World

PARIS, (Reuters) – French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s  office denied allegations published in the daily Liberation yesterday that he was handed cash by L’Oreal heiress Liliane  Bettencourt for his 2007 election campaign.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Ineffective Pentagon  oversight of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan has  wasted up to $60 billion over the past decade, a “troubling”  failure that undermines U.S.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – Tropical Storm Katia strengthened  into a hurricane over the Atlantic yesterday, while another  mass of thunderstorms that could become a named storm this week  triggered evacuations of some oil workers from the Gulf of  Mexico.

TRIPOLI/TAWARGA, Libya, (Reuters) – Muammar  Gaddafi’s sons clashed on the airwaves yesterday, with one  offering peace and another promising a ‘war of attrition’ as a  final battle for control of Libya’s coast loomed.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Brazil’s central bank slashed  its key interest rate to 12 percent from 12.5 percent yesterday in a shock decision that it said reflects a mounting  global slowdown as well as weaker growth in Latin America’s  largest economy.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Former Secretary of State  Condoleezza Rice said yesterday she resented what she viewed  as an attack on her integrity by former Vice President Dick  Cheney in his just-published memoir.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Colombia’s Defence Minister  Rodrigo Rivera resigned yesterday as the Andean country’s  security forces face growing criticism for failing to thwart  attacks from weakened Marxist guerrillas.

JOHANNESBURG,  (Reuters) – South African police used  stun grenades and water cannon yesterday to disperse thousands  of supporters of outspoken ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema  who was facing a party disciplinary hearing that could derail  his political career.

TRIPOLI/BENGHAZI, (Reuters) – Forces loyal to deposed  ruler Muammar Gaddafi held out in a few Libyan towns on Tuesday  even though their leader has gone to ground and most of his  family has fled the country.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. agency  that oversaw a botched attempt to track arms flowing to drug  cartels in Mexico is being reassigned to the Justice Department  headquarters, the Obama administration said on Tuesday.

AMMAN,  (Reuters) – Security forces shot dead four  demonstrators yesterday as people streamed out of mosques after  prayers to mark the end of Ramadan and renewed protests against  Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, activists and residents said.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – The U.S. East Coast is mopping up  after Hurricane Irene’s weekend battering that killed around 40  people and authorities and residents are looking out anxiously  over the Atlantic and asking: Is another one coming?

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Violent armed groups are still  forcing thousands of Colombian farmers to grow coca, but with  the army regaining control of many rural areas, growers are  increasingly turning to coffee for a living.

TRIPOLI, (Reuters) – The wife of Muammar Gaddafi and  three of his children took refuge in Algeria yesterday but the  whereabouts of the former strongman himself remained a mystery a  week after rebels drove him from power.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The historic earthquake that  shut Dominion Resources Inc’s North Anna nuclear plant in  Virginia last week may have shaken the facility more than it  was designed to withstand, the U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – His cartoons are edgy,  bold, and a thorn in the side of the Arab world’s tottering  authoritarians — a gift to protesters from the unlikely  setting of an apartment in beach-side Rio de Janeiro.

FAIRFIELD, N.J./BRATTLEBORO, Vt., (Reuters) – New  Jersey and Vermont struggled with their worst flooding in  decades yesterday, a day after Hurricane Irene slammed an  already soaked region with torrential rain, dragging away homes  and submerging neighborhoods underwater.

PARIS,  (Reuters) – Chocolate may be good for the  heart but cardiologists are not giving you a licence to indulge.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – U.S. government researchers  must have known they were violating ethical standards by  deliberately infecting Guatemalan prison inmates and mental  patients with syphilis for an experiment in the 1940’s,  according to a U.S.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – If the optimists are to be  believed, India’s huge anti-corruption protests may give impetus  to a beleaguered government to push its reform process and help  ailing economic growth and plummeting business confidence.