Oil Prices: It Gets Worse

Oil prices hit a record high of $97 a barrel on Tuesday, but the next generation of consumers could look back on that price with envy. The dire predictions of a key report on international oil supplies released Wednesday suggest that oil prices could move irreversibly over the $100-a-barrel threshold in the not too distant future, as the global economy faces a serious energy shortage

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Google: Web and browsers will lead app development

Google spent Wednesday morning trying to get developers excited about the next generation of Web technologies by showing off how future Web applications will mimic desktop apps. “It’s time for us to take advantage of the amazing opportunity that is before us,” said Google CEO Eric Schmidt, kicking off Google I/O 2009 in San Francisco.

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In Beijing Burbs, Chinese Soccer Gets Its Game On

In the sprawling residential suburb of Huilongguan, northwest of downtown Beijing, the neighborhood soccer league is in the middle of its championship game. The audience, most of them the wives and children of the players, shout encouragement as two teams of men of all ages and sizes dressed in bright yellow and red run across the grass pitch on a college campus.

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Why India’s Communists Are Losing Ground

For decades, they have been a familiar sight in the sun-kissed Indian state of Kerala or the country’s crumbling eastern metropolis of Kolkata. The somber portraits of dead white men — a bearded Marx, a bespectacled Lenin, and Stalin, his moustache bristling — peer down at passers-by from banners strung up over palm trees or street-corner billboards, accompanied by the less-hallowed visages of local comrades. India’s Communists have been key players in the hurly burly of the world’s largest democracy, dominating the ballot box in states like West Bengal, where Kolkata is the capital, and where a Communist government has ruled for over thirty years.

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Sheikh reportedly detained pending torture investigation

A member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi who was captured on videotape torturing an Afghan grain dealer has reportedly been detained, a senior U.S. State Department official told CNN Saturday. The official said the government of the United Arab Emirates, which includes Abu Dhabi as one of its seven emirates, told the State Department that Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan is under house arrest pending an investigation, but that the United States has not independently confirmed the development.

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Pakistani military claims Taliban casualties climbing

Pakistani security forces battling Taliban militants in the volatile Swat Valley killed between 45 and 55 of the fighters over the last 24 hours, the military said Saturday. An unknown number of civilian casualties also occurred as Pakistan’s military continues its offensive against Taliban militants in the country’s North West Frontier Province. The fighting is taking its toll across the province, where the U.N

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Auto companies strive to end car ‘totaling’

Have you ever heard of someone having their car "totaled"? While the word might conjure images of a massive car accident, replete with broken glass and the Jaws of Life, the reality is sometimes far removed. In fact, there are many accidents that produce structural damage such that the vehicle’s frame is bent, even though the exterior of the car might even look drivable

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