political nonsense

Food banks across the United States, facing critical shortages, were forced to distribute emergency rations intended for disaster relief.
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Swedish women were fighting for their right to go topless.
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It was reported that 2007 was the deadliest year yet for US troops in Iraq, hundreds of US diplomats protested against a government move to force them to accept postings in war-torn Iraq, the UN reported that independent security contractors in Iraq are mercenaries, Congress approved a $459 billion military spending bill, and the Pentagon was secretly reviewing plans to ease enlistment standards to make up for recruiting shortfalls. The number of recruits seeking waivers for criminal behavior rose three percent last year to nearly one-fifth of all prospective servicemembers. Two-thirds of the waivers were approved.
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The UN reported that we may be passing the point of no return.
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The UN warned that the situation in Gaza was deteriorating fast in a way that undermined potential progress in planned peace talks, and Israel’s defense minister approved sanctions against Gaza, including cuts in the supply of electricity and fuel.

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Hospitals throughout Gaza have shut down their operating rooms due to a lack of essential anaesthetic drugs, the Hamas de facto administration in the Strip said.
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The military regime in Burma is still holding up to 2,500 people in prisons and labour camps around the country, and continues to arrest suspected dissidents, the British government claimed yesterday.
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The Israeli military ordered the seizure of vast new swaths of Palestinian land in the West Bank.
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Burma’s junta claimed that peace and stability had been restored following its crackdown on mass pro-democracy protests in which at least 30 people, but likely far more, were killed.
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Paris Hilton decided to go to Rwanda to do charity work.

[not in rwanda]
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Burma’s military government has intensified its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, abducting people from their homes in the middle of the night. U.S. Embassy personnel have found some Buddhist monasteries completely deserted while others have been closed off by soldiers.
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A Congressional investigation issued a scathing criticism of the private military firm Blackwater USA around the March 2004 mission that saw four of its guards killed and led to a major escalation of the Iraq war.
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The military junta in Burma killed up to eight protesters in the last two days, and arrested about 500 monks.
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San Francisco decided to offer health care to people that don’t have it.
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The American Psychological Association (APA) voted to reject a measure that would have banned its members from participating in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other US detention centers. While not banning psychologists from participating in interrogations, the council approved a resolution prohibiting involvement in interrogations that use at least 14 specified methods, including sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and mock executions.
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US-funded herbicide aerial sprayings of coca plantations in Colombia near the Ecuador border has severely damaged the DNA of local residents, according to a new study.
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Cuban President Fidel Castro said the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay is occupied ‘illegally’ and the US must hand it over to Cuba.
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Iraq’s most senior Sunni politician accused Shiite militias of waging an unprecedented campaign of genocide against Iraq’s Sunni population, President al Maliki called for an emergency summit to end the political deadlock which has left less than half of the cabinet attending meetings, residents of the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya said they fear an all-out war among rival Shiite factions after the local governor and police chief were assassinated, and the U.S. military claimed it had arrested 13 arms smugglers in Baghdad allegedly linked to Iran. Local resident Abu Rasoul described the U.S. raid, “They tied our hands and made us stand against the wall and gave each of us a number written on our shoulders and after that they entered the house and searched it thoroughly. They took away with them one million Iraqi dinars and 755,000 dinars. They arrested three of our sons and one of my nephew whose father is dead and my brother and his son,” he said.
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The Chinese government forcefully relocated 250,000 Tibetans - nearly one-tenth the population - from scattered rural hamlets to new “socialist villages,” ordering them to build housing largely at their own expense and without their consent. The government calls the more than year-old project the “comfortable housing program.”
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It was reported that Walmart uses 4,300 unpaid teenagers that it lets “volunteer” to bag groceries at its Mexican stores.
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