There is nothing romantic about the pirates who have been hijacking ships off the coast of Somalia. Theirs is a vicious business that endangers maritime workers of many nations, threatens ecological calamities, and pumps millions of dollars into local Islamist militias with links to Al Qaeda.
Somali pirates may have made a serious mistake, however, when they seized a Ukrainian freighter last week that was carrying 33 heavy Russian tanks, grenade launchers, and large quantities of ammunition. Their mistake was to initiate a simultaneous confrontation with the United States Navy and a Russian frigate that is steaming toward the region from the Baltic Sea.
U.S. warships faced off against the hijacked cargo ship not only because of America's interest in protecting oil transport in the Gulf of Aden - through which 30 percent of the worl
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Even though he has previously said he has "never been in love" and "does not believe in marriage," Leonardo DiCaprio has apparently changed his mind.
"I want to get married and have children," the star of the upcoming "Body of Lies" told Parade magazine. "In saying that, I realize I am contradicting everything I've said before. I absolutely believe in marriage."
Linked for the past two years with 23-year-old Israeli model Bar Refaeli - in a relationship that has run hot and cold - DiCaprio says, "What I definitely feel a need for is to make my life about more than just my career. Just last night I was thinking to myself how little of my life
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Plan to buy $700B in troubled assets wins OK. Backers hope add-ons will yield more yes-votes in House.
The Senate on Wednesday night passed a sweeping and controversial financial bailout similar in key ways to one rejected by the House just two days earlier.
The measure was passed by a vote of 74 to 25 after more than three hours of floor debate in the Senate. Presidential candidates Sens. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, and John McCain, R-Arizona, voted in favor.
Like the bill the House rejected, the core of the Senate bill is the Bush administration's plan to buy up to $700 billion of troubled assets from financial institutions.
Those assets, mostly mortgage-related, have caused a crisis of confidence in the credit markets. A major aim of the plan is to free up banks to start lending again once their balance sheets are cleared of toxic
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MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. -- A hiker in a rugged part of eastern California found a pilot's license and other items that appear to belong to Steve Fossett, the adventurer who vanished on a solo flight in a borrowed plane more than a year ago, authorities said Wednesday.
The information on the pilot license _ including Fossett's name, address, date of birth and certificate number _ was sent in a photograph to the Federal Aviation Administration, and all matched the agency's records, spokesman Ian Gregor said.
"We're trying to determine the authenticity of the document," Gregor said.
The hiker, Preston Morrow, said he found an FAA identity card, a pilot's license, a third ID and $1,005 in cash tangled in a bush off a trail just west of the town of Mammoth Lakes on Monday. He said he turned the items over to local police Wednesday after u
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