Industry push to send leftover FEMA trailers to Haiti stirs …
The trailer industry and lawmakers are pressing the government to send Haiti thousands of potentially formaldehyde-laced trailers left over from Hurricane Katrina – an idea denounced by some as a crass and self-serving attempt to dump inferior American products on the poor.
HEALTH: 10-Billion-Dollar Vaccine Pledge by Gates Hailed
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (IPS) – The pledge by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide 10 billion dollars over 10 years on vaccines aimed at reducing child mortality in the world’s poorest countries was hailed by global health organisations around the world Friday.
Paulson claims Russia tried to foment Fannie-Freddie crisis
Russia proposed to China that the two nations should sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds in 2008 to force the US government to bail out the giant mortgage-finance companies, former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson has claimed
Haitians tire of waiting, start own rebuilding
Defying pleas to wait for Haiti’s reconstruction, families lugged heavy bundles of wood and tin up steep hillsides Friday to do the unthinkable: build new homes on top of old ones devastated in the earthquake.
Argentina President Cristina Fernandez recommends eating pork to have a better sex life
Argentina’s president thinks eating pig meat is really sexy. Many people in this beef-loving nation reacted with surprise Thursday after Cristina Fernandez promoted pork in a speech during which she not only said pork is better than Viagra, but suggested she’s personally proven it.
Plane diverted to Fla. in terror scare
A Continental Airlines jet flying from Newark, N.J., to Bogota was diverted to Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday over concerns a passenger was on the government’s watch list of suspected terrorists banned from commercial flights.
China suspends military exchanges with US
China suspended military exchange visits with the United States on Saturday in protest over $6.4 billion in planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and warned the U.S. ambassador that the sales would harm already strained ties.
MEDIA: Foreign News Channels Drawing U.S. Viewers
NEW YORK, Jan 29 (IPS) – Television viewers in the United States seeking international news are starting to switch over to foreign channels to learn what is happening in the outside world, media watchers here say.
Sri Lankan challenger rejects president’s poll…
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa won a resounding re-election victory Wednesday, beating back a challenge from his former army chief, who rejected the official results and said he feared arrest as troops surrounded his hotel.
Asian banks have once in a lifetime chance
Groups have an opportunity to take a bigger slice of the global market and challenge western competitors, says the deputy chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment group
North Korea detains American man
A North Korean soldier guards the country’s borders. The highly secretive country has reported the detainment of a US citizen for entering illegally.
Court clears France’s de Villepin
France’s former prime minister Dominique de Villepin has been cleared of trying to smear Nicolas Sarkozy’s name in the run up to the French Presidenti …
COLOMBIA: Who Cares About the Victims of Forced Displacement?
BOGOT , Jan 29 (IPS) – “Why is the government, which is so generous towards the richest sectors of the economy, so stingy towards the displaced?” asked activist Marco Romero at the presentation of a new report on the dire situation faced by the millions of Colombians who have been forced out of their rural homes by the country’s nearly half-century old armed conflict.
Teen girl pulled from Haiti rubble
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – French rescuers pulled a teenage girl from the rubble of a home on the campus of the destroyed College St.
Israel slams Iran as world recalls Holocaust
Israel’s leaders, with Iran on their minds, vowed never again to allow the “hand of evil” to kill Jews as the world marked International Holocaust Memorial Day on Wednesday.
RIGHTS-UGANDA: Fugitives in Their Own Country
KAMPALA, Jan 29 (IPS) – Every morning Pepe Julian Onziema wakes up not knowing if she will live to see another rising sun. Onziema is transgender and she lives in fear for her life because of a national campaign against gay people.
CUBA: Zeolite, Mineral of a Thousand Uses
HAVANA, Jan 30 (Tierram rica) – Cuba, which has major reserves of zeolite, aims to boost exploitation of the mineral, whose properties and uses in products and technologies contribute to protecting the environment.
