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South Africa’s parliament is set to hold an emergency session as people prepare for a month of blackouts due to severe power shortages.
The energy crisis, which analysts fear could severely damage the economy, has prompted opposition parties to threaten to bring a motion of no confidence against Thabo Mbeki, the country’s president.
“Prepare yourself for four [...]

A delegation led by Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, has proposed joint Palestinian-Egyptian control of the Rafah crossing.
They set down these conditions on Thursday on the second day of talks in Cairo geared towards resolving the week-old crisis on the Gaza-Egypt border as Egypt continued its mediating role between Hamas and Fatah.
The delegation proposed [...]

A least 10 people in Hyogo and Chiba Prefectures have suffered food poisoning after consuming frozen “gyoza” meat and vegetable dumplings from China that contained pesticide, corporate and government officials said Wednesday.
The importer of the products, JT Foods Co., a Tokyo-based subsidiary of Japan Tobacco Inc., has recalled all 23 products made by the Chinese [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - MBIA Inc, (MBI.N: Quote, Profile, Research) a bond insurer struggling to maintain the top credit ratings necessary for its business, posted a fourth-quarter loss on Thursday after a $3.5 billion write-down.
The world’s largest bond insurer posted a loss of $2.3 billion, or $18.61 a share, compared with profit of $181 million, [...]

ELDORET, Kenya (Reuters) - A second Kenyan opposition legislator was shot dead on Thursday, overshadowing the resumption of negotiations between the country’s feuding politicians after more than a month of violence.
Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) member of parliament David Kimutai Too was killed in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, the party said. An unidentified woman [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a hefty half-percentage point on Wednesday as part of an aggressive effort to halt a sharp slowdown in an economy hit by a housing slump and a credit crunch.
The Fed’s action takes the bellwether federal funds rate target to 3 percent, the lowest since June [...]

China’s leaders are waging what state media has described as “an all out war” on the fierce winter weather that has brought travel chaos as well as dozens of deaths to much of the country.
The government has ordered some 460,000 troops deployed to clear snow, as China’s top officials move to prevent the crisis becoming [...]

India has paid homage to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man who led the country’s peaceful campaign for independence from Britain.
Nilamben Parikh, his great-granddaughter, on Wednesday marked the 60th anniversary of the assassination of the man known as Mahatma or “Great Soul” by pouring an urn of his ashes into the sea.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EA4D9D2F-03B8-4ABB-80AF-6106111CEF96.htm

The Thai general who led a 2006 coup against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra has given his backing to the country’s new government, led by an ally of the prime minister who was removed from power.
Speaking in unusually warm terms of his relations with the man he removed from power, general Sonthi Boonyaratglin told reporters [...]

The Cabinet adopted a bill Tuesday to create a new tourist agency under the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry to help increase the growing number of foreign tourists to Japan, particularly those from Asia.
The agency will be launched in October with 103 officials by unifying six sections of the ministry. The formal English name [...]