A Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe: Still Slow in Coming

For years, much of the debate over Zimbabwe has been preoccupied with how much, and how publicly, to criticize its despotic longtime leader Robert Mugabe. In the past, the West routinely harangued the ailing 85-year-old dictator, a former liberation hero who has ruled for 29 years.

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Obama to discuss financial reform one year after Lehman collapse

President Barack Obama will call for quicker action on financial reform during a speech Monday that coincides with the one-year anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse, the White House said. Obama will discuss plans to reduce government involvement in the financial sector, and urge reform and global coordination to prevent another financial crisis, administration officials said

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EU: Sanctions against Zimbabwe to remain

The European Union will not lift sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his allies until the country improves its human rights record and moves ahead on a power-sharing plan, an EU official said Sunday. European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid Karel de Gucht spoke to reporters at the conclusion of a two-day visit about Mugabe’s calls for an end to the sanctions

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Dubious penalty helps England to victory

A controversial penalty from Frank Lampard and a second half strike from prolific substitute Jermain Defoe helped England to a 2-1 friendly victory over Slovenia at Wembley on Saturday. Both sides had chances to go ahead before England striker Wayne Rooney went down dramatically in the penalty area on the half hour mark

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Was Robert Capa’s Famous Civil War Photo a Fake?

“If your pictures aren’t good enough,” Robert Capa once remarked, “then you’re not close enough.” For more than 35 years, Capa’s 1936 photograph “Death of a Militiaman” — arguably the most enduring image of the Spanish Civil War — commanded worldwide acclaim and helped establish Capa as the archetypal modern war photographer. But beginning in the 1970s, researchers and historians began to challenge the picture’s veracity and raise questions about Capa’s reputation: Did the famous photograph capture the militiaman at the moment of his death, or was it staged Now comes a claim that new and “indisputable” evidence determines once and for all that the photograph is a fake. “We tried to reconstruct the events exactly as they would have to have occurred for Capa’s photo to have been taken during a military conflict,” says Ernest Alos, the reporter for Cataluna’s daily El Periodico who has led the latest inquiry.

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Funeral for Farrah Fawcett set for Tuesday

A private funeral service for actress Farrah Fawcett will be conducted Tuesday afternoon at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles, California, according to her publicist. The family did not release any details about who would deliver the eulogy or how many people have been invited.

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‘Angels & Demons’ fails to draw Vatican’s ire

If director Ron Howard hopes religious controversy will help sell tickets to "Angels & Demons" the way it boosted his "Da Vinci Code," the Catholic Church is not playing along with his script. Howard, who premiered the follow-up in Rome, Italy, this week, said there was “residual antagonism from ‘The Da Vinci Code,’ ” but Vatican officials ignored the movie by not responding to suggestions that the church was offended.

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