Day's Events
Radovan Karadzic will conduct his own defence Basque News Radovan Karadzic will conduct his own defence in the Hague tribunal and is convinced he will be cleared of the charges of genocide, relatives and associates of the war crimes suspect said on Wednesday.
Over a million Germans disappear The Local, Germany Germany’s Federal Statistics Office has shaved 1.3 million people from the country’s population after a random sampling showed the widely accepted figured of 82.2 million was too high. That's almost as high as the population in Munich, Bavaria's capital city.
Entertainment
Two Bens to replace Ebert, Roeper Chicago Tribune Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert and columnist Richard Roeper, both of the Chicago Sun-Times, each announced yesterday they were disassociating themselves from the movie-review program citing changes Disney planned to make to the long-running series. The TV show has been syndicated and produced by Disney since 1986 and traces its roots to public station WTTW-Ch. 11's pairing of Ebert and the late Chicago Tribune critic Gene Siskel in 1975. Siskel died in 1999, and Roeper was named his permanent successor the next year.
The Cheap List: The Burger Correction NYMag One good thing about a crumbling economy: cheaper burgers. No one really knows why. One theory holds that prior to a burger-correction period like the one we’re in right now, some sort of culinary-regulatory-group intervention secretly takes place, and the so-called innovators of the burger-boom years—the $29-burger barons and their ilk—are taken away during the night like Bear Stearns employees and sent off to a hamburger rehab facility.
July 23, 2008
Swiss Info
The French Hydroptère hydrofoil vessel is already close to beating the 50-knot (92.6 kilometres per hour) mark.
A sleek multihull yacht sets out to sea, gathering speed. Then suddenly it climbs out the water, seemingly travelling through the air a few metres above the surface.
It is flying - well almost. What is keeping it up are hydrofoils, long struts that act like wings in the water. They push the yacht upwards as it goes faster, reducing drag as well as friction and maximising speed.
The hydrofoil concept has been around since the early 20th century. Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini tested the first motorised craft on Lake Maggiore, which straddles Italy and Switzerland.
The first commercial uses of a hydrofoil came in the 1950s, with the development by Swiss company Supramar of a passenger vessel, the PT10, that plied its trade on Lake Maggiore.
July 23, 2008
Deutsche Welle
Nouri al-Maliki became Iraqi Prime Minister in 2006, with a constitutional mandate that will last until 2010. He has played a major role in shaping Iraq after the US invasion, helping draft the country's new constitution,purging Iraq of its Baathist legacy and helping formulate agreements over the possible structure of a government that could unify Iraq's different religious and political groups.
Deutsche Welle: Let's start by talking about security in Iraq. The situation has begun to improve -- is normality returning to Iraq?
Nuri al-Maliki: Definitely. On the one hand, as a result of reactions to the abhorrent activities of al-Qaeda and the illegal militias, and on the other hand, because the Iraqis have realized that they can in fact get along despite their various religious confessions and ethnicities. The government has also shown that it will not tolerate lawlessness, regardless of confession. This has made people realize that the state makes no exceptions for any of its citizens.
Then there are the comprehensive security measures that have been taken. The Coalition troops played a major role, but our newly established security forces in the police and the army, which have been purged of militias, have become increasingly professional. They are aware of their responsibilities to the nation and are more effective than they once were.
Politics
Goodwill hid 1 bil. yen paid as hush money Daily Yomiuri Tax authorities have ordered human resource service provider Goodwill Group Inc. to pay tax on about 1 billion yen in income it concealed by paying it as hush money to the founder of a major staffing company the group purchased in 2006, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau believes about 1 billion yen of the about 3 billion yen in severance Goodwill gave the founder of Crystal Co. after the takeover was intended to keep the founder quiet about the questionable circumstances in which the sale was made. The bureau does not recognize the 1 billion yen as an expense.
Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba Cuba News Headlines Russian bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons could be deployed to Cuba in response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, a Russian newspaper reported Monday, citing an unnamed senior Russian air force official.
Sports
Dwyane Wade sees a big difference from 2004 U.S. Olympic team Los Angeles Times Frustrating. Disappointing. Comical. Which of those words best describes the U.S. men's basketball team in the 2004 Olympics? For Dwyane Wade, it's all of the above. "It was very comical," said Wade, a member of that team and the 2008 squad. "You just had to shake your head. Everybody on that team was a good individual player, but when you tried to put it together, it didn't work. It was like a bad mix of food."
Judge to lift ban on building Calif sports center Boston Globe BERKELEY, Calif.—A planned sports center at the University of California at Berkeley that ignited a tree-sitting protest moved a step closer to reality when a judge gave campus officials the go-ahead to build.
