Israel reinstates envoy to Egypt truce talks
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reinstated his pointman to Egyptian-brokered truce talks with Hamas on Wednesday after the envoy apologised for publicly criticising the government's negotiating strategy.
Olmert's office said it would replace Amos Gilad on Monday after a newspaper quoted him as accusing the premier of hurting Cairo's-US backed efforts to consolidate the Jan. 18 ceasefire that ended a three-week Israeli assault in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Gilad, an aide to Defence Minister Ehud Barak, apologised to Olmert and was reinstated, the prime minister's office said.
"The remarks were unjustified, were said in error and it would have been better if they had not been said," it quoted Gilad as saying.
The dispute showed the political and personal faultlines in the outgoing coalition government, where Barak's centre-left Labour party is junior partner to Olmert's centrist Kadima.
Both parties appear to be heading into opposition as a result of Israel's parliamentary election on Feb. 10 and the decision last Friday by President Shimon Peres to ask right-wing Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government.
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Man dies in jet-propelled truck crash at US air show
Video taken at the Battle Creek Executive Airport by apparent air show attendees and posted on social media showed the truck losing control, bursting into flames and crashing, flipping over multiple times as horrified spectators looked on.
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3 dead after shooting at shopping mall in Copenhagen; one arrested
The Royal House said on its website late on Sunday that an event in southern Denmark to commemorate the end of the first three stages of the Tour de France cycling race, hosted by the Danish Crown Prince and with Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in attendance, had been cancelled.
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Texas clinics halt abortions after state high court ruling
The Friday night ruling stopped a three-day-old order by a Houston judge who said clinics could resume abortions up to six weeks into pregnancy. The following day, the American Civil Liberties Union said it doubted that any abortions were now being provided in a state of nearly 30 million people.
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Google to delete user location history on US abortion clinic visits
"If our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit," Jen Fitzpatrick, a senior vice president at Google, wrote in a blog post. "This change will take effect in the coming weeks."
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Two Indo-Canadian academics honoured with Order of Canada
Two Indo-Canadian academics, working on research to advance the betterment of mankind, have been honoured with one of the country's most prestigious awards, the Order of Canada. Their names were in the list published by the office of the governor-general of Canada Mary Simon. Both have been invested (as the bestowal of the awards is described) into the Order as a Member. They are professors Ajay Agrawal and Parminder Raina.
