Evening Edition

A row over an issue as mundane as the timing of Obama’s big jobs speech also suggested that hopes for a Washington truce for the sake of the sickly recovery will likely be consumed by the usual partisan stew.

Obama staked out a bold gambit on Wednesday by asking Republican House Speaker John Boehner to host a rare joint session of Congress to debut his new economic plan on September 7 — the same night as a Republican debate.

Documents filed in a New York appeals court detail dozens of rendition flights — to locations including Bucharest, Baku, Cairo, Djibouti, Islamabad and Tripoli — organized by Sportsflight, a private, one-man aircraft business on Long Island that procured the charter flights for the US government.

According to the documents, copies of which were obtained by AFP from a London-based rights group, Sportsflight secured a plane from Richmor Aviation, which is now suing Sportsflight for breach of contract.

The site last week released 134,000 diplomatic cables, with many showing the unprotected names of informants and other individuals who had spoken to US diplomats.

WikiLeaks said in a tweet that support for its threat to release all the remaining material from its 251,000-strong cache was running at 100 to one in favour.

“The Russian Federation recognises Libya’s National Transitional Council as the ruling authority and notes its reform programme that includes the development of a new constitution, holding general elections and forming the government,” it said.

“Our country has established and continued diplomatic relations with Libya since September 4, 1955 without a break, no matter what government holds power in Tripoli,” it said.

“I, the attorney general of the province of Hama, Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour, announce my resignation from the regime of Assad and his band,” he said in a video posted on YouTube late Wednesday.

He said he took the decision after hundreds of jailed peaceful demonstrators were killed by the authorities and buried in mass graves, and 10,000 were arrested arbitrarily.

Both sides accused each other of starting the hostilities in the first deadly incident across the de facto border in the Himalayan region in more than three months.

The incident comes as tentative diplomatic steps were being taken to make peace between India and Pakistan, who have fought two of their three wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir — divided between them and claimed in full by both.

The two attacks took place as Pakistan celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and is one of the most important occasions in the Islamic calendar.

The explosion happened after officers signalled a suspect vehicle to stop at a checkpost in the Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, local police chief Gul Wali Khan told AFP.

“There has been a failure, a total failure, to investigate the exonerating circumstances in the investigation,” David Hooper, the defence lawyer of former higher education minister and potential presidential candidate in 2012 William Ruto, told the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).

“I hope bench appreciates the deep frustration he (Ruto) is feeling. He is here solely because of a flawed investigation based on the over-reliance on a handful of witnesses,” Hooper said, adding “you have been given a slanted and wrong interpretation of evidence”.

“I will stay here until I get some food and I can take care of my family,” the 34-year-old said wearily, dressed in a simple orange head scarf.

Fadumo left her village in the Qoryoley district of famine-hit Middle Shabelle five months ago, an area controlled by Islamist Shebab rebels, whose draconian aid restrictions exacerbated the impact of harsh drought.

Energy-dependent Ukraine has been pressuring Russia to revise the terms of a contract which Kiev signed after having its winter supplies cut off in 2009 — a controversial Kremlin move that also affected parts of Europe.

But Medvedev has set tough conditions which include Ukraine giving up its European ambitions by joining a Russian-led customs union and also ceding half of its state energy company to the Kremlin-run gas firm Gazprom.

The London-based newspaper reported that five people familiar with the incident said it occurred in international waters shortly after India’s amphibious assault ship INS Airavat completed a scheduled port call in Vietnam.

Delhi confirmed contact was made with its ship, but rejected the suggestion of a “confrontation”.

Considered by some to be a cold-blooded killer, Kelly was also seen as a folk hero and symbol of Irish-Australian defiance against the British authorities.

After murdering three policemen, he was captured in Victoria state in 1880 and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol in November of the same year. But his body went missing after it was thrown into a mass grave.

A re-enactment of the Battle of Marathon is to be held here on September 10 to commemorate the historic Greek-Persian showdown in 490 BCE, with hundreds of participants in armour from around the world, organisers say

The three-day amateur event on the presumed battlefield, which has since been altered by soil erosion, will showcase Greek and Persian combat as well as dance, literature, crafts and cultural features from the Archaic period.

Europe’s second-largest car maker said it had signed a deal with the state government of Gujarat to build a $928-million (650-million-euro) factory at Sanand capable of turning out an initial 170,000 vehicles a year.

Some 5,000 new jobs are expected to be created at the 243-hectare (600-acre) site, which will also house an engine and gear box manufacturing facility, with the first cars expected off the production line in two years’ time.

The Fed’s announcement did not reveal the size of the fine, which stemmed from foreclosures carried out in 2009 and 2010 by Litton Loan Servicing, a mortgage-servicing business formerly owned by Goldman.

Goldman has also been ordered to conduct a review of the foreclosures “to provide remediation to borrowers who suffered financial injury as a result of wrongful foreclosures,” the Fed said in a statement.

While growth will stay sluggish this year, in the 1.7-2.2 percent range, the economy is not expected to contract, according to a mid-year fiscal budget review by the Office of Management and Budget.

Even though growth remains weak two years after the last contraction ended, “We are not forecasting a double-dip recession,” said Katharine Abraham, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

The number of patients treated for HIV/AIDS has trebled since 2000 and will pass 100,000 next year, according to the Lords Select Committee report.

The peers called for a new campaign to raise public awareness about AIDS, on the 25th anniversary of the ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ campaign.

Thousands of supporters wearing replica green and gold jerseys sang, danced and cheered as the team said goodbye at a square named after former president Nelson Mandela.

The upscale business and shopping district of Sandton — 20 kilometres north of central Johannesburg — ground to a halt when the Springbok stars, coaches and officials arrived.