Can Iran’s Minorities Help Oust Ahmadinejad?

The presidential candidate was greeted last Monday at the airport by a jubilant throng, chanting “Azerbaijan is awake, and is supporting its son!” That slogan, shouted in the Azeri language, might sound a little discordant, given that Mir-Hossein Moussavi is running for President not of Azerbaijan, but of Iran.

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Do-It-Yourself Anti-Overdose Kits: Do They Help?

If there’s anything more empowering than bringing someone back to life, Dan Bigg wouldn’t know. He has personally resuscitated five people who were unconscious from drug overdoses, and the organization he co-founded in 1991, Chicago Recovery Alliance, has helped save hundreds of others from accidental drug-related death. The organization’s strategy is a simple one: Help people help themselves

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OPEC Wants You to Pay More for Gas

For many consumers, the only silver lining on the global financial crisis has been the falling oil price it has precipitated. But OPEC is determined to put an end to the relief at the gas pump. Concerned to protect their countries’ financial health, oil ministers from the 13 members of the cartel of oil-producing countries meet in Vienna on Friday with only one item on their agenda — cutting their oil output in order to drive up world prices.

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Paper: 20,000 killed in Sri Lanka conflict

More than 20,000 civilians were killed in the final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war — nearly three times previous estimates, The Times newspaper in Britain reported Friday. The Times said it had acquired confidential U.N. documents that record nearly 7,000 civilian deaths in the no-fire zone up to the end of April.

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Report: Climate change crisis ‘catastrophic’

The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year. More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns. “Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” said the forum’s president, former U.N.

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Oil Is Plentiful, Demand Weak. Why Are Gas Prices Going Up?

Storage tankers across the globe may be brimming with oil that no one is buying because of the global economic downturn, but the traditional laws of supply and demand don’t always apply to oil prices. Drivers have faced rising prices at the gas pump in recent months, as investors and oil-producing countries hoard supplies in anticipation of a global economic recovery later this year.

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China Gropes for a Response to North Korea’s Nuke Moves

In the summer of 2006, in the immediate aftermath of North Korea’s unexpected long-range missile launch, the Chinese government quietly sent a senior envoy, former foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan, to Pyongyang to express Beijing’s displeasure. Tang cooled his heels for a couple of days, before finally meeting — briefly, diplomatic sources have said — with leader Kim Jong Il. Just three months later, in October 2006, North Korea again defied the world and tested a nuclear bomb for the first time

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