official with the Foreign Exchange Department of the China Mountaineering Association, said the search was complicated by the fact that the two did not inform the association of their climbing plans....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-12-19-china-climbers_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 18:14:00 12-19-06
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| US considers naval build-up as warning to Iran |
The Bush administration is weighing options for a naval build-up in the Gulf as a show of force and a warning to Iran on its nuclear programme and its support for Shia militias in Iraq, it emerged yesterday. Under the proposed build-up, first reported by CBS television, the Pentagon would send an aircraft carrier to join one already in the region. The proposed deployment was described as a message to Tehran not to take provocative steps, and was not preparation for an attack. The idea of sending a second aircraft carrier was raised this month by the commander of US forces in Iraq, General John Abizaid. But it also comes amid mounting pressure from Saudi Arabia against a withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Pentagon officials were considering Gen Abizaid's request, but few other details were immediately available. A Pentagon spokesman said there would be no comment on military movements....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1975675,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=12
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Editor - 18:12:00 12-19-06
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| Iran Demands That Security Council Condemn What It Calls Israel's Clandestine Nuclear Weapons |
Iran demanded Tuesday that the U.N. Security Council condemn what it said was Israel's clandestine development of nuclear weapons and "compel" it to place all its nuclear facilities under U.N. inspection. If Israel refuses to comply, Iran said the council must take "resolute action" under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which authorizes a range of measures from diplomatic and economic sanctions to military action. Iran insists its own nuclear program is a purely peaceful effort to develop energy, but the United States and many European nations believe Tehran's real aim in enriching uranium is to produce nuclear weapons. The Security Council is currently debating a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend its enrichment program. Iran's U.N. Ambassador Javad Zarif said in identical letters to the council and the secretary-general that the council's actions would show whether it was acting under the U.N. Charter or as "a tool" for ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2739176
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Editor - 18:02:00 12-19-06
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