Thanks Raul: Cubans can stay in hotels (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

A foreign couple is reflected in a mirror next to a flag with a image of Revolutionary hero Ernesto 'Che' Guevara inside the National hotel in Havana, Monday, March 31, 2008. New President Raul Castro's government has lifted a ban on Cubans staying at hotels previously reserved for foreigners. Flag reads in Spanish 'Victories'. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano)AP - Raul Castro’s government opened luxury hotels and resorts to all Cubans Monday, ending a ban despised across the island as “tourist apartheid” and taking another step toward the creation of a consumer economy in the socialist state.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


U.S. defense analyst guilty in China spy case (Reuters)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

An aerial view of the Pentagon building in Washington, June 15, 2005. (Jason Reed/Reuters)Reuters - A U.S. Defense Department analyst
pleaded guilty to passing classified information about Taiwan
to a Chinese government agent, the Justice Department said on
Monday.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Married troops can live together in Iraq (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

U.S. Army Sgt. Jacqueline McCloud, 29, left, and her husband, Sgt. Jason McCloud, 24, right, kiss in the doorway of the small cargo container they share at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, 360 kilometers (225 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 27, 2008. The two, who have two small children, are deployed together with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. The Army is allowing scores of husband-and-wife soldiers to live and sleep together in the war zone -- a move aimed at preserving marriages, boosting morale and perhaps bolstering re-enlistment rates at a time when the military is struggling to fill its ranks five years into the fighting. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)AP - When American soldiers get off duty in Iraq, the men usually return to their quarters, the women to theirs. But Staff Sgt. Marvin Frazier gets to go back to a small trailer with two pushed-together single beds that he shares with his wife.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


U.S. demands unconditional release of Libya dissident (Reuters)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi attends the closing session of the two-day Arab Summit in Damascus. An Arab summit failed to clinch a breakthrough on Lebanon on Sunday, spotlighting the rift between host Syria and boycotting US allies which blame Beirut's political crisis on Damascus.(AFP/Hassan Ammar)Reuters - The United States on Monday urged
Libya to release without conditions an ailing political
dissident now recovering in a Tripoli hospital.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Mexican serial killer sentenced (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Juana Barranza, known as the 'old lady killer,' speaks through a security glass during a review of her sentencing, at a women's prison in Mexico City, Monday, March 31, 2008. Barranza was charged for killing 16 elderly women in 2006, and has received a sentence of 759 years in prison for the crimes. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)AP - A former female wrestler who terrorized Mexico City as the “Little Old Lady Killer” was sentenced to 759 years in jail on Monday for killing 16 elderly women.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Film director Jules Dassin dies at 96 (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

AP - American director Jules Dassin, whose Greek wife Melina Mercouri starred in his hit movie “Never on Sunday” and six more of his films, died late Monday at an Athens hospital, officials said. He was 96.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Riot police in Harare townships amid poll tensions (Reuters)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Zimbabweans check preliminary results of the March 29 elections at a polling station in the suburb of Epworth near the capital Harare, March 31, 2008, as they await the official announcement of results. (Mike Hutchings/Reuters)Reuters - Riot police in armored carriers were
deployed in two of Harare’s restive townships on Monday night
amid long delays in issuing Zimbabwe’s election results which
have raised tensions.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Truce calms Iraq, weakens prime minister (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Residents check damage to their apartments after  a bombing and recent clashes between the Mahdi Army and Iraqi government forces backed by the US military in Sadr City, Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, March 31, 2008. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)AP - Rockets fell on the Green Zone and random machine gun fire rang out Monday in the southern city of Basra as Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr sought to rein in his militia after a week of battles that claimed about 400 lives.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


China verdict on dissident Hu Jia due Thursday: lawyer (AFP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

The verdict for prominent Chinese human rights dissident Hu Jia, pictured in 2007, accused of subversion, will be announced on Thursday, one of his lawyers said.(AFP/File/Frederic J. Brown)AFP - The verdict for prominent Chinese human rights dissident Hu Jia, accused of subversion, will be announced on Thursday, one of his lawyers said.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back


Al-Sadr trumps in latest showdown (AP)

Posted by on Mar 31, 2008

Iraqis march during a funeral during a sandstorm  in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, March 31, 2008.  The funeral was for five persons, including two children, who were killed in recent clashes between the Mahdi Army and government forces backed by the American military.  (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)AP - The Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr rarely ventures into the public eye. But he’s never far from the minds of Iraq’s leaders as one of the nation’s most influential and wily political survivors.

Original post by Yahoo! News: World News and software by Elliott Back