Politics

Jacques Chirac, President of France, entered the military hospital of the Val de Grâce in central Paris yesterday evening. According to the communiqué of the hospital, he suffers from some troubles of vision following from a vascular accident and these problems should be over in a few days. Hospitalization should last one week, and meetings are being rescheduled accordingly. Today, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin visited the president and discussed a number of urgent matters, such as the help proposed to the United States following from t

To help launch Cape Verde's first public university, the Brazilian government has made the promise to provide organizational advice and to train professors. According to Fernando Haddad, Brazilian Minister of Education, Brazil will send its professors to the small nation off the African coast to train them in lecturing, marking, and other important skills involved in the profession. Filomena Martins, Cape Verdean Minister of Education and Human Resource Enhancement, met with Haddad on August 22 to work out the details of the plan, which was f

The mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, castigated the federal government for lack of response to Hurricane Katrina in a radio interview Friday. During a climatic point in the interview, Nagin stated, We authorized $8 billion to go to Iraq, lickity split. After 9/11, we gave the President unlimited powers, lickity split, to take care of New York and other places. You mean to tell me that a place where most of your oil is coming through, a place so unique that when you mention "New Orleans" anywhere around the world, everybody's eyes light up.

United States Chief Justice William Rehnquist has died of complications from thyroid cancer. He was 80. Rehnquist died surrounded by friends and family in his Arlington, Virginia home. "President Bush and Mrs. Bush are deeply saddened by the news," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. "It's a tremendous loss for our nation." Rehnquist's death creates a second opening in the United States Supreme Court. The first vacancy occurred when Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement on July 1, 2005, though O'Connor will re

Both scientists and politicians are divided over the increase in hurricanes in the last 30 years. The years 1970 to 1994 saw far fewer hurricanes than 1995 to the present. The New York Times suggests this decrease was a result of generally cooler North Atlantic water driving winds that disrupted potential hurricanes from forming. Some experts say the recent intensification is part of a natural cycle, while others claim that global warming has increased both the destructive power and the frequency of hurricanes. The Times also pointed out that

The United States Senate has cut short their summer recess and has arrived in Washington to approve a $10.5 billion aid bill to victims of Katrina as requested by President George W. Bush. The United States House of Representatives is expected to pass a similar bill later today. Bush has told Congress he will ask for more funds in the coming weeks. Most of the money will go to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the rest will go to the Pentagon which is dispatching ships to the area. Bush has also asked his father, former President G

Victorian State Coroner Graeme Johnstone has ruled that former Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt drowned in the surf at Cheviot Beach on December 17, 1967. Mr Holt was swimming at the beach, known for its dangerous currents, when he disappeared. Numerous theories have circulated since to explain the disappearance, including one that believed he was abducted by a Chinese submarine. No formal inquiry was held at the time, because the law at the time stated that coroners could not investigate unless there was a body. This law was changed in 1

On Thursday, the Ivorian rebel group Forces Nouvelles responded to the South African mediator’s Wednesday testimony to the UN Security Council by saying that South Africa had become “discredited” by taking the side of Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo’s government in Abidjan. “We categorically do not want the South African mediation continuing here in Cote d'Ivoire” said the rebel group in a statement. The Forces Nouvelles spokesman further demanded that "the African Union, and especially AU president Olusegun Obasanjo, take his responsibility

Israel's defence minister has ruled that the man who shot dead four Israeli Arabs is not a terrorist, because he is Jewish. The decision means that the families do not receive the compensation as family members of people classed as victims of terrorism. The laws governing compensation only recognise terrorism as being perpetrated by "organisations hostile to Israel". Ariel Sharon had previously described the act as "a despicable act by a bloodthirsty terrorist," and The Jerusalem Post described the gunman as a "Jewish far-Right fanatic". The

Iraq has carried out the first executions since the demise of the Saddam Hussein regime. Three men convicted of murder were hanged on Thursday morning in Baghdad. The Iraqi government argues that the death penalty will help to deter criminals but spokesman Laith Kubba admitted that "this is not an easy thing to do". Iraqi president Jalal Talabani is personally opposed to capital punishment and stated that he would never sign a death sentence, not even against Saddam Hussein himself. His deputy Adel Abdel Mehdi signed the warrant instead. Hu

Diplomats from Pakistan and India met today in Islamabad to discuss their continuing peace efforts. Plans were made for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet in New York on September 14. The president and prime minister are expected to attend the United Nations General Assembly during their meetup in New York. Discussion on other items on the New York agenda occurred today and will continue tomorrow in a second day of talks. Recent talks have also been met with the announcement that an agree

A Rhode Island district court has frozen all the US assets of the Palestinian Authority (PA), prompting Palestinian finance minister Salam Fayyad to request the aid of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The frozen assets include US holdings in an investment fund worth $1.3 billion, which was used to finance economic development, and $30 million from the Palestinian Monetary Authority. The ruling was passed upon the PA when they refused to compensate the relatives of a Jewish couple shot dead by members of Hamas in 1996. US citizen Yaron