Forums: Worldwide Brands

The Government has announced plans to introduce a certificate of Irish heritage for up to 70 million people of Irish descent around the world who do not qualify for citizenship. Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said at the weekend he had decided to proceed with the initiative, which was first proposed at the Global Irish Economic Forum at Farmleigh last year. The certificates will be issued by a third party agency acting under licence from the Department of Foreign Affairs, which is considering charging a fee for each document issued. The initiative is intended to be self-financing, according to...

Within minutes, six-year-old Rubjit Thindal went from happily chatting in the back seat of the car to collapsing and dying in her father's arms. "If we had known it was so serious, we would have called 911,'' Kuldip Thindal, Rubjit's distraught mother, said in Punjabi yesterday. "She just had a stomach ache -- she wasn't even crying.'' Rubjit was pronounced dead at hospital barely 24 hours after showing signs of a fever. Later, doctors told her parents she had the H1N1 influenza virus. She is believed to be the youngest person in Canada with the virus to have died.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, testifying in Congress on Wednesday, defended the right to abortion worldwide and the Obama administration's decision to finance family planning overseas. Demonstrating the eloquence she so often used in the US presidential campaign last year, Clinton stood her ground against Christopher Smith, a Republican lawmaker from New Jersey who strongly opposes abortion.

PARIS: Music sales worldwide fell by about 7 percent last year as another sizable jump in digital sales failed to make up for a deepening decline in the compact disc market, according to John Kennedy, chief executive of the industry's main international trade group. Revenue from music sold over the Internet, via mobile phones and in other digital forms, rose by 25 percent last year, to $3.7 billion, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said in a report set for publication Friday. Digital sales accounted for 20 percent of the industry's revenue, up from 15 percent a year earlier....

NEW YORK – The list of investors who say they were duped in one of Wall Street's biggest Ponzi schemes is growing, snaring some of the world's biggest banking institutions and hedge funds, the super rich and the famous, pensioners and charities. The alleged victims who sunk cash into veteran Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff's investment pool include real estate magnate Mortimer Zuckerman, the foundation of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and a charity of movie director Steven Spielberg, according to The Wall Street Journal.

PARIS (AFP) - Police banned demonstrations outside the Chinese embassy in Paris on Thursday but critics of China's human rights record stepped up protests elsewhere in the world to mark the start of the Beijing Olympics. Police in the French capital said they did not want a repeat of the "violent disturbances" that broke out in April when the Olympic torch passed through Paris, when activists angry at China's crackdown in Tibet disrupted the route. They banned any protests outside the embassy on Thursday and Friday, when the Games officially open, including a demonstration planned Friday by a coalition including...

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2008 – Individuals and organizations around the globe are planning special commemorations to mark the quickly approaching seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. So far, nearly 185 America Supports You Freedom Walks are scheduled to take place on and around Sept. 11. Of those walks, eight are scheduled overseas, in Heidelberg, Germany; Santa Rita, Guam; Baghdad; Vicenza, Italy; Iwakuni, Japan; Moron, Spain; and Seoul and Daegu, South Korea. America Supports You is a Defense Department program connecting citizens and companies with servicemembers and their families serving at home and abroad. “The America Supports...

Scientists to capture DNA of trees worldwide for database By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer Graduate student Natalia Pabon-Mora works at The New York Botanical Garden's Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory at the Bronx, New York facility Tuesday, April 15, 2008. A team of researches there is leading a global effort to barcode the DNA of every tree species on Earth, all 100,000 of them. The laboratory, with sweeping views of trees and a pond, reflects the work going in indoors. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) (AP) -- The New York Botanical Garden may be best known for its orchid shows and colorful...