 India's parliament on Friday sacked 11 members caught on film taking cash for asking questions in the latest of a series of graft scandals that have angered, but not surprised, the country. It is the biggest single expulsion since independence in 1947, but analysts say it will have no political impact and do nothing to fight corruption because this is too entrenched. The upper house expelled one member and the lower house 10 after parliamentary committees investigating the allegations recommended they go. The 11, from the ruling Congress party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and regional groups, deny any wrongdoing and some say they are victims of a conspiracy. ...
http://abcnews.go.com
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Editor - 09:35:00 12-23-05
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 Big Drop In November Home Sales |
Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, providing the most dramatic evidence yet that the red hot housing market over the last five years is starting to cool down. The Commerce Department reported Friday that new single-family homes were sold at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units last month, a drop of 11.3 percent from October, when sales had surged to an all-time high. Last month's decline was even bigger than the 8.7 percent drop-off that Wall Street analysts had been expecting. While sales of both new and existing homes are still on track to set records for a fifth straight year in 2005, analysts are forecasting ...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/23/business/main1161471.shtml?CMP=OTC-RSSFeed&source=RSS&attr=U.S._1161471
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Editor - 09:21:00 12-23-05
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| Judge blocks law on violent games |
A Californian law that made it illegal to sell or rent violent or sexually explicit games to children has been blocked by a US federal judge. Citing freedom of speech worries US district judge Ronald Whyte granted an injunction to stop the law coming into force on 1 January. Judge Whyte also questioned whether it was possible to ban sales to minors. The ruling comes as US politicians draft national laws to stop the sale of adult-themed games to children. The Californian law was drafted in October and aimed to make it a crime for games that "depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious or cruel" to be sold or rented to those under 18. Signed into law by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the measure imposed $1,000 (£575) fines every time it was broken. The passing of the law was challenged by the Entertainment Software Association and the Video Software Dealers Association which represent game makers and retailers. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4554988.stm
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Editor - 09:19:00 12-23-05
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| Attacks near Baquba leave 12 dead |
Twelve Iraqis have been killed and 25 wounded in two separate attacks by insurgents near the city of Baquba. Eight Iraqi soldiers were killed and 17 wounded when rocket-propelled grenades were fired at their checkpoint on the main Baghdad-Kirkuk road at Adhaim. In a separate incident, four people were killed and eight wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Shia mosque in Balad Ruz. Baquba and the area around the city have often been the scene of violence. At least 19 Iraqi soldiers were killed in an ambush in Adhaim at the beginning of the month. The attack came shortly after the UK's former envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said Iraq's insurgency could continue for five more years. "I think [the insurgency] has got at least five years of life, because there are men and there are materials," he told Sky News. "There's motivation there from the Sunni insurgents, the left over Baathists, the Saddamists and... the al-Qaida franchise." ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4555146.stm
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Editor - 09:14:00 12-23-05
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| Judge Dismisses Pope From Sex-Abuse Suit |
A U.S. judge in Texas dismissed Pope Benedict XVI from a civil lawsuit accusing him of conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by a seminarian, ruling Thursday that the pontiff has immunity as a head of state. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal cited a motion filed by the Justice Department, known as a "Suggestion of Immunity," in which the government said allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests.""After a suggestion of immunity is filed, it is the court's duty to surrender jurisdiction," Rosenthal wrote....
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179586,00.html
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Editor - 09:12:00 12-23-05
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| Evolution takes science honours |
Research into how evolution works has been named top science achievement of 2005, a year that also saw fierce debate erupt over "intelligent design". The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms. Adherents of intelligent design, or ID, maintain that many features of the Universe and of living things are too complex to have been the result of natural selection. Instead, the "theory" says, they must have been designed by a highly intelligent supernatural force. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4552466.stm
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Editor - 09:10:00 12-23-05
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| post The Good, The Bad and The Ugly |
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