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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The call to use oil as a weapon against Israel's friends once would have echoed in capitals across the Middle East. But even as fighting widens in Gaza, threats of an oil embargo by some in Iran and Bahrain are falling flat. Key Persian Gulf producers like Saudi Arabia and even top officials in the countries behind the boycott calls are keeping quiet, reflecting a focus on their struggle to deal with the steep plunge in world oil prices.
"An oil embargo is just bad for business," said Serene Gardiner, oil products analyst at Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai. On Sunday, Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted an Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander as urging Muslim countries to use oil as a weapon to pressure an end to Israel's offensive in Gaza.
Iran's foreign ministry didn't distance itself from Brig. Gen. Mirfaysal Bagherzadeh's comments when asked about them Monday. "We do support any action for realizing two main steps: an immediate stop to the invasion and an end to the Gaza blockade," spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said. But Bagherzadeh is not among the top oil officials in Iran, OPEC's second-biggest producer, and his suggestions drew no comment from those leaders.
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Iran's foreign ministry didn't distance itself from Brig. Gen. Mirfaysal Bagherzadeh's comments when asked about them Monday. "We do support any action for realizing two main steps: an immediate stop to the invasion and an end to the Gaza blockade," spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said. But Bagherzadeh is not among the top oil officials in Iran, OPEC's second-biggest producer, and his suggestions drew no comment from those leaders.">
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MINNEAPOLIS — The state Canvassing Board was poised to certify the results of the recount in Minnesota's grueling Senate election in Al Franken's favor _ but that doesn't mean the race is definitely over.
The board was to meet Monday and was expected to declare which candidate received the most overall votes from nearly 3 million ballots cast. The latest numbers showed Franken, a Democrat, with a 225-vote lead over Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who led Franken on election night.
But after the announcement, there will be a seven-day waiting period before an election certificate is completed. If any lawsuits are filed during that waiting period, certification is conditional until the issue is settled in court.
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With its eight years in office winding down, the Bush White House has released a 52-page government document detailing the massive triumph that was the Bush presidency. Called "Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush," it's downloadable as file hilariously named legacybooklet.pdf. My favorite of the pamphlet's "accomplishments" is "Established The Freedom Agenda To Spread Hope Through Liberty."
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legacybooklet.pdf. My favorite of the pamphlet's "accomplishments" is "Established The Freedom Agenda To Spread Hope Through Liberty."
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Right-wing flame thrower Ann Coulter blasts incoming First Lady Michelle Obama as a freakish Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis imitator in a book to be published next week.
In her latest screed, titled "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and their Assault on America," Coulter accuses the liberal left of playing the victim when in fact, she argues, they are the victimizers.
As usual, Coulter throws plenty of bombs herself.
Lashing out at the President-elect's wife, Coulter wrote, "Her obvious imitation of Jackie O's style - the flipped-under hair, the sleeveless A-line dresses, the short strands of fake pearls - would have been laughable if done by anyone other than a media-designated saint."
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As usual, Coulter throws plenty of bombs herself.
Lashing out at the President-elect's wife, Coulter wrote, "Her obvious imitation of Jackie O's style - the flipped-under hair, the sleeveless A-line dresses, the short strands of fake pearls - would have been laughable if done by anyone other than a media-designated saint."">
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Former President George H.W. Bush said on Sunday he'd like to see his second son, Jeb, become President of the United States some day.
Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Bush said his second son, a former Governor of Florida, had all the qualifications to serve in the White House.
Jeb Bush, 55, has said he was considering running for a U.S. Senate seat representing Florida in 2010. The current incumbent, Republican Mel Martinez, has announced he is stepping down.
"I'd like to see him run. I'd like to see him be president one day, or senator, whatever, yes I would," said Bush, who served as president from 1989-1993.
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Just when you thought you could scratch bird flu off your list of things to worry about in 2009, the deadly H5N1 virus has resurfaced in poultry in Hong Kong for the first time in six years, reinforcing warnings that the threat of a human pandemic isn't over.
India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and mainland China also experienced new outbreaks in December. During the same period, four new human cases -- in Egypt, Cambodia and Indonesia -- were reported to the World Health Organization. A 16-year-old girl in Egypt and a 2-year-old girl in Indonesia have died.
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The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli intelligence — Mossad — have infiltrated Muslim organizations like Hamas in Palestine, Hizbullah in Lebanon and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia, says an Indonesian intelligence expert. "It is clear that the CIA and the Mossad have infiltrated such organizations and have done much more than that," Sayed Abdullah, who operates an intelligence services firm in the Indonesian island of Maluku’s, told IslamOnline.net.
He asserted that the spy agencies "demonstrated their capacity to control these organizations with the murdering of two Hamas leaders in a month and that is enough to understand what they are up to." Abdelaziz Rantissi, Hamas new leader in the Gaza Strip, was assassinated late Saturday, April 17, in an Israeli air strike.
This came less than a month after an Israeli strike helicopter fired three missiles at 67-year-old wheelchair-bound Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin after performing the dawn prayers in a mosque near his home, killing him and at least eight others.
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He asserted that the spy agencies "demonstrated their capacity to control these organizations with the murdering of two Hamas leaders in a month and that is enough to understand what they are up to." Abdelaziz Rantissi, Hamas new leader in the Gaza Strip, was assassinated late Saturday, April 17, in an Israeli air strike.
This came less than a month after an Israeli strike helicopter fired three missiles at 67-year-old wheelchair-bound Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin after performing the dawn prayers in a mosque near his home, killing him and at least eight others.">
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SRINAGAR (AFP) — The Pakistan-based militant outfit blamed for the Mumbai attacks rejected Friday a report that one of its leaders had acknowledged the group's involvement.
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed officials, reported Wednesday that Pakistani authorities had obtained a confession from a senior member of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The suspect, Zarar Shah, allegedly told investigators he had played a key role in the planning of the November attacks that left 172 dead.
"Lashkar-e-Taiba rejects the Wall Street Journal report," its spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi said in an email statement.
"India has failed to furnish any evidence of Lashkar-e-Taiba's involvement in the Mumbai attacks and America is now trying to help it out," he said.
No evidence could be found "on the scene of the crime, and now there is an effort to manufacture evidence thousands of miles away," he added.
Islamabad has also rejected the report.
On Thursday, Pakistani interior ministry spokesman Shahidullah Baig told AFP: "We have no such information. We don't accept that report."
Pakistani police arrested Shah and another key Lashkar operative, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, as part of a series of raids against the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, widely seen as the group's political wi
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"India has failed to furnish any evidence of Lashkar-e-Taiba's involvement in the Mumbai attacks and America is now trying to help it out," he said.
No evidence could be found "on the scene of the crime, and now there is an effort to manufacture evidence thousands of miles away," he added.
Islamabad has also rejected the report.
On Thursday, Pakistani interior ministry spokesman Shahidullah Baig told AFP: "We have no such information. We don't accept that report."
Pakistani police arrested Shah and another key Lashkar operative, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, as part of a series of raids against the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa, widely seen as the group's political wi">
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Great Britain's Security Service MI5 requested its British troops to remove personal details of themselves off popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Friends Reunited due to discovering that they were being monitored by Al-Qaeda operatives. In the January, 2008 Free Republic article, 'Al-Qaeda eyes MySpace Pages', Gordon Thomas writes about the concern expressed by the MI5 chief Jonathan Evans in a document titled 'Personal Security'. Evans asks for security service personnel to be aware of the monitoring and gathering of personal details that can be formed into intelligence used to launch terrorist attacks against their colleagues, or family members.
Though access to many of these social websites may be for members only, all one needs to register is an e-mail address. Al-Qaeda operatives are using hundreds of false accounts to access personal information. And what are they finding?
Thousands of military and security personnel who have posted detailed information about themselves, their careers, personal pictures and family members, date of birth, locations of where they are living, photos of colleagues and weapons.
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Bloomberg: The decline in U.S. manufacturing deepened in December as demand for such products as cars, appliances and furniture reached the lowest level since at least 1948, signaling further cutbacks in factory jobs and production this year.
The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index fell to 32.4, below economists’ forecasts and the lowest level since 1980, from 36.2 the prior month. Readings less than 50 signal contraction. The group’s new-orders measure reached the lowest level on record and prices slid the most since 1949.
“Every component suggests that the weakness is going to carry over into 2009,” Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “There’s just not a whole lot of new business coming in,” and companies will have a “painful adjustment” as consumers shun spending.
Today’s figures underscore that, with private demand collapsing, manufacturers’ best hope for new business this year may be President-elect Barack Obama’s plans for an unprecedented stimulus package. Obama has pledged an investment program in roads, schools and the U.S. energy network akin to the 1950s-era interstate highway construction boom.
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