Iceland has broken a 21-year-old international moratorium on commercial whaling by killing a fin whale - an endangered species.
The whale was caught by the Hvalur 9 whaling vessel about 200 miles (320 km) west of Iceland.

TV footage showed the creature, which measured 20m (65ft) in length, being brought ashore at a landing station. [...]

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Voters in Panama have overwhelmingly approved an ambitious project to expand the country’s famous shipping canal.
In a nationwide referendum, people voted by a margin of four to one to back the $5.2bn plan, which involves building a new channel and new locks.
Many modern container ships are too large for the 50-mile (80km) canal [...]

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European Union auditors are expected to highlight irregularities in EU spending for the 12th year running in their annual report.
It is understood that the auditors will declare the accounts reliable overall, but criticise the way some funds have been spent on the ground.
As in previous years, most problems are expected to be connected [...]

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FLAMES lick around a burning car on a tiny telephone screen. Omar, 17, a veteran of France’s suburban riots, replayed the sequence with pride. “It was great. We did lots of them and then we went out and torched more the next day.”
Omar, whose parents immigrated from Mali, was savouring memories of the revolt that [...]

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PARIS (Reuters) - French police and youths clashed in a Paris suburb on Sunday as tensions mounted ahead of the anniversary of riots last year that shocked the country and provoked renewed debate about the integration of immigrants.
A police spokesman said 30 to 50 individuals were involved in the clashes in Grigny south of Paris [...]

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[This just shows the power of the internet as the media would have never spoken about this 10 years ago, but with people being able to publish the truth on the web the mainstream media are forced to discuss the issue-ed]
Nearly half of all victims of racially motivated murders in the last decade have been [...]

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A FAR-RIGHT politician dubbed “the most dangerous politician in the history of Israel” because of his anti-Arab and authoritarian views last night looked set to join the Israeli government.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert’s cabinet voted 12 to 11, with one abstention, to approve Avigdor Lieberman’s controversial plan to strip powers from parliament and concentrate them [...]

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