 Russian prosecutors have filed new charges of money-laundering and embezzlement against the jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. His lawyer said the same charges were filed against the ex-Yukos chairman's business partner Platon Lebedev. The pair, jailed in 2005, are serving an eight-year term for fraud and tax evasion in the Chita region of Siberia, where the new charges were filed. Khodorkovsky was once one of Russia's most powerful men. He built up a multi-billion-dollar fortune before falling foul of the authorities. He was arrested in 2003 along with Platon Lebedev. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were facing the possibility of release in 2008 or 2009 - but that appears unlikely now. Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yuri Shmidt described the latest charges as "absurd, even crazy". Russian media say the charges allege that up to $25bn was embezzled....
http://news.bbc.co.uk
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Editor - 09:22:00 02-05-07
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 At least 60 drowned in Cameroon boat capsize |
At least 60 people drowned at sea off southwest Cameroon at the weekend when a wooden motor boat packed with passengers and cargo capsized on its way to neighboring Nigeria, a local official said on Monday.Peter Itoe, the Divisional Officer at Limbe, a coastal town lying beneath Mount Cameroon, said there were only 15 survivors from the accident, which occurred late on Saturday off the coast between Mabeta Island and Debundscha. "On Sunday, we buried some 60 bodies in mass graves … We believe that all the other passengers are missing at sea," Itoe told Reuters. Fon Achobang, a local reporter for the Limbe-based newspaper Eden, said survivors whom he interviewed told him that the boat had left the village of Tiko, near Limbe, and was ferrying passengers and cargo to Oron in neighboring Nigeria. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2850333
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Editor - 09:20:00 02-05-07
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| Bodies found in German restaurant |
The bodies of six people - three men and three women - have been found in a Chinese restaurant in the town of Sittensen, in northern Germany. German police say the victims had been shot dead and some had been tied up. Police were alerted by the husband of one victim, who had gone to the Lin Yue restaurant to collect his wife. A restaurant worker, critically wounded in the shooting, is now in hospital. Police say the victims have not yet been identified. But a police spokesman said they were "in all probability Asian". There has been no official word on a possible motive. Child found The bodies were found late on Sunday night in several rooms in the restaurant, police said. "This morning at 1230 (2330 GMT) a man wanted to pick up his wife from work there. He discovered several dead bodies, among them his wife," said police spokesman Detlev Kaldinski. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6331131.stm
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Editor - 09:16:00 02-05-07
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| Iraqi general takes charge of security operations in Baghdad |
Violence raked Baghdad today as an Iraqi general took charge of the security operation in the capital and Iraqi police and soldiers manned new roadblocks -- initial steps indicating the start of the long-anticipated joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed. At least 31 persons died in bomb and mortar attacks across the city today, 15 of them as they waited to refill propane cooking tanks when two car bombs blew up in quick succession in southern Baghdad. The U.S. military reported the deaths of two American soldiers, both killed yesterday. The violence was a sign of the difficulty facing the push that eventually will be able to call upon as many as 90,000 American and Iraqi troops and police in a third attempt to calm the capital in nine months. The command center, staffed by Iraqis and Americans, opened today inside the U.S.-controlled Green Zone next to the prime minister's office. Two past security operations in the capital over the past nine ...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070205-124522-3681r.htm
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Editor - 09:14:00 02-05-07
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| Bush seeks extra energy research funds in 2008 |
The Bush administration on Monday asked Congress for $4.4 billion in extra research funds in fiscal 2008 for high-tech areas such as supercomputers and turning wood chips into ethanol, even though Congress has not acted on the Energy Department's 2007 request.The Energy Department's total budget request for the 2008 fiscal year, which starts October 1, comes in at $24.26 billion in spending authority — up about 6 percent from 2007 levels. The biggest share, $9.387 billion, would go to secure the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, which is one of the Energy Department's prime functions. The next biggest amount, $5.655 billion, goes for cleaning up hazardous waste and radioactive contamination at 108 of 114 nuclear research and weapons production sites, like the Hanford site in Washington state, which used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. ...
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2850335
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Editor - 09:11:00 02-05-07
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| Iran strike 'would be disastrous' |
A coalition of charities, faith groups and unions has warned Tony Blair that any military action against Iran would have "unthinkable" consequences. The organisations are urging the prime minister to put pressure on the US to enter talks with Tehran. The US has refused to rule out military action if Iran does not halt its nuclear activities. Former Labour MP Lorna Fitzsimons warned that time was "running out" to stop Iran becoming nuclear-armed. Criticism The US and its Western allies suspect Iran of using its nuclear energy programme as a cover to produce atomic weapons. Tehran denies this claim. Recent criticism by President George Bush of alleged Iranian support for insurgency in Iraq has increased concerns that his administration is contemplating an attack. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6330353.stm
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Editor - 09:08:00 02-05-07
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