Zimbabwe ‘surviving on beer and cigarettes’

Zimbabwe’s new finance minister Wednesday complained that President Robert Mugabe’s government is running on taxes and duties paid on beer and cigarettes. As he presented his revised 2009 budget to parliament, Finance Minister Tendai Biti noted that “indirect taxes made up of customs and excise duty have contributed 88 percent of government revenue, which means that the government has been literally sustained by beer and cigarettes.” “This is unacceptable,” the minister added.

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Summers defends White House response to AIG bonuses

With outrage mounting over AIG’s $165 million in bonuses to executives, the president’s chief economic adviser offered a new line of defense for the White House in an exclusive interview with CNN. Larry Summers suggested that if Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had pushed the insurance giant too hard on the bonuses, AIG could have collapsed just like Lehman Brothers and sparked an even bigger crisis

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iReporter: ‘AIG should be ashamed of themselves’

He landed in Cameroon, the first stop on a trip that will also take him to Angola. Sub-Saharan Africa has been hit harder by AIDS and HIV than any other region of the world, according to the United Nations and World Health Organization. There has been fierce debate between those who advocate the use of condoms to help stop the spread of the epidemic and those who oppose it

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Russia announces major arms buildup

Russia is planning a "comprehensive rearmament" of its military, President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday. The announcement comes amid concerns in Moscow over the performance of its forces during last year’s invasion of Georgia, an expert on the Russian military told CNN.

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Judge Judy encourages Americans, slams Madoff

Viewers have learned that television’s no-nonsense Judge Judy cuts through the bull and gets to the heart of the matter. On Monday night’s “Larry King Live,” Judge Judy turned her sharp legal mind to matters of the economy, sharing why she thinks Americans have what it takes to navigate the hard months ahead. And she also has some advice for President Obama and sharp-worded assessments of Bernie Madoff and AIG bonuses.

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