Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race. "The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai decided against a Colombia-style program to spray this country's heroin-producing poppies after the Cabinet worried herbicide would hurt legitimate crops, animals and humans, officials said Thursday. The decision, reportedly made Sunday, dashes U.S. hopes for mounting a campaign using ground sprayers to poison poppy plants to help combat Afghanistan's opium trade after a record crop in 2006.
At least two people were reported killed when government and opposition supporters clashed at a Beirut university campus Thursday, battering each other with sticks, stones and even furniture in new violence spilling over from Lebanon's political crisis.
Ford Motor Co. lost a staggering $12.7 billion in 2006 -- an average of $4,380 for every car and truck it sold. The company that invented the assembly line and whose name was a byword for the auto industry warned it will bleed cash for two more years before it has a shot at making money.
Seven Chinese employees were abducted and a large amount of cash was stolen when gunmen stormed the local offices of a major Chinese oil company in southern Nigeria on Thursday, police said. One of the assailants died in the raid on the finance offices of the government-owned Chinese National Petroleum Co. in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa, state police Commissioner Hafiz Ringim said. Two Chinese employees escaped the attack, Ringim said.
A reputed Ku Klux Klansman and former sheriff's deputy pleaded not guilty Thursday to kidnapping charges in the deaths of two black hitchhikers, four decades after their decomposed remains were found in the Mississippi River.
International donors pledged $7.6 billion in aid and loans at a conference Thursday to raise money for Lebanon's U.S.-backed prime minister and his economic reform program for the war-scarred country. Escalating violence between pro- and anti-government factions in Lebanon added a sense of urgency to the conference.
Moshe Katsav temporarily relinquished his powers as Israel's president Thursday, but defied demands from officials to quit outright and spare the nation more anguish over rape and sexual assault allegations leveled against him. Katsav, who insists he is the innocent victim of a conspiracy, says he won't quit unless he is formally indicted. He will plead his case at a hearing before Attorney General Meni Mazuz, who has signaled his intent to put the 61-year-old president on trial.
