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Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has lashed out at the United States by likening the 1986 U.S. Strikes on Libya to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks on the United States in 2001. He was speaking Thursday in Rome, where he is on a three-day official visit. In a speech to Italian lawmakers, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi urged the world to understand the reasons that motivate terrorists. He called for dialogue with terrorists, saying, "One must talk to the devil, if it brings about a solution." While condemning al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, he implied there was little difference between bin Laden's...

A New Brunswick newspaper that ran a front-page apology Tuesday for a story that claimed Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pocketed a communion wafer has also announced that its publisher and editor-in-chief are no longer with the paper. Saint John Telegraph-Journal publisher Jamie Irving and editor Shawna Richer were no longer at their posts, effective immediately, said Annie Smith, a spokeswoman for the New Brunswick News Inc., the company that owns the daily paper. "She is no longer editor, and (he) is no longer the publisher," she said. "I don't have any information other than that." Ms. Smith would not...

Can anyone answer the sweet lady's innocent little question?

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) stands with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev during a family photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy July 10, 2009 Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) speaks with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy as he leaves the final meeting at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy July 10, 2009. After two days of talks focused on the economic crisis, trade and global warming, the final day of the G8 gathering in Italy looked at the problems facing the poorest nations. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev holds up a 'worldwide coin' as he discusses the concept of an international...

Wealthy nations agree on temperature cap in fight against global warming.... leaders of the world's richest industrial countries pledged Wednesday to seek dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to slow dangerous climate change. They agreed for the first time that worldwide temperatures must not rise more than a few degrees. However, their goals are nonbinding, and it's far from clear they will be met. The wealthy nations failed to persuade the leaders of big developing countries to promise to cut their own fast-spreading pollution, unable to overcome arguments that the well-established industrial giants aren't doing enough in the...

China and India have rejected calls from G8 leaders for them to make deep cuts in their carbon emissions. The refusal of developing nations to sign up to a climate change deal overshadowed an agreement between rich nations to limit the rise in global average temperatures. G8 leaders meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, agreed for the first time to work to prevent global temperatures rising by more than two degrees Celsius. The summit also agreed that developed economies should aim to cut their carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The agreement will force G8 economies to make significant changes...

The bustle of business and the roar of traffic returned to Urumqi yesterday as columns of troops miles long filled the streets in a show of might designed to reassure Han Chinese after Sunday’s riots. Throughout the day, lorries filled with paramilitaries and soldiers paraded slowly down city centre streets. Armoured personnel carriers, water cannon vehicles and vans equipped to fire teargas followed. Some vehicles were emblazoned with slogans such as “Smash the separatists” and “Bring peace to the city”. The Times counted a column of police that took 40 minutes to pass by. One witness counted 60 sets of...

Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. We were...

It's always nice to see the leaders of the United States and Russia having a pleasant summit. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking the statements mean much. In July 2008, President Bush and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev had a meeting at the G8 summit: PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV: (As translated.) Well, indeed, we had this exchange today with George concerning various issues on the agenda of our relationship, including those of domestic importance, trade and investments, and internationally related matters, including those conflicts and crisis tendencies in the world. And true that on certain matters we do have differences originating from...

Ex-Topless Model To Host Leaders’ Partners At Berlusconi’s Summit By NICK PISA 04th July 2009 Not topless now: Mara Carfagna, Italy's Equal Opportunities Minister [Pic in URL] Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has solved the problem of not having a First Lady by his side for this week’s G8 Summit – a former topless model turned minister will look after the spouses of world leaders. Dark-haired former calendar girl Mara Carfagna, – now Italy’s Equal Opportunities Minister – will guide the partners of the prime ministers and presidents at the conference. The idea might put a smile on the face of...

They came, they prayed, they appealed. Religious leaders from around the world held their own not-so-mini “G8 summit” in Italy on June 16-17. The “Fourth Summit of Religious Leaders on the occasion of the G8,” as the meeting was officially called, started with a visit to L’Aquila, the central Italian city severely damaged by an earthquake on April 6. That will be the venue in July of the actual summit of the G8 club of industrial nations. Nearly 130 religious leaders and diplomats then moved to Rome where they held two days of talks under the auspices of the Italian...

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The Town of Huntsville will be applying to the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) to fund a large-scale mock disaster in 2009." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Hernen explained that typically a JEPP application involves a 50/50 spending commitment between the program and the municipality or organization making the application. However, in light of the upcoming 2010 G8 Summit being held at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Hernen said, “they’re willing to look at a different funding formula for us,” and that the town would be applying for a grant to cover 100 per cent of the cost."

HUNTSVILLE, ONT. — ARTICLE SNIPPET: "On Friday, Aug. 8, a vehicle pulled into the Pow Wow parking lot and discharged six men, all dressed in what the locals would call "city clothes" - including dark slacks and leather-soled dress shoes. Without bothering to check with the office, they went down to the beach and began taking photographs of each other, each time with Deerhurst - including the cupola that rides over the main building - in the background." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "These six English-speaking men appeared to be of Middle-Eastern origin. But what really set them apart was their complete unfamiliarity...

For a perfect example of what is meant by "gesture politics" - an empty pledge given solely for effect, which the politician has no hope of honouring - one could not do better than this week's commitment by the G8 leaders on how they want us to fight climate change. The orthodox global-warming thesis, accepted by pretty well every politician in the Western world, but not by a growing number of scientists, is that, as CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, so too should global temperatures. Unless we can drastically reduce those CO2 levels, the world is thus...

London — Rock star Bob Geldof called on the Group of Eight rich nations on Tuesday to honour their commitment to double aid to Africa by 2010. The G8 agreed the aid increase at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, but a report last month by the Africa Progress Panel said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall 40 billion dollars short of its target. "They should be at a 50 per cent point in their commitment, but in fact the G8 are only at 14 per cent," former Boomtown Rats singer Geldof, who is lobbying the summit...

On the last day of the G8 Summit in Japan, President Bush met with China’s President Hu Jintao (Transcript), India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Transcript) and Republic of Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak. The President then delivered a statement as his final G8 Summit came to a close. (Transcript) You know, oftentimes in the political process people talk big, but they never follow up. And so one of the key ingredients of these recent meetings was all of us need to be reminded that when we say we're going to do something, we got to do it. And so accountability is...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. G8 leaders make a toast: The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use...

Climate Change: A study on the impact of rising CO2 levels finds a future world of thriving agriculture and lush vegetation. Carbon dioxide, the gas some see as a threat, is indeed the key to life on Earth.Even as the G-8 Summit announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, researchers at the Johann Heinrich von Theunen Institute in Germany find the rise in carbon dioxide levels may in fact be a boon to plant life on Earth. The Theunen Institute, which has been monitoring the phenomenon since 1999, trained CO2 jets on plants, raising CO2 concentrations...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran warned on Tuesday it would "set fire" to Israel and US forces in response to any attack over its nuclear drive, as the world's leading industrial powers told Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment.Leaders of the Group of Eight nations at a summit in Japan urged Iran to fully comply with UN Security Council resolutions "in particular to suspend all enrichment-related activities."They also urged Tehran to respond positively to a new package by six major powers aimed at bringing an end to the five-year-old nuclear standoff which has led to a string of sanctions against Iran.The United...

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd exhibited "Plug-in Stella Concept," a new electric vehicle, at the G8 Hokkaido-Toyako Summit. Fuji Heavy Industries brought five of the vehicles to the site of the summit and showcased them to government officials and journalists from all over the world. The company plans to commercialize an electric car in 2009. The Plug-in Stella Concept is based on "Stella," the company's practical wagon-type kei car. The main characteristic of the vehicle is that it has a secondary battery in the lower part of the vehicle, securing as much interior space as the Stella. The secondary battery...