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Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi has lashed out at the United States by likening the 1986 U.S. Strikes on Libya to Osama bin Laden's terror attacks on the United States in 2001. He was speaking Thursday in Rome, where he is on a three-day official visit. In a speech to Italian lawmakers, Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi urged the world to understand the reasons that motivate terrorists. He called for dialogue with terrorists, saying, "One must talk to the devil, if it brings about a solution." While condemning al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden, he implied there was little difference between bin Laden's...

A New Brunswick newspaper that ran a front-page apology Tuesday for a story that claimed Prime Minister Stephen Harper had pocketed a communion wafer has also announced that its publisher and editor-in-chief are no longer with the paper. Saint John Telegraph-Journal publisher Jamie Irving and editor Shawna Richer were no longer at their posts, effective immediately, said Annie Smith, a spokeswoman for the New Brunswick News Inc., the company that owns the daily paper. "She is no longer editor, and (he) is no longer the publisher," she said. "I don't have any information other than that." Ms. Smith would not...

Can anyone answer the sweet lady's innocent little question?

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) stands with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev during a family photo at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy July 10, 2009 Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi (L) speaks with France's President Nicolas Sarkozy as he leaves the final meeting at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy July 10, 2009. After two days of talks focused on the economic crisis, trade and global warming, the final day of the G8 gathering in Italy looked at the problems facing the poorest nations. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev holds up a 'worldwide coin' as he discusses the concept of an international...

Wealthy nations agree on temperature cap in fight against global warming.... leaders of the world's richest industrial countries pledged Wednesday to seek dramatic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to slow dangerous climate change. They agreed for the first time that worldwide temperatures must not rise more than a few degrees. However, their goals are nonbinding, and it's far from clear they will be met. The wealthy nations failed to persuade the leaders of big developing countries to promise to cut their own fast-spreading pollution, unable to overcome arguments that the well-established industrial giants aren't doing enough in the...

China and India have rejected calls from G8 leaders for them to make deep cuts in their carbon emissions. The refusal of developing nations to sign up to a climate change deal overshadowed an agreement between rich nations to limit the rise in global average temperatures. G8 leaders meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, agreed for the first time to work to prevent global temperatures rising by more than two degrees Celsius. The summit also agreed that developed economies should aim to cut their carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The agreement will force G8 economies to make significant changes...

The bustle of business and the roar of traffic returned to Urumqi yesterday as columns of troops miles long filled the streets in a show of might designed to reassure Han Chinese after Sunday’s riots. Throughout the day, lorries filled with paramilitaries and soldiers paraded slowly down city centre streets. Armoured personnel carriers, water cannon vehicles and vans equipped to fire teargas followed. Some vehicles were emblazoned with slogans such as “Smash the separatists” and “Bring peace to the city”. The Times counted a column of police that took 40 minutes to pass by. One witness counted 60 sets of...

Climate Change: Channeling King Canute, G-8 leaders agree to wreck the world's economy, and ours, by pledging to prevent temperatures from rising more than 4 degrees by 2050. What if the Earth has other plans?Canute was the legendary king whose sycophantic followers praised his power and wisdom. He was The One of his time. He once stood on the shore and commanded the waves to halt. As the story goes, he was exercising his ego when in fact he was giving his followers a dose of reality — the power of man over nature is finite and inconsequential. We were...

It's always nice to see the leaders of the United States and Russia having a pleasant summit. But let's not fool ourselves into thinking the statements mean much. In July 2008, President Bush and Russian President Dimitri Medvedev had a meeting at the G8 summit: PRESIDENT MEDVEDEV: (As translated.) Well, indeed, we had this exchange today with George concerning various issues on the agenda of our relationship, including those of domestic importance, trade and investments, and internationally related matters, including those conflicts and crisis tendencies in the world. And true that on certain matters we do have differences originating from...

Ex-Topless Model To Host Leaders’ Partners At Berlusconi’s Summit By NICK PISA 04th July 2009 Not topless now: Mara Carfagna, Italy's Equal Opportunities Minister [Pic in URL] Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has solved the problem of not having a First Lady by his side for this week’s G8 Summit – a former topless model turned minister will look after the spouses of world leaders. Dark-haired former calendar girl Mara Carfagna, – now Italy’s Equal Opportunities Minister – will guide the partners of the prime ministers and presidents at the conference. The idea might put a smile on the face of...

They came, they prayed, they appealed. Religious leaders from around the world held their own not-so-mini “G8 summit” in Italy on June 16-17. The “Fourth Summit of Religious Leaders on the occasion of the G8,” as the meeting was officially called, started with a visit to L’Aquila, the central Italian city severely damaged by an earthquake on April 6. That will be the venue in July of the actual summit of the G8 club of industrial nations. Nearly 130 religious leaders and diplomats then moved to Rome where they held two days of talks under the auspices of the Italian...

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The Town of Huntsville will be applying to the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) to fund a large-scale mock disaster in 2009." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Hernen explained that typically a JEPP application involves a 50/50 spending commitment between the program and the municipality or organization making the application. However, in light of the upcoming 2010 G8 Summit being held at Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville, Hernen said, “they’re willing to look at a different funding formula for us,” and that the town would be applying for a grant to cover 100 per cent of the cost."

HUNTSVILLE, ONT. — ARTICLE SNIPPET: "On Friday, Aug. 8, a vehicle pulled into the Pow Wow parking lot and discharged six men, all dressed in what the locals would call "city clothes" - including dark slacks and leather-soled dress shoes. Without bothering to check with the office, they went down to the beach and began taking photographs of each other, each time with Deerhurst - including the cupola that rides over the main building - in the background." ARTICLE SNIPPET: "These six English-speaking men appeared to be of Middle-Eastern origin. But what really set them apart was their complete unfamiliarity...

For a perfect example of what is meant by "gesture politics" - an empty pledge given solely for effect, which the politician has no hope of honouring - one could not do better than this week's commitment by the G8 leaders on how they want us to fight climate change. The orthodox global-warming thesis, accepted by pretty well every politician in the Western world, but not by a growing number of scientists, is that, as CO2 levels in the atmosphere continue to rise, so too should global temperatures. Unless we can drastically reduce those CO2 levels, the world is thus...

London — Rock star Bob Geldof called on the Group of Eight rich nations on Tuesday to honour their commitment to double aid to Africa by 2010. The G8 agreed the aid increase at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, but a report last month by the Africa Progress Panel said that under current spending plans the G8 will fall 40 billion dollars short of its target. "They should be at a 50 per cent point in their commitment, but in fact the G8 are only at 14 per cent," former Boomtown Rats singer Geldof, who is lobbying the summit...

On the last day of the G8 Summit in Japan, President Bush met with China’s President Hu Jintao (Transcript), India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Transcript) and Republic of Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak. The President then delivered a statement as his final G8 Summit came to a close. (Transcript) You know, oftentimes in the political process people talk big, but they never follow up. And so one of the key ingredients of these recent meetings was all of us need to be reminded that when we say we're going to do something, we got to do it. And so accountability is...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. G8 leaders make a toast: The lavish dining will embarrass Mr Brown, who has made tackling the global food crisis a key priority The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use...

Climate Change: A study on the impact of rising CO2 levels finds a future world of thriving agriculture and lush vegetation. Carbon dioxide, the gas some see as a threat, is indeed the key to life on Earth.Even as the G-8 Summit announced plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, researchers at the Johann Heinrich von Theunen Institute in Germany find the rise in carbon dioxide levels may in fact be a boon to plant life on Earth. The Theunen Institute, which has been monitoring the phenomenon since 1999, trained CO2 jets on plants, raising CO2 concentrations...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Iran warned on Tuesday it would "set fire" to Israel and US forces in response to any attack over its nuclear drive, as the world's leading industrial powers told Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment.Leaders of the Group of Eight nations at a summit in Japan urged Iran to fully comply with UN Security Council resolutions "in particular to suspend all enrichment-related activities."They also urged Tehran to respond positively to a new package by six major powers aimed at bringing an end to the five-year-old nuclear standoff which has led to a string of sanctions against Iran.The United...

Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd exhibited "Plug-in Stella Concept," a new electric vehicle, at the G8 Hokkaido-Toyako Summit. Fuji Heavy Industries brought five of the vehicles to the site of the summit and showcased them to government officials and journalists from all over the world. The company plans to commercialize an electric car in 2009. The Plug-in Stella Concept is based on "Stella," the company's practical wagon-type kei car. The main characteristic of the vehicle is that it has a secondary battery in the lower part of the vehicle, securing as much interior space as the Stella. The secondary battery...

In meetings at Hokkaido, Japan, the leaders of the G8 made a breakthrough on climate change when they agreed to adopt a goal of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to a draft communique.

rising prices and a global shortage of provisions. But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis. The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

Tony Blair's flagship promise of more aid for Africa, secured at the Gleneagles summit three years ago, is being pulled apart as "backsliding" leaders assemble for a G8 meeting in Japan. On the opening day of the gathering on Japan's island of Hokkaido, a draft communiqué prepared for leaders of the world's eight richest nations showed how the pledge which Mr Blair negotiated with such fanfare was being steadily watered down. The central promise made by G8 countries at Gleneagles, as rock concerts and demonstrations took place across the world, was to raise their aid budgets by £25 billion by...

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda. The Prime Minister was served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit – just hours after urging the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and calling on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food. Mr Brown and his wife Sarah were among 15 guests at the "blessings of the earth and the sea social dinner"....

Gordon Brown and his fellow world leaders have sparked outrage after it was disclosed they enjoyed a six-course lunch followed by an eight-course dinner at the G8 summit where the global food crisis tops the agenda.

TOYAKO, Japan (Reuters) - African leaders urged the Group of Eight rich nations on Monday to keep promises to help their continent and pleaded with them to remember that soaring oil and food prices were making their poverty worse. The G8 has been accused by activists of reneging on the promise made at its 2005 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, to double aid by 2010 to $50 billion, half of which would go to Africa. "Some African leaders just wanted to emphasize that while appreciating G8 leaders' commitment to help Africa in past G8 summits, they just wanted to point that...

How have G8 members done under the protocol so far?The EU’s environment agency projects Britain and France will meet their Kyoto obligations but other G8 members are struggling: Canada. Emissions have gone up as much as 35 percent since 1990 because of continued increases in the exploitation of the country’s oil resources, calling into question whether Canada can make its 5 percent reduction target.Japan. The second-largest economy in the world is also in jeopardy of not making its assigned goal. Japan’s emissions have risen over 8 percent, which means the country will now have to reduce emissions more than 14...

A fair and global effort to tackle climate change needs wealthy states to take the lead in CO2 cuts The Bali summit on climate change, which starts next week, will seek to lay the foundations for a new global agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause rising temperatures and climate change. Ambitious targets for emission reduction must be at the heart of that agreement, together with effective market mechanisms that encourage emission trading between countries, rich and poor. The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally...

“Fulfill your promises before making new ones” — this is what African leaders have to say to the 33rd G-8 summit meeting now going on at the resort city of Heiligendamm, Germany. Days before the summit many African leaders and international organizations were drawing attention to the futility of the rich nations making new promises to eradicate poverty in Africa without fulfilling earlier declarations to this effect. They recalled promises made at the summit in the Scottish town of Glendale two years ago. The participants at the 2005 summit which they called the African summit agreed to write off the...

Later this year, China will overtake the United States as the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases (GHG). At that time, much of the pressure to accept egregious UN-based Kyoto-style protocols will shift eastward from Washington to Beijing. It is that impending inversion which distinguishes this week’s G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, as the EU alarmists’ last-gasp effort to impose their flawed and failing cap-and-trade policies on America, and ultimately, the entire world. With Kyoto set to expire in 5 years, and the world’s premier GHG emitters either exempt from or outright refusing its misguided constraints, the outlook for the...

TIRANA, Albania, — The highlight of President Bush’s European tour may well be his visit on Sunday to this tiny country, one of the few places left where he can bask in unabashed pro-American sentiment without a protester in sight. Americans here are greeted with a refreshing adoration that feels as though it comes from another time. “Albania is for sure the most pro-American country in Europe, maybe even in the world,” said Edi Rama, Tirana’s mayor and leader of the opposition Socialists. “Nowhere else can you find such respect and hospitality for the president of the United States. Even...

HEILIGENDAMM-WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL SAYS BUSH TAKEN ILL AT G8 SUMMIT BUT "NOT SERIOUS"

June 08, 2007, 8:08 a.m. G-8 PrecipiceIt’s a different world. By Victor Davis Hanson The fitting geological metaphor for the so-called G-8 meeting in Germany is not a summit, but a precipice — as the world’s leaders scramble around to grab something before one of them falls into the abyss. The old postwar order is tottering on the brink of Islamism, oil-price hikes, energy shortages, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, Russian belligerency, global-warming concern and hysteria, and war. Europe is at the edge of the chasm, despite its strong euro and strengthening economy. Once convinced that they would serve as a...

After wrapping up the G8 Summit in Germany, President and Mrs. Bush flew to Poland to meet with President Lech Kaczynski. The two leaders delivered a joint statement in Gdansk. (Transcript) From there, President and Mrs. Bush traveled to Rome. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

Poverty campaigner Bob Geldof has condemned leaders of the G8 nations for coming up with a deal on Africa which he says is a "farce". He praised Tony Blair, who he said had "gone down all guns blazing" in an effort to get the eight nations to deliver on previous aid commitments. But he said he also felt sorry for the out-going PM as he had secured "no legacy stuff" in the two-day talks. And he launched a strongly-worded attack on the other summit leaders. At a joint press conference with fellow rock star and Live8 organiser, Bono, Mr Geldof...

President Bush arrived in Heiligendamm, Germany today to attend the 2007 G8 Summit. There he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Transcript) and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Transcript) First Lady Laura Bush participated in the opening ceremonies at the Schwerin City Library in Schwerin, Germany. Marking the 63rd anniversary of the D-Day invasion, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates met with veterans in Normandy and spoke at a ceremony unveiling the new visitor center at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

(LEAD) Bush vows to "never excuse" oppressors in countries like North Korea WASHINGTON, June 5 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President George W. Bush, calling North Korea one of the world's worst dictatorship, said Tuesday his country "will never excuse" the oppressors. "People living in tyranny need to know they are not forgotten," he said in a speech in Prague where he was visiting for a G-8 summit. "North Koreans live in a closed society where dissent is brutally suppressed, and they are cut off from their brothers and sisters to the South." The speech transcript was released in Washington. Bush recounted...

Thousand Hurt In Anti-G8 Protest In Germany Germany - An anti-G8 protester waves a flag in front of a burning car during unrest between riot police and anti-G8 protesters in Rostock, 02Jun2007 Protester in Rostock on June 2 (AFP) June 3, 2007 -- German police said today that 128 people were arrested after a violent demonstration on June 2 against the upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrialized countries in Rostock. About 1,000 people were injured in the riots. The organizers of the protest in northern Germany, which came four days before the start of the G8...

The summit, like past ones, is attracting protesters opposed to capitalism, globalization, the war in Iraq and the G-8 itself. Police have surrounded the summit site with a seven-mile-long fence topped with barbed wire, and closed the surrounding waters and airspace, fearing terrorism or disorderly protests like the ones that marred at 2001 summit in Genoa, Italy, where police and protesters clashed for days and one demonstrator was killed. Protests near the fence have been banned. In Rostock, the officially permitted demonstration began peacefully Saturday with two groups of marchers gathering at the waterfront. Clashes broke out near the end...

MORE than 150 police have been injured in violent clashes with protesters at a demonstration in northern Germany against next week's G8 summit, a police spokesman says. Some of the injuries were serious, the spokesman said, after updating an earlier injured figure of 100. Masked demonstrators hurled Molotov cocktails, stones and bottles at police as tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Rostock, a port city near Heiligendamm where the Group of Eight leaders will gather for three days of talks from Wednesday. Protesters overturned and set fire to several cars, an AFP reporter said. Demonstrators from...

The forward suite aboard Air Force One is a hushed and dimly lit space, a private sanctuary where the president can sleep, exercise and lead the free world from 30,000 feet. At the start of an eight-hour flight en route to Germany and a world summit in Russia, President Bush is deep inside his own head as he paces up and down the long hallway that leads from his study to his conference room. While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an...

Yet another crime against humanity by the despicable tyrant, George Bush. Only this time it was caught on tape by our friends in the Russian news media.(I've included the time clocks so that you can see how long Ms. Merkel had to endure this humiliating sexual harassment.) That's right. Less than a second.Outrageous!

by Mark Finkelstein July 21, 2006 - 16:09 Alison Stewart is the too-cool host of MSNBC's 'The Most,' which as its promo page explains: "Give[s] viewers a look at 'the most' sought-after stories of the day. Every day, 'The Most' will report on the most searched stories on the Internet, the most viewed stories from a multitude of news sources, the most e-mailed stories or photo images, the most downloaded music or blogged-about subject matter and the most viewed television programs or movies." Ending her show this afternoon, Stewart focused on the brief, joshing back rub Pres. Bush administered to...

NEW YORK - An impromptu back rub that President Bush gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel is now massaging millions of funny bones. A 5-second video and series of photographs recently posted on YouTube.com and various blogs show Bush surprising Merkel at the G-8 Summit by quickly rubbing the back of her neck and shoulders. The chancellor immediately hunches her shoulders, throws her arms up and grimaces, though she appears to smile as Bush walks away. The video has been one of the most popular clips on the Web and spawned countless remarks on the particulars of etiquette for world leaders....

SHOCKING PHOTOS AND VIDEO HERE!!!!! I used to get in debates during my blog hiatus with some of Goldstein’s commenters about whether it’s worth trying to engage the left. For all the antagonism between him and the five or six douchebags he’s always arguing with, Jeff adamantly believes that it is. He’s written posts about women’s issues, of all things, inviting feminist bloggers by name to respond to his points. Not in a nasty “got somethin’ to say?” way, either. Just trying to start dialogue. As I’ve told him each and every time he’s done it: he’s nuts. And the...

It's not exactly "Presidents Gone Wild!" but for the normally staid Group of Eight Summit, a video of President George W. Bush sidling behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel and delivering an impromptu neck rub is, well, as wild as it gets. The scene, captured by a Russian TV camera, hit the Internet like a summer wildfire Tuesday, and it may be most memorable for the German chancellor's reaction. Bush applies his hands to Merkel's shoulders and neck while she's speaking with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi; the chancellor hunches her shoulders, then throws her hands up to stop the unexpected...

<p>Mr. President, you’re gonna love this. Kofi Annan has called for a Summit Teleconference of some world leaders, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Bashar al-Assad and Ehud Olmert. And it starts in 15 minutes!</p> <p>He’s already called several members of Congress and a select few political and media figures to participate in a dialog to resolve the Middle East crisis and they’re meeting at the Capitol.</p>

Al AP is reporting that Bush was overheard expressing his frustration with Kofi Annan and liberal world leaders during the G8 summit. He was unaware that the microphone was still on when he told Tony Blair, "see the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this (expletive) and it's over." Bush also said that he felt like telling Annan to get on the phone with Assad instead of calling for a "cease fire". This clearly proves that it was Bush's hand that turned the tide of world opinion at the...

Pope backs G8 Middle East declaration 18/07/2006 - 20:17:38 Pope Benedict XVI tonight lent his support to the G8 summit declaration on the Middle East, which blamed the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah for the escalation in fighting and which urged Israel to exercise restraint. “I fully agree with the G8 communique,” the Pope said when he returned to his Alpine holiday retreat after an excursion in the mountains. “It seems to me that this indicates the road” to take, the pontiff said of the declaration issued by the Group of Eight leaders at their summit, which ended on Monday...