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Libya has freed six foreign medical personnel who were convicted of infecting hundreds of Libyan children with HIV and sentenced to death. In jail since 1999, the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, today. The president of Bulgaria, Georgi Parvanov, promptly pardoned them. All six have maintained their innocence throughout. They have also claimed that they suffered torture to extract confessions. International HIV experts testified at the trials that the infections began before the six arrived at the Be

Police are currently on the hunt for a suspect in two Ontario, Canada, murders. 22-year-old Jesse Imeson, a native of the Windsor, Ontario area, is already wanted for the first-degree murder of Carlos Rivera, 26, a bartender at a gay strip club in Windsor, last week. Now Ontario Provincial Police are issuing a Canada-wide warrant for him in connection of the slaying of an elderly couple in their rural home near Grand Bend, on the shore of Lake Huron. "I have to stress again the importance of not approaching the individual and contacting polic

European Union foreign ministers today opened an Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) beginning work on on a new treaty for the 27-member bloc. Portugal, the presiding country of the Union during the negotiations, presented its first draft of the 145 page document (with an extra 132 pages of protocols) to foreign ministers in a short ceremony opening the conference. A mandate for the new Reform Treaty was agreed last month after drawn out European Council negotiations in Brussels. Under the German Presidency of the Union, leaders agreed to drop

__noTOC__ Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan has won stage 15 of the 2007 Tour de France in a time of 5h 34' 28". Michael Rasmussen of Denmark kept his overall lead by 2' 23' over Alberto Contador of Spain. The two extend their lead on Cadel Evans of Australia by 1' 37", and more on the rest of the contenders. Today's 196 km stage is one of the major stages of the Tour, with no fewer than five major mountain passes - including the Col de Port, the Col de Portet d'Aspet (5.7 km climb at 6.9%), the Col de Menté (7.0 km climb at 8.1%), the Port

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey secured a solid mandate in Turkish general election, held yesterday. Although Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could celebrate getting 46.5% of the vote, more than 12% better than the last poll in 2002, his party will have to settle for slightly fewer seats in Turkey's parliament, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. AKP will now have 340 seats versus 353 formerly. Before a cheering crowd, Erdoğan said yesterday: "We've passed an important test of democracy that is an example to the world.

A security hole on the Fox News web server Sunday exposed sensitive content to the public, including login information that allowed hackers to access names, phone numbers, and email addresses of at least 1.5 million people. Wikinews has learned that an FTP server belonging to publishing company Ziff-Davis could be accessed with a username and password found on the Fox News site, with customer details among the internal data publicly available. The FTP site, used for collaboration between different global aspects of Ziff-Davis business, conta

Last week, Libya lifted the death sentence for five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinean doctor in the case about the HIV infection of hundreds of Libyan children. The deal called for a US$460 million settlement for the families of the children. However, now Libya is holding out for a better deal. According to reports, Libya is seeking more money for the treatment of the children, as well as normalized relations with the European Union. Another sticking point in making a deal has been that Bulgaria and the EU are unwilling to strike any deal tha

An United States man from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was killed by a baseball during a game in North Little Rock, Arkansas, against the Arkansas Travelers. Tulsa Drillers coach Mike Coolbaugh, 35, was struck and killed by a line drive while coaching first base. He leaves his wife, Mandy, and two young sons, Jacob and Joseph. Mandy is expecting a daughter who is to be named "Mandy" as well. Coolbaugh spent seventeen years in professional baseball. He played Major League Baseball for two seasons and Minor League Baseball for the remainder, before becomin

England (298 & 282) and India (201 & 282-9) have drawn the first Test cricket match of the Indian tour of England at Lord's, London, England. Play was suspended due to bad light and rain just before tea on the final day with England needing just one wicket, and India on 282-9, 98 runs short of the 380 needed for victory. Rain continued to wash out the evening session and the game was forced to end as a draw. Before play started on the first day, England won the toss and captain Michael Vaughan chose to bat first. England took advantage of th

Virginia - Joshua Brady, a former Sprint Nextel customer, has had his cellular phone account shut off, but not because he wasn't paying the phone bill, or even because he was late on payments, but because a customer service representative who assisted him, began to call him outside of her job, and make death threats to him in September of 2006. She was never fired for her actions, Brady says. Brady has agreed to be interviewed by Wikinews to tell his story. All information and claims have been logged with Brady's attorney and federal authoriti

United Arab Emirates (UAE) developer Emaar Properties has claimed that their Burj Dubai commercial and residential tower, currently under construction, has become the world's tallest building, reaching a height of 512.1 metres (or 1,680 feet) and 141 storeys. The current official record holder, Taipei 101 of Taiwan, has a height of 508 metres and 101 storeys, and will retain the "tallest building" title for some time to come. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat sets the criteria for achieving height records for buildings, and will

Evangelist Tammy Faye Messner has passed away at age 65 from complications from colon cancer. The announcement came during Larry King Live on Saturday evening. Messner is reported to have died at her home in Kansas City, Missouri. Her family states that she passed "peacefully." Messner was an American Christian singer, evangelist, entrepreneur, author, talk show host, and television personality who was born on March 7, 1942. She was the co-host of The PTL Club from 1976 to 1987, and appeared on The Surreal Life, Season 2. In May, she announced