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Results of 2005 German federal election According to the preliminary result, the alliance consisting of chancellor Gerhard Schröder's Social democrats and the Greens has lost its majority but the future government is still uncertain. Iran determined to continue with nuclear program The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, announced Saturday the resolve of his country to proceed with the development of nuclear energy. He stated that Iran would not pursue nuclear weapons.

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John "Jebby" Bush, son of Florida Governor Bush, arrested for public intoxication Early Friday morning, John "Jebby" Ellis Bush, the 21 year old son of Florida Governor Jeb Bush, was arrested in Austin, Texas for public intoxication and resisting arrest. Roger Wade, Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission spokesman, said Bush was apprehended at 2:30AM near the corner of Trinity and Sixth Street in the city's downtown entertainment and bar district.
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North Korea announces that its offer to end its nuclear arms program is dependent on it being allowed to build a civilian nuclear reactor. 14 Indian soldiers die following an insurgent attack in the eastern state of Manipur.

IDG cancels Macworld Boston

Show organizer IDG has canceled Macworld Expo Boston. The East Coast Macworld Expo was held in Boston from 1985 to 1997. In 1998 it was moved to New York.

In October 2002, IDG announced their intention to move the show back to Boston, a move many criticized. Apple quickly announced it would no longer participate in the East Coast show. East Coast Macworld expos have always been much smaller than Macworld San Francisco. New York's shows would have tens of thousands attendees. The Boston shows only had about 8,000 attendees. The San Francisco show, however, had 36,000 attendees. Without Apple's support, and with the low attendance numbers, many had predicted the cancellation.

Macworld Expos are held twice a year. They are an opportunity for companies to announce new products to the Mac community. Macworld was once one of the largest technology trade shows in the country. Apple regularly announces new products at the Macworld San Francisco expos. "Historically, we have had a West Coast and an East Coast show, after the last show, though, we did a lot of market research and it was obvious that the market wanted one show", said IDG spokesperson Mike Sponseller.

The 2006 show had been scheduled for July 10 through 13.

US Federal Reserve lifts interest rates

Federal Reserve HQ in Washington, D.C.

The US Federal Reserve has just raised the base rate of interest for the 11th month in a row, despite concerns that the economy will slow after Hurricane Katrina.

The rate rose by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75%, but analysts have predicted it may rise to 4.5% in the coming months, in spite of consumer spending being down. The Fed says it is hoping to counter soaring house prices and the high price of oil.

Economic growth in the US this year is forecast at around 3.3%, but governmnent officials estimate that 0.5% growth could be lost due to Hurricane Katrina.

Analysts are confident, however, that the economy is robust enough to withstand and shake off these ill effects.

Florida Keys evacuated in preparation for Rita

Hurricane Rita prompted local Florida Keys officials to evacuate the area. Evacuation ended as remaining people sought shelter. The storm is threatening to cause 8 foot waves, and has become a Category 2 hurricane.

While the storm is headed towards Florida, preliminary maps suggest that it may hit Texas. The fear of this caused crude oil prices to rise by $4 per barrel on Monday, in anticipation that Rita would cause more damage to the oil refineries around the Gulf of Mexico. This was the largest single day price increase for crude oil in history. Prices dropped by $1 to $66 per barrel on Tuesday, eased partly by news that OPEC would supply 2 million barrels of oil per day in extra capacity to ease supply shortages.

Phil Flynn, an analyst, stated that "We really can't afford to lose more production," as Katrina left many oil facilities inoperable.

40,000 residents are affected by the evacuation plans, which include everyone in the southern portions of the Keys. Voluntary evacuations were issued to 134,000 coastal residents. Five Cuban provinces were set on alert, as well as certain areas in the Bahamas and Florida.

Rita could affect New Orleans and other places recovering from Hurricane Katrina — it may cause a good deal of water to be dumped on the region — worrying officials. Daniel Brown, a hurricane meteorologist, said "This is something everyone should be paying attention to." President Bush adds: "There is deep concern about this storm causing more flooding in New Orleans."

From a Sunday, September 11 broadcast of MSNBC Meet The Press, Mr. Russert received the following answer to a question about the vulnerability of New Orleans to flooding. Dr. Ivor van Heerden is the deputy director of Louisiana State University Hurricane Center:

MR. RUSSERT: ...Doctor, you're an expert on this. We're still in the hurricane season. What are the chances, the likelihood that a tropical storm or, God forbid, another hurricane could hit this same area?

DR. VAN HEERDEN: You know, there is a high probability it could happen. The unfortunate thing is, because the levee system is so weakened, just a tropical storm could reflood New Orleans. So it's a very, very vulnerable situation right now. We don't need another Katrina to flood New Orleans. A tropical storm that puts maybe five feet or six feet of water in Lake Pontchartrain, which is not rare, would reflood the city.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think the local, state and federal governments are prepared for an event like that in the coming weeks?

DR. VAN HEERDEN: I don't think so, because right now they're really battling just to try and shore up the levees. You know, there were seven major levee breaks and it's going to take quite a lot of time to repair those, to have them engineeringly sound so they won't give way again.

The hurricane season is in full swing, ending on November 30.

Opera Internet browser goes ad-free

Opera Software has ended the use of ads in the zero cost version of its Opera web browser. Opera is intended as closed source software, its license states that You shall not modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Software or any part thereof or otherwise attempt to derive source code or create derivative works therefrom. Until now the program displayed an advertisement when being used, however the program had an option that would remove the advertisment in return for a fee. Company Officials expressed hope that this move would prompt more users to download the Opera browser and thus increase the company's revenue from its search engine product.

Opera's features compete directly with Mozilla Firefox, and include tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, integrated search, mouse gestures and voice control for various features. Its license does not compete with Mozilla Firefox, since Mozilla Firefox is free software, which can be freely modified and redistributed.

You can download Opera at the Opera website for Windows, Apple and Linux.

Opera is also offering torrents of the new release to ease the load on their servers

Sprint partners with RealNetworks to provide Internet radio and podcasts on mobile phones

Wireless provider Sprint announced today, that they would be working with RealNetworks to launch a streaming music service for Sprint wireless customers called Rhapsody Radio.

This service allows users to listen to six streaming radio stations and podcasts from their mobile phone. The streaming radio stations offered are rap, hip-hop hits, alternative, country, '70s, and music news. Users would be able to listen to live broadcasts of these stations over their cellular connection.For a monthly subscription fee of $6.95 users would have unlimited access to these commercial-free radio broadcasts. Selected streaming podcasts from KCRW, Santa Monica 89.9 FM, and National Public Radio’s Southern California station would also be available A special Beats N Breaks stream is also available. Beats N Breaks provides background music from hip-hop songs for users to rap along to.

Rhapsody Radio service requires a Sanyo MM-7400, Sanyo MM-5600, Sanyo MM-8300, Samsung IP-A790, Samsung MM-A800 and Samsung MM-A880 or an LG MM-535 mobile phone. Customers are able to order directly from their phones and the charge will show up on their next bill.

Many analysts have been predicting the introduction of music services by other wireless providers after Apple recently introduced the Motorola ROKR. The Motorola ROKR comes with a version of the iTunes software. It allows users to listen to up to 100 songs on their phone. Service for this phone in the USA is provided by Cingular Wireless.

Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal dead at 96

Holocaust survior and famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, founder of the center that bears his name, has passed away this morning at his home in Vienna, Austria. He was 96.

Simon Wiesenthal

Wiesenthal was born December 31, 1908 in Buchach, then part of Austria-Hungary, and studied in Prague. He settled in Poland and was forced to work in a factory after the Soviet Union had invaded Poland, following the Hitler-Stalin pact. When the Germans then turned on the Soviet Union in 1941, Wiesenthal was caught and interned in several concentration camps. He was liberated when American forces reached the Mauthausen concentration camp in May 1945.

Wiesenthal devoted almost his entire Post-WWII life to tracking down and pursuing Nazi war criminals. In 1947 he and thirty colleages founded the Jewish Documentation Center in Linz, Austria which was devoted to collecting information on the whearabouts of war criminals and the documentation of their crimes. But the brewing cold war caused the U.S. and Soviet Union to quickly lose interest in the prosecution of Nazis. Wiesenthal closed the Linz centre in 1954 but gained new hope with the capture of Adolf Eichmann, whom he helped to track down. Possibly his biggest success was the capture and trial of Franz Stangl, commandant at the Treblinka extermination camp. In total he and the Simon Wiesenthal center he set up in the U.S. in 1977 is thought to have brought some 1100 war criminals to justice. But he failed to capture Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller and Auschwitz "doctor" Josef Mengele.

Wiesenthal's life was not without controversy. Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, himself a jew, accused Wiesethal of being part of "certain mafia" seeking to besmirch Austria and claimed Wiesenthal collaborated with the Nazis to survive. On the other hand Wiesenthal refused to condemm Kurt Waldheim, former U.N. Secretary-General and Austrian president, for being a officer of the German army during WWII, something which alienated him from American Jewish groups.

Israeli president Moshe Katsav called Wiesenthal the "biggest fighter" of his generation. "He represented the morality of humanity; he represented the free world, the democratic world. He devoted his life to fighting racism, anti-Semitism, Nazism and he really contributed to making a better world for the next generation", Katsav said during a visit to Latvia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said: "Humanity is poorer because a just man, Simon Wiesenthal, is gone".

German president Horst Köhler said that Wiesenthal sought "justice, not revenge or hatred. That was an expression of a personality embossed with deep humanitarianism. He remains a role model for us to fight injustice persistently and forceful".

London bombers rehearsed attacks

Police at Scotland Yard have discovered that the suicide bombers who mounted an attack on London on July 7th had rehearsed their plan nine days earlier.

As part of the formal investigation into the attacks, detectives studied thousands of hours of CCTV footage. The images show three of the bombers entering Luton station, before travelling to King's Cross station where they are also pictured.

Police were able to trace their movements after recovering tickets and receipts from houses connected to the bombers which indicated the route of their trip.

Scotland Yard says the practice run shows 'terrorist methodology'. Over 3,000 witness statements have been gathered and 80,000 CCTV tapes analysed, and the investigation is expected to carry on for many months to come.

US clinic plans first face transplant

US doctors are to interview 12 patients with a view to performing the first ever transplant of a human face.

The Cleveland Clinic will choose between seven women and five men to find the person most suited for the experimental procedure, which is a radical and controversial solution to extreme facial scarring or disfigurement.

Having practiced the procedure on bodies donated for medical research, the Cleveland Clinic team believe they have a 50% chance of success. The procedure will not live up to science-fiction predictions and give the recipient the appearance of the donor; the underlying bone structure is the deciding factor in the final appearance. The new face will end up resembling neither the donor nor recipient.

Surgeons in several other countries have announced being ready to perform this procedure in the past. However, the risk and non life-threatening nature of disfigurement have meant that gaining approval for the groundbreaking surgery has been difficult. Like many other transplant operations, the recipient would be required to take drugs to prevent tissue rejection for the remainder of their life. These drugs can have side effects and carry their own risks involving the patient's immune system.

Basra, Iraq raid by UK forces to rescue soldiers from police

UK forces have raided an Iraqi police station and a house in Basra to retrieve two British soldiers who had been arrested by Iraqi police forces. The soldiers were found not to be at the police station. Based on received intelligence a house was then stormed; the soldiers were found being held by local militia.

The identities of the two soldiers are unknown, but it is believed they may have been special forces working in plain clothes. The incident has been accompanied by petrol bomb attacks on British armoured vehicles and stones being thrown at the soldiers as they evacuated the vehicles due to fears of exploding ammunition. Associated Press has reported that about 150 prisoners are believed to have escaped as the result of the raids, although the Iraqi authorities hold that this is not true.

It is not clear precisely what the rescued soldiers were being held for. Many news sources have reported that the men were working undercover for British forces. Iraqi authorities report that the men had opened fire on police, killing one officer and wounding another. It is too early to determine the truth of either of these claims yet, but it is certain to have ramifications for the peace process.

Lightning storm moves through Southern California

Irvine, California – Lightning storms moved over Southern California Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Rain fell several times during the night, and lightning struck repeatedly throughout the region.

Citizens reported smoldering palm trees in several areas of Orange County. In the suburban city of Irvine, darkness came early as heavy clouds blotted out the twilight. Some of the heaviest weather came soon after, as fat raindrops fell on the city. Lightning lit up the sky as often as every fifteen seconds, and AM radios emitted bursts of static every few seconds as lightning struck. The storm tapered off for several hours, but peaked again shortly before 1 am; lightning was once again seen repeatedly and power flickered several times.

The National Weather Service's San Diego office issued an advisory warning of approaching thunderstorms; they estimated there would be 1/4 inch of rainfall and that the storm would leave the area by Tuesday night.

Southern California rarely sees lightning; a thunderstorm rolls through once every few years, typically due to bad weather to the south. Meterologists say that this storm is an offshoot of Hurricane Max, which is currently several hundred miles west of Mexico and moving away from land.

NYPD shuts down Cindy Sheehan speech

Cindy Sheehan, bereaved mother and news-maker, found no sympathy from the New York Police Department (NYPD).

Speaking at a makeshift podium at a solidarity encampment set up for the past month in New York City's Union Square, police stormed through the crowd of 150 and grabbed the unauthorized microphone away from Sheehan, according to a report published in Monday's Village Voice.

"Inspector Michael McEnroy, commander of the 13th Precinct, insisted the shutdown order had nothing to do with the content of Sheehan’s speech", the article reports.

Sheehan has become the de facto face of the anti-war movement since her vigil began at the beginning of August of this year, camping in a ditch by a road near the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, vowing to stay until the president agreed to meet with her and talk to her about the purpose of the war in Iraq. Her story garnered much media attention and drew hundreds to her side at "Camp Casey". Leaving Texas at the end of August, the gathering became the "Bring them home now tour", currently in New York City.

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Today in History
451: Flavius Aëtius, with the help of Roman foederati, defeated Attila in the Battle of Chalons, and halted the invasion of Gaul by the Huns and their allies.

1378: Papal Schism: Unhappy with Pope Urban VI, a group of cardinals elected a rival papacy in Antipope Clement VII, throwing the Roman Catholic Church into a turmoil.

1854: The Crimean War began with a Franco-British victory over Russian forces in the Battle of Alma.

1946: The first Cannes Film Festival opened. The Palme d'Or, then known as the Grand Prix du Festival, was shared by eleven films that year.

1973: Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in straight sets in an internationally televised tennis match dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes".

Quote of the Day

"Hope is a good thing — maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies." ~ "Andy Dufresne" in The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King

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