Wikinews:Briefs/November 11, 2007
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Goodmorning, it's Sunday, November 11 2007, I'm Michael Laurent bringing you this weeks headlines from Audio Wikinews.
Headlines
editOn Friday, Michael Mukasey was confirmed by the United States Senate as the next Attorney General, succeeding Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey triggered a political row during pre-confirmation questioning, when he refused to state that waterboarding amounted to illegal torture. In the end, he was able to secure the key votes of two Democrats after assuring them that, if Congress passed legislation that made waterboarding illegal, he would in fact work to enforce such a law.
The government of Pakistan late on Friday has withdrawn the earlier detention notice and house arrest of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Police had served her with a temporary detention notice and ordered her to serve 30 days of house arrest. Bhutto has publicly announced that she will head a protest against the country's president, Pervez Musharraf, in an attempt to get him to resign as head of the country's military. A protest march from Lahore to Islamabad is scheduled for early next week.
Finland is considering toughening gun legislation in light of this week's Jokela school shooting. Nine people, including the gunman, were killed when 18-year-old Pekka-Eric Auvinen went on a shooting spree at his local school. The perpetrator murdered his headmistress, school nurse and six students, as well as wounding one other victim, before turning his gun on himself.
The U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission has recalled more products over the last few days, due to excessive levels of lead and design flaws. Last Wednesday, a children's toy manufactured in Hong Kong was pulled off toy store shelves in the United Kingdom because it contained traces of a toxic compound related to gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, notorious for being misused as a date rape drug. At least 20 million toys are affected.
Glasgow in Scotland was announced on Friday to be the host of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Thousands of people gathered to watch the announcement rejoiced in the streets of Glasgow. The Scottish city won the right to host the event after winning the vote 47 to 24 against Nigeria.
Also on Friday, the Apple iPhone has gone on sale in Europe. The cost of the device in the U.K. is £269. Many people have been unhappy with the decision by Apple to lock the phone to use one network exclusively. Critics labeled the move as being "anti-competitive".
Earlier Canadian Minister of Defence Peter MacKay just narrowly escaped a rocket attack by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
After federal elections on June 10, 2007, coalition talks in Belgium have still failed to result in compromises on the main electoral issues. On Tuesday, a previous record from 1988 was broken after 149 days without a new government.
Concluding remarks
editThis has been an Audio Wikinews Brief, which is freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. This has been Michael Laurent for Wikinews. Thank you for listening, and if you want to find out more about these and other current events, please visit www.wikinews.org.