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Fifa president Sepp Blatter says the vote to decide who will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup tournaments will still take place on December 2 this year. Fifa has made the decision despite two of its executive members being suspended for allegedly selling votes. "We are five weeks from the final decision so there was never a question of changing anything," said Blatter. "So on 2 December the Fifa executive committee will decide in a secret ballot the hosts for 2018 and 2022." Although Fifa has decided to press ahead with the voting schedule Blatter did admit it may have been a mistake to run the bidding process for the two competitions at the same time. The two Fifa executive members who have been suspended are Nigerian Amos Adamu and Tahiti 's Reynald Temarii, and the pair are under investigation by the organisation's ethics panel. Blatter confirmed that a ruling on their future is expected on 17 November and, if the two are not reinstated, then only

Military units of North Korea and South Korea exchanged gunfire near their border on October 29, 2010 (Friday), South Korean authorities said. However, no casualties were reported. The exchange happened after North Korean forces fired two rounds from a 14.5 millimeter machine gun at a South Korean military guard post near the border town of Chorwon, South Korea, about 73 miles (118 km) northeast of Seoul, according to an official at the Joint Chiefs of Staff at South Korea. The incident occurred just two weeks before the G-20 summit to be held in  Seoul . The G-20 includes industrialized nations and developing economies, which focus on economic issues and economic policy coordination. Authorities said a total of 50,000 police and riot police will be deployed during the summit on November 11 and 12, according to Yonhap. The South Korean unit responded with three "warning shots" from a .50-caliber machine gun and warned the North Korean guard post by loudspeaker to desist, t

The U.S. economy is going ahead on its path of growth in the third quarter with some positive indicators compare to the previous quarter, according to the government's initial reading published on October 29, 2010. The fear of double-dip recession in the U.S. economy has been over as depicted in the recent data which shows better growth and more household spending in the economy.   Gross domestic product (GDP), the broadest measure of the economy, grew at an annual rate of 2% in the three months ended in September 2010. While that's slightly better than 1.7% growth in the previous quarter, it is still considered too weak to create jobs. "The U.S. economic recovery is still stuck in second gear," said Paul Ashworth, senior U.S. economist for Capital Economics in a note Friday. "The economy isn't growing rapidly enough to reduce the unemployment rate,” he added. The average growth rate during U.S. economic expansions over the last 30 years is 3.6%, and

Google has granted $5 million to non-profit organizations to be used toward journalism innovation programs.  The Knight Foundation is the recipient of $2 million of that coffer, while Google is looking to invest the other $3 million in similar organizations outside the United States. The Knight Foundation will use $1 million of Google money toward the News Challenge and the other $1 million for grants. On average, the Knight Foundation invests $35 million annually from its trust  in new projects and initiatives and the Google gift adds to the purse. “Clearly journalism is fundamental to a functioning society and democracy,” said Chris Gaither senior manager of news industry relations at Google.  ”We have been doing lots of things working directly with news publishers to try and figure out ways to ease the transition to digital.”  For those unfamilar with the Knight Foundation, it is almost akin to an angel investor for journalism with a trust started in the1940s from four Knight

A high tribunal of Iraq on Tuesday passed a death sentence on Tareq Aziz, once the international face of dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, over the persecution of Islamic parties, the court said. The death sentence was the first to be handed down to Aziz, who was well known in foreign capitals and at the United Nations before Saddam's downfall. He rose to prominence at the time of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War, when he was foreign minister. "The court today issued the death sentence on Tareq Aziz and four others for committing crimes against humanity. The charge of elimination of religious parties was classified as crimes against humanity," Judge Mohammed Abdul-Sahib, a spokesman of the Iraqi High Tribunal, told the media. "The nature of the crimes is willful killing, torture and the enforced disappearance of persons." Last year, Aziz was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his part in the killings of dozens of merchants in 1992 and

The United States of America has dropped out from the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics, Transparency International said on Tuesday. Somalia was judged the most corrupt country, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan at joint second-worst and then by Iraq, in the Berlin-based watchdog TI's annual corruption perceptions index (CPI). The USA has fallen down to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5 in the 178-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption. This was the lowest score awarded to the USA in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20. In the Americas, this put the USA behind Canada in sixth place, Barbados at 17th and Chile in 21st place. Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore are jointly heading the index with 9.3 point.They were also at the top of the table last year. The t

Britain's economy grew twice as fast as expected in the third quarter of this year, easing fears the recovery is tripping out and lowering the chance of more quantitative easing from the Bank of England. On the year, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.8 percent, the fastest annual rate in three years and up from 1.7 percent in the previous quarter. British finance minister George Osborne said the figures gave him confidence that a steady recovery was underway, although economists maintained a sharp slowdown next year looked inevitable. The Office for National Statistics said the economy grew 0.8 percent between July and September, down from a nine-year high of 1.2 percent in the second quarter but at the very top end of economists' forecasts. Sterling jumped against the dollar and the euro and gilts hit a one-month low as investors reckoned BoE policymakers would struggle to make the case for more monetary stimulus next month, even if growth is expected to slow sharply