Recession reality bites Japan’s anime industry

Given the magnitude of Japan’s recession, it should perhaps come as little surprise that the fantasy-obsessed animation industry has received a hard dose of reality. Yasuo Yamaguchi, executive director of the Association of Japanese Animators, said the industry has been rocked by the country’s deepest recession since World War II.

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Nicaragua abortion ban ‘cruel and inhuman disgrace’

Nicaragua’s total ban on abortion is a "cruel, inhuman disgrace" that’s led to the rise in maternal deaths, human rights organization Amnesty International has said. The Central American country’s revised penal code on abortion came into force in July 2008 and criminalizes all forms of abortion regardless of the circumstances, even in cases of rape or incest, a deformed fetus, or when the mother’s life is in danger

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Boxing: Pacquiao announces Cotto fight

The world’s top pound-for-pound fighter, Manny Pacquiao, will attempt to win a world title in a fourth division by taking on three-time world champion Miguel Cotto in his next bout. The Filipino boxer will fight the 28-year-old Puerto Rican for the WBO welterweight title at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, America on November 14 it has been confirmed. Promoter Bob Arum, who represents both fighters, announced that although contracts still need to be signed, verbal agreements have been given: “I’m very excited about this because it’s a good fight for boxing [and] it wasn’t difficult to do, because they both wanted the fight,” Arum told the Los Angeles Times

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Filipino prisoners honor Jackson with ‘Thriller’ show

Amid the tropical heat of a Filipino prison, convicted murderers, rapists and drug dealers on Saturday paid tribute to Michael Jackson with a reprise of their YouTube dance hit, "Thriller." A rendition of Jackson’s 1980s smash hit by prisoners at the Cebu Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the central Philippines garnered more than 24 million views since 2007, when prison supervisor Byron Garcia first uploaded it to the video-sharing Web site.

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Storm kills 8 in Philippines

Eight people were killed and 11 were left missing after tropical depression Nangka triggered flooding, a tornado and a landslide in the Philippines, according to disaster officials. “The minority can’t impose their opinion on the majority,” Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri told CNN en Español. “They can’t impose a dictatorship saying that the majority is not going to govern.” There are acceptable ways of addressing electoral fraud, if any occurred, he said.

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Obama’s Three-Part Case on Iran

This weekend Iran is roiled by the greatest turmoil since the 1979 revolution, while there is an ongoing debate inside the Obama Administration. One camp has argued that the Iranian political order could be fundamentally shaken in the days ahead, as in Poland in 1989 and Ukraine in 2004.

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Sub collides with sonar array towed by U.S. Navy ship

In what a U.S. military official calls an "inadvertent encounter," a Chinese submarine hit an underwater sonar array being towed by the destroyer USS John McCain on Thursday. The array was damaged, but the sub and the ship did not collide, the official said

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