 Bad guy of 2006: President Bush. Good guy of 2006: President Bush.When people were asked in an AP-AOL News poll to name the villains and heroes of the year, Bush topped both lists, in a sign of these polarized times.Among entertainment celebrities, Oprah Winfrey edged out Michael J. Fox as the best celebrity role model while Britney Spears outdistanced Paris Hilton as the worst.Bush won the villain sweepstakes by a landslide, with one in four respondents putting him at the top of that bad-guy list. When people were asked to name the candidate for villain that first came to mind, Bush far outdistanced even Osama bin Laden, the terrorist leader in hiding; and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who is scheduled for execution.The president was picked as hero of the year by a much smaller margin. In the poll, 13 percent named him as their favorite while 6 percent cited the troops in Iraq....
http://www.cnn.com
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Editor - 09:12:00 12-29-06
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 Carjacking suspect reportedly calls 911 on himself |
A carjacking suspect called 911 and turned himself in to police after he crashed a stolen sport-utility vehicle twice and got lost while fleeing the crime scene, authorities said.Claude King, 31, called police from a Palm Springs pay phone and confessed to stealing the SUV on Tuesday night, according to The Palm Beach Post."Um, I committed a crime," he reportedly told the police dispatcher. "I stole a vehicle."He asked for officers to respond to his location, but when the dispatcher asked where the vehicle was, King didn't have an answer....
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-12-29-911_x.htm?csp=34
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Editor - 09:10:00 12-29-06
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| Dutch brothels take city to court |
Brothel owners in Amsterdam's red light district have taken the city council to court over its decision to close a number of sex businesses. The council is demanding the closure of 33 brothels, which account for around a third of the district's sex businesses, by the end of the year. The prostitutes union says the move will force many women to work illegally. Prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands five years ago. The brothel owners say they will go to the highest court to save a third of the windows in Amsterdam's famous red light district from disappearing. Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, claims that many sex businesses are fronts for criminal activity, such as women trafficking and money laundering. But the prostitutes' union, the Red Thread, which represents 20,000 prostitutes, argues that closing legal brothels will force many women onto the streets. The city council wants the banks to play a role by making it easier for sex businesses to get financing....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6216801.stm
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Editor - 09:06:00 12-29-06
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| Thai insurgency targets Buddhists |
Buddhists are fleeing their homes in southern Thailand in the face of an increasingly militant Muslim insurgency that has begun calling for an independent and pure Islamist nation in the impoverished region bordering Malaysia. What began as an indigenous protest against heavy-handed rule from the mainly Buddhist capital, Bangkok, has developed into a battle reflecting extremism in Iraq and Afghanistan, including beheadings and the burning of schools. "This land must be separated between Muslims and the nonbelievers. This land must be liberated, and an Islamic system must be its foundation," warned a leaflet recently distributed in the south that the Thai military showed to reporters. "This is a land of war that is no different from Palestine and Afghanistan," said the leaflet, signed by an obscure jihadist group known as the Islamic Warriors of Pattani State. "This land is not the land of the Thais, but the land of Fathoni Darulsalam," ...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061229-120148-2009r.htm
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Editor - 09:03:00 12-29-06
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| Robot heading for Antarctic dive |
The mysteries of the Antarctic deep will be probed by a new vessel capable of plunging 6.5km (four miles) down. Isis, the UK's first deep-diving remotely operated vehicle (ROV), will be combing the sea-bed in the region in its inaugural science mission. Researchers hope to uncover more about the effects of glaciers on the ocean floor, and also find out about the animals that inhabit these waters. The mission begins in mid-January and will last for about three weeks. While the scientists and engineers begin their long journey to the Antarctic at the start of January, Isis left the UK shores in November and has only just arrived at its destination. Once unpacked from its containers, the ROV will be placed aboard the British Antarctic Survey's ship - the RSS James Clark Ross - ready to explore the Marguerite Bay area on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6198019.stm
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Editor - 09:00:00 12-29-06
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| Gratitude, Frustration, Anger As German Fund Finishes Payments to Nazi Victims |
During Germany's World War II occupation of Poland, Jerzy Kowalewski paid a heavy price for helping the resistance. The Nazis knocked out all of his teeth, then packed him in a cattle car to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where they ordered him to clean streets in 15-hour shifts and turned him into a human guinea pig in sadistic medical experiments. Six decades later, the 83-year-old Kowalewski gained a small measure of compensation for that suffering about $20,000 from a German fund set up to help survivors of the Nazis' forced labor program. After compensating nearly 1.7 million people in recent years, the fund is sending out its last checks to meet a Sunday deadline set by German law to finish its work. "This isn't just about money," said Guenter Saathoff, director of the Remembrance, Responsibility and Future foundation that administers the fund. "It's much more about morality: These payments are one way that Germany recognizes the wrongs inflicted on its victims."...
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2759360
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Editor - 08:58:00 12-29-06
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