Millions of dollars in US rebuilding funds have been wasted in Iraq, US auditors say in a report which warns corruption in the country is rife.
A never-used camp in Baghdad for police trainers with an Olympic-size swimming pool is one of the examples highlighted in the quarterly audit.
Billions of budgeted dollars meanwhile remain unspent by [...]
Archive for January, 2007
Some years ago, teenage schoolboys at Bellemoor school, Southampton, UK played an end-of-term prank on their teachers. Specifically, they burned a 20ft-long cock into the school’s grass lawn using weedkiller.
The teachers had it reseeded, and the incident passed into memory. However, in the interval between the grass dying and the restoration work…
(Source: Boing Boing)
This is [...]
Germany has ordered the arrest of 13 people believed to be CIA agents over the alleged kidnapping of a Lebanese-born German national, in one of the best-known cases of US “renditions” of terror suspects.
The prosecutor’s office in Munich, southern Germany said in a statement that the city’s administrative court had issued the arrest warrants on [...]
Take 5 minutes out of your day and fill out this consultation form from the BBC on how they should progress with the delivery of on-demand content services (online and otherwise).
That last question is the big one, on-line content should be available to everyone, not just Microsoft users. Let’s pressure the BBC into embracing open [...]
Tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated in Washington to demand the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The rally comes days before Congress is to discuss President George W Bush’s new strategy for Iraq - including the despatch of 21,500 additional troops.
The protesters, chanting “Bring the troops home”, were joined by Vietnam War-era protester, actress [...]
While a majority of lawmakers have simply given a whimsical thumbs-up to the potentially voyeuristic plan, the folks in Maine seem to think the invasion of privacy (not to mention the $185 million in implementation cost for the state) is downright lame. Shenna Bellows of the Maine Civil Liberties Union derided the presumably RFID-based Real [...]
Closer to the truth than racists would like to admit…
Gene tests on a sample of “indigenous” Englishmen have thrown up a surprise black ancestry, providing new insight into a centuries-old African presence in Britain.
The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, identified a rare West African Y chromosome in a group of men from Yorkshire who [...]
On Sunday 25th January, 1997, my song, ‘Your Woman,’ went to number one in the UK singles chart. It was soon number one in eight other countries (twice in Spain, apparently).
That song, recorded in my spare bedroom in a small semi-detached house on Silverburn Drive, Oakwood, Derby, went on to sell 400,000+ singles in the [...]
Japan’s defense minister has said US President George W. Bush was wrong to invade Iraq and warned that Tokyo could not automatically renew its air force mission to the war-torn country.
The rebuke from one of Washington’s closest foreign allies came hours after an embattled Bush used his annual State of the Union address to plead [...]
The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is caught up in a “war on terror” and calling for a “culture of legislative restraint” in passing laws to deal with terrorism.
Sir Ken warned of the pernicious risk that [...]