Condoms are used to fight against sexually transmitted diseases and limit the spread of HIV and AIDS. If you have a great idea on how to improve on that concept, Bill and Melinda Gates are ready to pony up to $1 million. Philanthropist and Microsoft...
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Nicolas Sarkozy took to Facebook Monday to address allegations made against him in a campaign finance case initiated last week by a French judge. The former French president is accused of illegally taking donations from L'Oreal cosmetics heiress Liliane Bettencourt during his 2007 presidential campaign. Calling the preliminary charges "unfair and unfounded," Sarkozy wrote that he has no doubt "truth will finally triumph." Though his lawyers and advisors were busy doing damage control on Friday, the Facebook post is the first time Sarkozy, himself, has responded to the accusations. French Judge Jean-Michel Gentil filed the charges against Sarkozy Thursday, placing him under formal...
Cyprus may have been saved from disaster, but don't be fooled: Europe is still a hot mess. In the middle of the night on the continent, officials managed to hastily stitch together a plan to rescue Cyprus and keep it from leaving the eurozone. The deal came just hours before a European Central Bank deadline that could have left Cyprus cut off from short-term capital, beginning the potential unraveling of the entire currency union. It also came just about one week after another hastily stitched-together bailout deal sparked outrage in Cyprus and around the region and created the need for desperate last-minute talks in the first place. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, European policymakers...
Cyprus has struck a last-minute agreement with international lenders to save its banks from insolvency and keep it in the eurozone. The deal, though, comes at a significant cost for some. The deal, which came in the early hours of Monday after more than 10 hours of negotiations in Brussels, will bring about a major downsizing of Cyprus's troubled banking sector. It also includes pledges by the Cypriot government to cut its budget, implement structural reforms and privatize many state assets. The small Mediterranean country's second-largest bank, Laiki, is to be transformed into a “bad bank” holding toxic assets and uninsured deposits. Insured deposits of under 100,000 euros ($130,000) are to...
AYE AYE WIN Associated Press= YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Anti-Muslim mobs rampaged through three more towns in Myanmar's predominantly Buddhist heartland over the weekend, destroying mosques and burning dozens of homes despite government efforts to stop the nation's latest outbreak of sectarian violence from spreading. President Thein Sein declared a state of emergency in central Myanmar on Friday and deployed army troops to the worst hit city, Meikhtila, where 32 people were killed and 10,000 mostly Muslim residents were displaced. But even as soldiers imposed order there after several days of anarchy that saw armed Buddhists torch the city's Muslim quarters, anti-Muslim unrest has spread south...
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday condemned the "unconstitutional seizure of power" in Central African Republic and demanded the restoration of constitutional order in the country. "The...
* Deal to shut Laiki bank, transfer insured deposits * Clinched hours before Monday deadline to seal EU bailout * Without deal banks faced collapse, possible euro zone exit By Jan Strupczewski and Annika Breidthardt BRUSSELS, March 25 (Reuters) - Cyprus clinched a last-ditch deal with international lenders on Monday for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout that will shut down its second largest bank and inflict heavy losses on uninsured depositors, including wealthy Russians. The agreement emerged after fraught negotiations between President Nicos Anastasiades and heads of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund - hours before a deadline to avert...
VIENTIANE, Laos — On the 100th day since the disappearance of a prominent American-educated Laotian agriculture specialist, Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday urged the government here to make public the results of an investigation into what had happened to him, and to return him to his family. Connect With Us on Twitter Follow @nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines. Twitter List: Reporters and Editors The statement by Mr. Kerry is the second by the United States since the man, Sombath Somphone, 60, was last seen being stopped in his jeep by the police on a main road of the capital, Vientiane, on Dec. 15. The refusal by the Laotian government to acknowledge...
LONDON — Boris Berezovsky, a self-exiled and outspoken Russian tycoon who had a bitter falling out with Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead in southeast England on Saturday. He was 67. In recent years, the one-time Kremlin powerbroker-turned-thorn in Putin’s side fended off verbal and legal attacks in cases that often bore political undertones — and bit into his fortune. The cause of Mr. Berezovsky’s death was not immediately clear, and Thames Valley police said it was being treated as “unexplained.” The police would not directly identify him, but when asked about Mr. Berezovsky by name they read a statement saying they were investigating the death of a 67-year-old man at a...
Syria has been accused of conducting the research and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Syria admitted to having a stockpile of chemical weapons reserved for national defense against foreign countries on July 23, 2012. They restarted their chemical weapons testing at a base on the outskirts of Aleppo in August 2012. Not being a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, they have been accused a shaving an active chemical weapons program, although it has been denied repeatedly. http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/syria/facility.htm. Being one of the six states that not signed and eight that have not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, covertly they are manufacturing Sarin,...
Community and pro-democracy activists in Detroit have no intention of rolling over and playing dead for Kevyn Orr, the city's new 'emergency manager' appointed by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, who will begin his contract to run the city as a one-person government on Monday. Called a "bloodless coup" by some, the appointment of an 'emergency financial manager' (EFM) will allow Orr to take full control over the city's resources now that the city council and school board have been stripped of their governing powers. Justified as a tool to 'bring the city bank from the financial brink' by its proponents, critics of Orr's position say the whole reason for the emergency manager is to further gut...
Xi Jinping, China's new president, has arrived into Tanzania at the start of a three-nation Africa tour that underscores Beijing's growing presence in the resource-rich continent. Xi flew into the east African nation's economic capital Dar es Salaam from Russia, the opening stage of his first foreign trip since being anointed president 10 days ago, on Sunday, The president is set to give a keynote speech on Monday covering relations with Africa and sign some 20 trade, development and cultural accords, before heading to Durban, South Africa to join an emerging economies summit. He will wrap up the African tour with a visit to Congo. "China-Africa cooperation is comprehensive,"...
March 24, 2013 -- Updated 1624 GMT (0024 HKT) The Seleka rebel coalition launched its offensive in December, accusing President Francois Bozize of reneging on a peace deal . (CNN) -- The president of the Central African Republic has fled the country's capital and rebels have seized control of the city, a government official said Sunday. President Francois Bozize crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a spokesman for the government's territorial administration minister. He declined to disclose Bozize's location Sunday. "Central Africans are waiting for the new president to be named," Ngbapo said in a written statement. Word of Bozize's surprise departure...
Beijing - Researchers at one of China's top universities collaborated with a Chinese army unit accused of carrying out hacking attacks on the United States, academic papers published online show. The elite Shanghai Jiaotong University conducted network security research with People's Liberation Army (PLA)...
France has said it is sending troops to the Central African Republic as rebels begin ot take control of the capital, Bengui. Paris said it was keen to protect foreign nationals after rebels entered the city. France on Sunday said it was deploying 350 soldiers to the country to ensure the security of French nationals and other...
BEIJING (Reuters) - Developing nations must be ready for a financial market selloff if the Cypriot banking sector collapses, World Bank Managing Director Sri Mulyani Indrawati said on Sunday, urging a swift resolution to the crisis in Cyprus. In an interview on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing, Indrawati said she is watching very closely the outcome of a plan to levy a...
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel did not commit to ending its Gaza blockade as part of reconciliation with Turkey and could clamp down even harder on the Palestinian enclave if security is threatened, a senior Israeli official said on Sunday. After Friday's U.S.-brokered fence-mending announcement, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Israel had met his demands it apologize for killing nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound activist ship in 2010, pay compensation and ease the blockade. But during the almost three-year rift between the ex-allies, Erdogan had routinely insisted that Israel end the blockade. The rapprochement deal noted Israel's relaxing of curbs on...
MATTHEW LEE Associated Press= BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in Iraq on an unannounced visit to urge Iraqi leaders to stop Iranian overflights of arms and fighters heading to Syria and to overcome sectarian differences that still threaten Iraqi stability 10 years after the American-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Kerry flew into Baghdad on Sunday from Amman after accompanying President Barack Obama to Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. Officials traveling with him said he would press Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other senior officials on democratic reforms and directly urge them to stop overflights of Iranian aircraft carrying...
Ex-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says he is not worried by Taliban death threats, ahead of his planned return to Pakistan from self-imposed exile....
MEIKHTILA, Myanmar (AP) — The United Nations' top envoy to Myanmar on Sunday toured a central city that was destroyed in the country's worst explosion of Buddhist-Muslim violence this year, visiting some of the nearly 10,000 people forced from their homes after unrest left dozens of corpses in the streets, some of them charred beyond recognition. The visit to Meikhtila of Vijay Nambiar, the U.N. secretary-general's special adviser on Myanmar, came one day after the army took control of the city to enforce a tense calm after President Thein Sein ordered a state of emergency here. The bloodshed marked the first sectarian unrest to spread into the nation's heartland since two similar episodes...
