President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to conduct a sweeping review of U.S. nuclear doctrine known as a "nuclear posture review," which could pave the way for dramatic reductions in the country's nuclear arsenal. Obama reportedly rejected the first draft of the document as "too timid." European officials told the Guardian that Obama is receptive to ideas including pulling back the number of deployed warheads and rewriting doctrine to narrow the circumstances under which they can be used.

Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on the government of Yemen to investigate an air raid on a makeshift refugee camp last week. Dozens of people were killed in the bombing. Yemeni troops are fighting rebels in the northeast of the country. Commissioner Pillay reminded Yemen of its obligation to protect civilians during the offensive.

CIA personnel are pouring into Afghanistan just as the Taliban is gaining ground. Officially, it's an "intel surge" but when the CIA starts flooding a region with paramilitary agents, you have to wonder what else they're up to. Recall that the top general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, made his bones leading a targeted assassination program in Iraq.

A second Dyncorp security contractor has died of a suspected drug overdose in Afghanistan. "This shouldn't be treated as an isolated event that [the State Department] can ignore," said former Rep. Chris Shays, co-chair of the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting, "They really need to step in and say, 'Do we have a drug problem at DynCorp?'" It's ironic that Dyncorps should be struggling with drug abuse in its own ranks seeing as the State Department hired the firm to help stamp out the drug trade in Afghanistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama will focus on climate change in two major addresses this week, first to the United Nations in New York, and later to the G-20 in Pittsburgh. World attention is converging on climate issues ahead of the Copenhagen Summit to be held in December. In recent weeks, the president has focused almost exclusively on health care reform. Many of the same corporate interests that organized town halls and tea parties to oppose health care reform are also arrayed against carbon caps. This weekend conservatives at the Values Voters Summit in D.C. attended presentations with titles like "Global Warming Hysteria: The New Face of the Pro-Death Agenda."

A suicide bomber wearing a paramilitary uniform hit a World Food Program office in Islamabad today killing five. The building was heavily fortified, the access street was barricaded on both ends, and visitors had to pass security checks, but the bomber still made it into the lobby. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

At a meeting in Bangkok leading up to the climate negotiations in Copenhagen, negotiators representing China and the G77 accused developing nations of trying to "kill off the Kyoto Protocol." The statement comes after an admission by the White House over the weekend that passage of climate change legislation in the U.S. Congress is unlikely before the end of the year.

A McDonald's restaurant will open next month in the Louvre next to the ticket counter. It will be one of the first things visitors see upon entering. Museum workers are reportedly unhappy, and at least one has suggested that the "odors" will turn the Mona Lisa's smile upside down. France is McDonald's largest market outside of the U.S.

President Obama apparently did not enjoy a speech by General McCrystal over the weekend suggesting that VP Biden's small-footprint plan in Afghanistan would lead to "Chaos-istan." He was subsequently summoned to the tarmac in Copenhagen for an "awkward" 25-minute talk with the President. McCrystal wants 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan and quick.

The Dalai Llama will visit the U.S. this week but will not meet with the President, the first time in 19 years the spiritual leader has made the trip without visiting the head honcho. The White House had requested that the Llama postpone the trip until after the President's summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao next month.

In news that shocked pundits and prognosticators all around, U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for what the Nobel committee calls his “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples." The award comes less than a year into Obama's presidency. Adviser David Axelrod told the press,"It’s nothing anyone expected. It’s nothing the president sought." Obama learned the news in a 6am phone call from Press Secretary Gibbs. Critics are attacking the choice from all angles, suggesting that it is both as of yet undeserved and a sign that Obama is catering too much to foreign interests.

The UN official charged with monitoring the compromised Afghan presidential election vehemently denies any cover-up of vote fraud. The former top U.S. envoy to the UN in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, was fired after a dispute with Eide over what percentage of the vote should be involved in the recount. "I intend to deal openly with all these allegations against the UN and myself relating to fraud and bias at the appropriate time," Eide added.

A suicide bomber killed 49 people and wounded at least 100 others in northwest Pakistan. Police said the bomb was a vehicle packed with a massive amount of explosives and ammunition. The blast was heard several kilometers away. Pakistan is under heavy U.S. pressure to step up its campaign against al Qaeda and its sympathizers on the northwest frontier. Outrage over this attack, the worst in six months, may push public opinion in favor of a more aggressive campaign against the militants.

A UN Foundation campaign against malaria will get a major visibility boost from the season premiere of popular TV comedy Ugly Betty. In the episode, the lead character will promote the Nothing But Nets initiative, a grassroots initiative that distributes insecticide-treated bed nets to Africa. Bed nets have proven to be low-fi solution ($10 to produced and distribute) to a debilitating problem. Every year, Malaria kills a million people, mostly children, and costs Africa $12 billion. Through the UN's Creative Community Outreah Initiative (CCOI), Ugly Betty became the first show of its kind to film at the UN.

The Iranian courts have handed down the first death sentence in connection with the pro-democracy protests that rocked the country after the disputed presidential election. Mohammad Reza Ali-Zamani, 37, has been condemned to death for allegedly taking up arms against the state. Ali-Zamani confessed, probably under torture, to working with the militant Iran Monarchy Committee. He claimed he met with American officials "Frank", "Robert", and "Mike" to learn how to make chemical weapons.

The Mexican senate voted to confirm Arturo Chavez Chavez as attorney general. As AG of Chihuahua State, Chavez was sharply criticized for his inaction on the Juarez femicides. Hundreds of young women disappeared from Juarez in the late nineties, and the killer(s) were never caught. The Mexican Human Rights Commission recommended that Chavez face disciplinary action for his failure to act.

Director Roman Polanski was arrested at the Zurich airport in connection with a 32-year-old sex crime conviction. Polanski had been a fugitive since he was convicted of having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He skipped town to France before sentencing. The arrest was coordinated by prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington. Polanski may face extradition to the United States.

The Honduran junta suspended still more civil liberties on Sunday in response to what it pleas for insurrection by deposed president Mel Zelaya, currently holed up in the Brazilian embassy. Zelaya called on his supporters to march to mark the 3-month anniversary of the coup. The new decrees make it a crime for the media to criticize public officials. The army is authorized to shut down any outlet that ignores the decree.

Iran tested missiles in the desert on Sunday and Monday, just days after it confirmed the existence of a heretofore secret nuclear facility. The tests of the Shahab missiles are widely interpreted as a gesture of defiance to the international community. Iranian officials said that the tests were a warning to any nation that might be tempted to attack Iran. An international meeting on Iran's nuclear program will be held tomorrow in Geneva.

In private meetings at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh last week, U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly downplayed the importance of reaching a final world climate change deal at the Copenhagen summit in December. Instead, he reportedly suggested that this is an important step in the process. Copenhagen Delegates at Copenhagen will be negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. Preparations are still moving slowly despite efforts to regain momentum at last week's UN Summit on Climate Change in New York.

One of the two Afghan members of the UN's five-member Election Complaints Commission has resigned claiming that foreigners on the five-member panel are making all the decisions about the presidential vote in Afghanistan. (Imagine that, an international oversight body full of foreigners...) UN Mission Chief Kai Eide has acknowledged "widespread fraud" in the presidential vote. Many observers expect that the irregularities will necessitate a runoff election between incumbent president Hamid Karzai and the first runner-up from the last round of voting, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

The semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan has put Iraq's central government on notice: No more oil until the multinational corporations pumping the oil get paid. All oil pumped in Kurdistan must be exported through pipelines controlled by Baghdad. The shutdown only affects about a hundred thousand barrels a day, which is a fraction of the over two million barrels produced in Iraq each daily. However Kurdish oil fields are expected to start increasing their production soon.

The IRA splinter group known as the Irish National Liberation Army has renounced violence and indicated that it will turn over its weapons to disarmament officials. The INLA-affiliated Irish Republican Socialist Party announced the shift on Sunday during its annual parade. The INLA pledges to use "exclusively peaceful means" to further its ends from now on.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is calling for greater investment to prevent maternal death in childbirth. Fifteen years ago, a major United Nations population conference vowed to put women's health at the center of its agenda. Yet over half a million women still die in childbirth every year. Ban noted that progress towards reducing maternal death lags behind all other Millennium Challenge Development Goals.

Detainees at Guantanamo can read Harry Potter or the Koran at the prison library, but not Noam Chomsky's anthology on 9/11. A detainee's lawyer donated a copy to the library, but U.S. military censors rejected the anthology. Censors would not say why they rejected the donation.

Today's feel-good story is about a thwarted act of corporate censorship. The British oil giant Trafigura has failed in its attempt to bar the Guardian from reporting a debate in the UK Parliament about the company's alleged dumping of toxic waste off the Ivory Coast. Trafigura backed off after Labor MP Paul Farrelly warned that the attempted gag order could constitute contempt of Parliament.

By now, everyone agrees that the the Afghan presidential election was compromised by fraud. The question now becomes what to do about it. The NY Times is reporting that many Afghans are, quite reasonably, wondering whether there's any point in having a run-off election between incumbent Hamid Karzai and runner-up Abdullah Abdullah. Security for a revote is unlikely to be significantly better than it was the first time around.

The United Nations and Council of Europe is calling for a worldwide ban on selling human organs. "We affirm as a primary principle no financial gain should be coincident with obtaining organs and tissues for transplant," said Prof. Arthur Caplan, an ethicist at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the council's new report on organ trafficking, which was released yesterday.

Two Israeli rights groups say that Israel is holding hundreds of Palestinians in jail without charge and with no way to clear their names. Over three hundred captives are being held in a state of legal limbo known as "administrative detention" under an obscure rule dating back to 1945. Nine more people are being held without trial as "enemy combatants" under a law passed in 2002. The enemy combatants must prove that they won't harm state security in order to be released, an inversion of the usual burden of proof.

Over a billion people are undernourished and that number is likely to climb, according to a new report by a UN food agency. The report blames decreasing food aid, dwindling investment in agriculture, and soaring food prices for the increase in world hunger. Great strides were made in combating hunger in the 1980s and the early 90s, but hunger rates started climbing again in 1995.

Have negotiators reached a deal to restore the democratically elected president of Honduras to power? Yesterday, a negotiator for President Mel Zelaya told the press that a tentative deal had been reached with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the military junta that ousted Zelaya in June. Micheletti's office later denied that any deal had been reached. Talks continue today.

Gunmen and suicide bombers launched a series of coordinated attacks on police facilities in the city of Lahore. Thirty-eight people were killed. This is the sixth major terrorist attack in Pakistan in eleven days. Previous targets include a WFP building and the headquarters of the Pakistani army. The string of attacks is believed to be the first co-ordinated Mumbai-style terror campaign in Pakistan.

Former UN diplomat Peter Galbraith predicts that Afghanistan is headed for a runoff election. Galbraith was fired from the UN body overseeing the Afghan presidential election after a row with his boss over the specifics of the recount. Election workers have started a recount of 12% of the ballot boxes in the election. A final result is expected any day.

Global warming could eliminate summer ice in the arctic within a decade or two, a top polar scientist warns. "It's like man is taking the lid off the northern part of the planet," said professor Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University. Wadhams and his team are just back from a major arctic exploration mission to the north of Canada. He says their ice measurements confirm what he calls the "new consensus view" -- an ice-free summer arctic within the next 20 years.

Forty people were wounded when a grenade exploded at an open-air concert in Moldova. Authorities have not yet determined who was responsible for the blast. Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, has been gripped by political unrest since the Communist party was defeated by a pro-Western coalition government bent on integrating the country's economy with the rest of Europe.

The UN Human Rights Council voted to endorse the Goldstone Report on human rights abuses during last winter's Israeli invasion of Gaza. The report found that both Israelis and Palestinians committed atrocities but saved its harshest criticism for Israel. Palestinians lobbied the council to endorse the report while Israel lobbied against it.

Italy hotly denies allegations that it paid Taliban fighters to keep the peace. The government has even threatened to sue the UK newspaper that broke the story. The payments themselves shouldn't be a big deal. The U.S. did the same thing in Iraq during the vaunted Anbar Awakening. The issue is that, according to the paper, is that several French troops got killed because Italy failed to inform France about the plan.

Guatemalans continue to die of starvation. Aid workers say the recent rainy season helped refresh the soil after the recent drought, but people are still going hungry. The harvest is underway, but subsistence farmers are left out of the bounty. Nearly 500 Guatemalans have died of malnutrition this year, according to UN figures. The hardest-hit area is the so-called "dry corridor" in the south of the country.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced the names of five outstanding female scientists chosen to receive the L'Oreal/UNESCO Awards for excellence in the life sciences. Each winner will receive a $100,000 prize. Rashika El Ridi of Cairo University in Egypt won for her work on river blindness. American Elaine Fuchs was recognized for her work on skin stem cells.

The far-right, anti-immigration British National Party announced that it will allow non-white people to join for the first time. The BNP was forced to rewrite its constitution after losing a court battle brought by a government rights monitor. The point is largely symbolic, seeing as the party is committed to rolling back the rights of most non-white, non-"indigenous" Britons. The party leadership acquiesced because it wanted to save money to fight for more far-reaching kinds of racism and xenophobia.

President Obama has asked four countries to delay introducing a UN resolution to take nuclear weapons to a lower alert level. Observers speculate that the Obama administration wants to avoid voting against the resolution. On the campaign trail, Obama pledged to work with Russia to scale back nuclear readiness.

A Mexican human rights official was taken into U.S. custody last week after exposing human rights abuses by the military. Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson was detained by U.S. customs on Thursday after announcing that he had proof of over 170 human rights abuses in his home state of Chihuahua. In a bizarre twist, his lawyer says that his client was not seeking political asylum when officials recognized him at a border crossing. "He didn't want political asylum," Spector said, "He wants to continue working for the Human Rights Commission."

Surprise: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is highly critical of the UN election commission that blames Karzai's side for massive election fraud. He claims that the commission used the wrong formula to calculate the final totals. The Electoral Complaints Commission is set to announce today whether there will be a runoff election between Karzai and second-place finisher Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai needs at least 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff.

Two suicide bombings in southeast Iran killed 29 people including several members of the elite revolutionary guard. The attacks coincided with high-level meetings between members of the guard and tribal elders. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but many suspect Jundallah, a militant Sunni group that has previously resorted to suicide attacks.

In Italy, life imitates reality TV. A television station owned by Italian president Silvio Berlusconi sparked controversy by secretly taping a judge who ruled against him in a bribery case. Reporters from Berlusconi's Channel 5 ran hidden camera footage of the judge walking around and visiting the barber. The voiceover told viewers that the judge seemed nervous, chainsmoking and wearing "strange" turquoise socks.

Reports indicate Incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai will accept the UN election monitor's verdict that he received less than 50% of the vote in August's election. Since Karzai received less than an absolute majority, he will face first runner up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in a run-off election. Karzai had publicly grumbled that the UN was using an invalid formula to calculate the true vote total, which was plagued by massive fraud.

Ministers in the Maldives held a cabinet meeting at a table bolted to the floor of the Indian Ocean to highlight the threat of global warming. Rising sea levels threaten to swallow their tiny island nation, which is only a few meters above sea level. The agenda?...Signing a document calling on all nations to reduce their carbon emissions.

Drug gangs shot down a police helicopter in Brazil. In response, the authorities dispatched 4,500 heavily armed officers into the slums of Rio to do battle with the gangs. Brazil has been gripped by a savage drug war between gangs and the state. This latest surge of violence raises questions about whether Rio will be secure enough to host the Olympics in 2016.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has unveiled a new plan for dealing with human rights in Sudan. The new policy includes both incentives and penalties for the pariah regime of Omar al-Bashir. Clinton called on Bashir to halt war crimes in Darfur and to negotiate a peace deal between the northern and southern halves of the country. The new strategy is the fruit of a recent review of U.S. policy in Sudan.

Agriculture officials say they've found the H1N1 virus in a pig in the United States. Pig Zero was a show pig at the Minnesota State Fair. Show pigs are isolated from farm pigs, but authorities expect swine flu to spread to the general agricultural swine population this year. U.S. officials are reportedly scrambling to reassure trading partners that the dreaded swine flu cannot be spread by eating pork products.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wants 200 poll officials in Afghanistan who were complicit in fraud fired ahead of the upcoming run-off election between Hamid Karzai and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. UN overseers determined the original vote count, which appeared to give Karzai the absolute majority he needed to avoid a runoff, was the product of massive ballot box stuffing. Some observers see a chance to avoid a re-vote if Karzai and Abdullah strike some kind of deal to form a coalition government.

A botched renovation may cost Bolivia's Akapana pyramid its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The 1700-year-old landmark might even collapse. The pyramid is made of stone, but someone thought tourists would like it better if it were plastered with adobe. "They decided to go freehand with the [new] design... There are no studies showing that the walls really looked like this," said a dismayed UNESCO official.

In what may be the least controversial decision in legal history, a court denied bail to celebrated film director and self-admitted statutory rapist Roman Polanski. Polanski was apprehended in Zurich after more than 30 years on the run. He fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful intercourse with a 13-year-old girl.

A Nicaraguan court has given leftist prime minister Daniel Ortega the green light to seek a third term as president. The decision-making body consisted only of supporters of Ortega's Sandinista party. The opposition Liberals are disputing the legitimacy of the ruling, which the court says is final. Ortega's decision to seek a third term is part of a trend of leftist presidents challenging term limits. Many Latin American constitutions establish a very strong presidency with strict term limits as the primary check on executive power. Honduran president Mel Zelaya was ousted by a military coup on suspicion that he planned to abolish term limits.

The African trading bloc ECOWAS has suspended Niger because its president called a controversial parliamentary election. President Mamadou Tandja dissolved parliament and called an election after abolishing term limits and giving himself the right to seek a third term. Opposition leaders are boycotting the vote. ECOWAS wants Tandja to negotiate with the opposition.

Iran has agreed to a draft agreement about its nuclear program. Under the agreement, Iran can refine uranium for energy but it would have to ship 75% of that uranium out of the country, thereby allaying fears that it was stockpiling material to create weapons. The head of the International Atomic Energy Association, Mohammed ElBaradei, said the deal "could open the way for a complete normalisation of relations between Iran and the international community."

The first runner-up in the Afghan presidential election, former foreign minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, says he won't rule out joining a coalition government with Hamid Karzai--but he continues to prepare for the revote. A UN elections commission called for a runoff after it determined that Karzai's lead was massively inflated by fraud. The runoff is scheduled for November 7.

Colombian human rights activists told the U.S. House Human Rights Commission that they live in constant fear for their lives. Activists said that the government routinely tries to intimidate them with malicious prosecutions on baseless charges of terrorism. Colombia is one of the largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid in Latin America.

President Dmitry Medvedev has asked Russia's richest businessmen to please stop bribing judges. If they've got problems with the justice system, they should come directly to him and something can be worked out. Medvedev made this suggestion at a Kremlin meeting with the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (aka the oligarch lobby).

The UN is one step closer to an international probe of September's mass shooting of protesters by government forces in Guinea. Local stakeholders signed off on the plan to investigate and the leader of Guinea's military junta has agreed to cooperate.

As talks to resolve the constitutional crisis continued, the Honduran junta continued its harassment campaign against President Mel Zelaya by bombarding the Brazilian embassy with loud noises on Wednesday night, include recordings of grunting pigs, rock music, and church bells. No "These Boots are Made for Walking" yet. Zelaya has been holed up in the embassy since he snuck back into the country last month. He was deposed by a military coup in June.

Musicians whose work was reportedly used to torture detainees at Guantanamo have teamed up with activists seeking to close the prison. David Byrne, Trent Reznor, Billy Bragg, Roseanne Cash, and other well-known artists have lent their name to the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo. President Obama has promised to shut down the prison, and activists are determined to keep the pressure on.

About 60 assailants attacked a Mexican army convoy in the border city of Reynosa in the early hours of Tuesday morning. About 60 attackers shot at the convoy and lobbed grenades at it. No one was hurt. The attack is probably related to the ongoing domestic occupation of Mexico. Troops are stationed throughout the country in an effort to combat drug trafficking.

More than a third of North Koreans are underfed and Kim Jong Il's regime is to blame, according to a UN envoy. The official, Vitit Muntarbhorn, presented a report of his findings on human rights in North Korea to the UN General Assembly yesterday. He blames the chronic food shortages on bad agriculture policy, declining foreign aid, and frequent natural disasters.

The United States has formally requested the extradition of director Roman Polanski from Switzerland on sex charges. Polanski had been a fugitive from justice since fleeing the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl. He was apprehended in Zurich in September. The extradition treaty between the U.S. and Switzerland gives the Swiss 40 days to hand over Polanski.

UN inspectors got their first look at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant near Tehran yesterday. The four-member team toured the heavily guarded plant carved into a mountainside. Iran is still weighing a draft UN resolution that would allow it to enrich uranium and export most of it to Russia. An answer is expected later this week.

Two car bombs went off at two Iraqi government buildings in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 147 people. The targets were the Justice Ministry and the Baghdad provincial administration. The blasts occurred hours before Iraq's senior leaders were scheduled to meet with opposition parties to negotiate guidelines for the January elections.

THE CORAL IS NOT OK
Coral experts are turning to cryogenics in their fight against reef extinction. Researchers at a meeting in Denmark argued that most coral reefs won't survive even if the world takes decisive action on climate change. Therefore, they suggested freezing coral in the hopes of reintroducing it in the future. Worldwide, half a billion people depend on coral reefs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8324954.stm

Notorious former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is boycotting his own genocide trial. This is a risky strategy since Karadzic is representing himself. He's not showing up because the court denied his request for nine months to prepare his defense. Karadzic is accused, amongst other things, of orchestrating the massacre of 7000 Bosnian Muslims in 1995.

Ten members of a Colombian amateur soccer team were kidnapped and murdered in Venezuela. Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez blamed the deaths on Colombia's "internal struggles," meaning the low-level criminal and guerrilla war in the border region where the men were found. The deaths will place further strain on the relationship between Colombia and Venezuela. Venezuela has been accused of harboring drug traffickers who are involved in the Colombian conflict.

Iranian state TV is reporting that the country will accept the nuclear deal offered by the UN, but only with "very important change," though those "changes" weren't reported. According to El Am TV, Iran is expected to give the nod to the International Atomic Energy Agency within 48 hours. Under the agreement Iran would enrich uranium but export most of it to Russia to be turned into nuclear fuel.

There's an old saying in the West: Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over. Turns out there's a corollary in the West Bank. Amnesty International says that Israel is depriving Palestinians of water. According to Amnesty, the average person in Israel consumes 300 liters of water a day, while the average person in the West Bank and Gaza consumes just 70. Israel says the figures are misleading because they reflect internal distribution rather than total consumption. The real ratio, officials claim, is closer to 400 liters per Israeli to 300 liters per Palestinian.

The King of Saudi Arabia commuted the sentence of a female journalist, Rozanna al-Yami, facing 60 lashes for speaking frankly about sex on the air. Some of al-Yami's male colleagues and guests are still in prison for their roles in the explicit show on LBC TV, a Saudi-owned Lebanese TV station.

A small but powerful clique of Haitian lawmakers is agitating for the removal of Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis. They aren't alleging any specific misconduct, but they say she has moved too slowly to address Haiti's problems. Pierre-Louis has received summons to appear before the Senate this week. Haiti's constitution gives the Senate the power to fire the prime minister.

The self-proclaimed Church of Scientology has been convicted of fraud in France. (Unlike the U.S., France has never recognized Scientology as a religion.) Two branches of the sect and several of its leaders have been fined for taking adherents' money under questionable pretenses during the 1990s. The court stopped short of banning Scientology outright, but a ban is still a legal possibility.

Six UN workers and four others were killed in Afghanistan when Taliban fighters attacked their guesthouse early this morning. The UN workers were election monitors. The Taliban said the attack was intended to disrupt the upcoming presidential runoff election. A UN spokeswoman said the UN has no plans to pull out of Afghanistan.

At least 80 people were killed and 160 seriously injured in Peshawar as a car packed with explosives detonated in a crowded market. The attack came three hours after Secretary Clinton's arrival in Islamabad, a 90-minute drive away. Clinton said, "They know they are on the losing side of history. But they are determined to take as many lives with them as their movement is finally exposed for the nihilistic, empty effort it is." A similar attack in Peshawar earlier this month killed 48.

UNICEF has launched an inquiry to determine why so many infants are dying at a charity orphanage in Khartoum. Seventy-seven babies died in September alone. The orphanage is not necessarily to blame. Officials say that the babies often arrive underweight and suffering from life-threatening infections. Women often abandon their infants to escape the stigma of out-of-wedlock births.

Venezuela has arrested several alleged Colombian spies, whom the government accuses of trying to destabilize the government, as tensions between the two nations continue to run high. The two nations broke off trade relations over Colombia's decision to host a U.S. military base. And recently 10 amateur Colombian soccer players were recently kidnapped and murdered in Venezuela near the Colombian border.

The World Health Organization has secured its reputation as the least fun UN agency with a report that blames sex, fat, and alcohol for premature death. A new report found that about a quarter of all premature deaths are attributable to just five factors: food (underfeeding and overweight), unsafe sex, alcohol abuse, high blood pressure, and bad sanitation.

The independent election commission in Afghanistan has declared Hamid Karzai the winner of Afghanistan's presidential race after the runoff ballot was cancelled due to Abdullah Abdullah's dropping out of the race. Abdullah, the former foreign minister, said he was dropping out because nobody listened to his recommendations to prevent pro-Karzai forces from repeating the massive fraud that necessitated the runoff vote in the first place.

Two suicide bombers staged attacks in Pakistan today, killing at least 35 and injuring at least 7. The first blast occurred in the town of Rawalpindi, and appeared to be targeting army personnel picking up their paychecks at the National Bank. The second blast hit a police checkpoint in Lahore.

Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc announced last week that his country is studying ways to deeply cut carbon emissions. The plan could slash Brazil's carbon emissions by 40% vs. it's current projected output for 2020. Brazil is expected to be a leader in climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Minc also said that Brazil favors a UN-backed plan for forest conservation. Deforestation, particularly slash and burn agriculture in the Amazon, is a major cause of global warming.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised President Barack Obama for announcing that the ban on HIV positive visitors to the U.S. would be lifted. Reducing the stigma of HIV has been a major priority for Ban as Secretary General. “I urge all other countries with such restrictions to take steps to remove them at the earliest,” he said. About 60 countries still have travel restrictions for people with HIV.

Canada and Greenland have agreed to work together to manage cross-border polar bear populations. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, on Friday. They agreed to cooperate to set sustainable hunting quotas ("total allowable harvest"). Biologists have argued that current levels of polar bear hunting are not sustainable.

Irony alert: President Obama warned the newly reelected President of Afghanistan to get tough on corruption. Massive voter fraud in Karzai's favor was universally acknowledged during the August presidential election.
He was declared the winner after his opponent quit, citing a lack of security for the runoff vote. Last week, Karzai's brother was unmasked as an opium trafficking warlord on the CIA's payroll.

If Canadian software engineer Maher Arar had slipped and fallen at JFK International Airport in 2002, he might be able to sue for compensation. His actual fate was infinitely worse, but a U.S. court has ruled that he has no right to sue. While changing planes at JFK, Arar was falsely arrested for being a terrorist. U.S. authorities sent him to Syria where he was tortured for months and confined in a coffin-like cell. Arar was ultimately exonerated, and the U.S. government apologized to him. However, a New York court found that only an act of Congress can compensate him for his pain and suffering. Arar plans to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The UN and the European Union are joining forces to pressure the U.S. to commit to action on climate change. Just five days of pre-negotiation talks remain before the crucial Copenhagen summit where leaders hope to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Treaty. "The expectation out there worldwide among populations and the young [is for] the US to deliver on one of the key challenges of our century. The Americans will have to come up [with an offer] one way or another," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish environment minister who will host the upcoming summit. U.S. chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing stressed that the administration was doing its best to convince Congress to back a deal.

Over 5 million children could be saved from lethal pneumonia between now and 2015 at the cost of less than $13 U.S. per child, according to the UN Childrens' Fund and the World Health Organization. The two agencies are seeking a total of $39 billion for the anti-pneumonia campaign. The campaign would focus on preventing pneumonia, preventing or treating other illnesses associated with pneumonia (e.g. measles and HIV), and providing antibiotics to poor children when prevention fails.

Up to half of all crops go to waste in some of the world's hungriest countries, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Between 15% and 50% of all food grown is lost to post-harvest waste. The FAO blames bad weather, bacteria, and premature harvesting for the losses. It says that better training for farmers could dramatically reduce waste.

Canada's defense minister has ordered an inquiry into allegations that Canadian military interpreters misidentified innocent Afghans as Taliban supporters because they didn't understand what they were saying. Thomas Hammes, a retired U.S. Marine colonel told the CBC that U.S. forces were experiencing similar problems. "We're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure ice cream and steak is there. And I would trade all of that for my entire tour if I could have one decent translator," he said.

Celebrated anthropologist and public intellectual Claude Levi-Strauss died yesterday at the age of 100. Strauss wrote numerous influential works of anthropology including Tristes Tropiques, The Savage Mind, and The Raw and the Cooked. He did fieldwork among Brazilian tribes and founded the structuralist school of anthropology.

A British mercenary who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea is going home. The president of Guinea, Teodoro Obiang, pardoned Simon Mann in an elaborate ceremony today. Curiously, Mann was not allowed to attend his own pardoning. He had to sit on a bench in the notorious Black Beach prison and listen while the president absolved him of his crimes. The 57-year-old had been sentenced to 34 years in prison after he and a group of other mercenaries were busted on an arms shopping spree in Zimbabwe.

Many denizens of Shanghai are accustomed to wearing pajamas in public, but the local government is cracking down on this kind of casual chic ahead of the 2010 World Expo. The campaign has sparked controversy. The pro-pajama faction argues that the local government is revealing its own deep-seated sense of inferiority by trying to sanitize the city for foreigners.

Ousted Honduran President Mel Zelaya is questioning why Washington is prepared to recognize the November 29 presidential election if it takes place before he is returned to power, as expressed on CNN en Espanol yesterday by the top U.S. envoy to Latin American. Last week, Zelaya and the leader of the coup regime cut a deal under the watchful eye of the U.S. State Department. The deal called for a reinstatement of Zelaya contingent on the approval of Congress. Washington hailed the pact as a triumph for democracy. Now the Honduran Congress is dragging its feet on the vote and the election is rapidly approaching.

The United Nations today announced plans to relocate 600 staff members in Afghanistan for their own safety. Last week five UN personnel and 3 Afghans were killed in a Taliban attack on a guest house in Kabul. The relocation won't affect aid delivery, which is done by Afghan staff. Kai Eide, the UN's head of mission in Afghanistan, said that some of the workers will be moved within Afghanistan and others will be transferred to other countries.

Colombian opposition leaders are up in arms over a new 10-year pact with the United States that would allow the U.S. to use not only Colombian military bases but civilian airports as well. U.S. military and civilian contractors would enjoy diplomatic immunity under the deal. We all know how well de facto immunity worked out for Blackwater in Iraq.

The International Criminal Court announced today that it will begin an inquiry into the wave of post-election carnage that overtook Kenya in 2008. ICC investigator Luis Moreno-Ocampo told Kenyan leaders that the ICC was bound to investigate because the atrocities that took place were "crimes against humanity." More than 1000 people died in the post-election conflict.

The 137th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) kicked off Monday in Washington, D.C. Today there will be a hearing on "Public Security and Human Rights in Tijuana, Mexico." Activists and family members will testify about alleged human rights abuses by the military in northern Mexico. President Calderone has effectively placed the country under military occupation in the name of his stepped-up drug war. Accusations of rape, arbitrary detention, torture, and murder by soldiers have skyrocketed since soldiers began to take the place of police officers on the beat.

An army psychiatrist is in custody after allegedly killing 13 people and wounding 30 others at the Fort Hood army base in Texas yesterday afternoon. Ironically, Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan specialized in treating veterans with post traumatic stress disorder. At the time of the shooting, he himself was facing his first deployment to a war zone. His family says he had hired a lawyer to help him get out of the military. The family describes him as Muslim, but his army paperwork has him down as "no religious preference."

Honduran President Mel Zelaya says that the vaunted pact between himself and the leader of the coup regime is dead. The last straw? Coup regime leader Roberto Micheletti announced that he would be forming a "unity government" without Zelaya's representatives. The two sides had agreed to form a unity government that included cabinet ministers from both sides. Needless to say, Zelaya is unlikely to be restored to power any time soon. He's still barricaded inside the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa.

Thousands of German workers held wildcat strikes and demonstrations yesterday after General Motors unexpectedly pulled out of a deal that would have saved 25,000 German auto industry jobs. Chancellor Angela Merkel had announced a multi-billion dollar deal to save GM subsidiary Opel by selling off the company's European operations. Out of the blue, GM decided to keep its European plants after all. GM announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs in the restructuring. Many of those will be at Opel. "Our trust in General Motors is now zero, that's the heart of the problem," Klaus Franz, the head of Opel's workers' council said at a rally yesterday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told Christiane Amanpour of CNN that he would be stepping down when his term ends at the end of the month. ElBaradei is leaving just as Iran seems poised to reach a deal over refining nuclear fuel. Under a draft agreement supported by the U.S., France, and Russia, Iran would ship low energy uranium to a third country to be processed into fuel rods for nuclear energy and sent back to Tehran to make medical isotopes. ElBaradei explained that Iran wants some of those rods upfront. It doesn't want to send its scarce nuclear material away for processing and trust that it will get it back. Giving Iran a taste of what it's supposed to get anyway seems like a harmless gesture of good faith.

The Iraqi government announced yesterday that it had signed a major deal with Exxon-Mobil to develop an oil field in Southern Iraq. The deal marks the first time that Exxon, a U.S. conglomerate, has been allowed to work on Iraq's oil fields since 1972. The LA Times reports that there has been a "flurry of activity" this week as several major oil companies prepare to resume operations in Iraq for the first time in 6 years.

On Sunday Iraq's parliament passed an election law that paves the way for elections in late January. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and U.S. President Barack Obama praised the bill as a landmark achievement. The United Nations and the United States had both urged Iraq to pass the election law. The U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Chris Hill said that the bill's passage keeps the U.S. "within the parameters" of its plan to draw down U.S. troop levels in Iraq to 50,000 by next August and leave the country entirely by 2011.

The Afghan government has declared a state of emergency in response to H1N1 influenza, which has already killed 10 people in Kabul in under two weeks. Schools, universities, wedding halls and other public places have been shuttered for three weeks to slow the spread of the bug. Street vendors in Kabul are doing a brisk business in surgical masks.

Seismologists are wondering if a massive reservoir helped trigger an earthquake that killed 80,000 people in China last year. Before the earthquake struck, the reservoir behind the Zipingpu Dam had filled with several hundred million tons of water in just a few years' time. A new analysis suggests that either water seepage or the sheer weight of the water could have destabilized a nearby fault and set off the quake.

Coal ash from the United States is being blamed for birth defects in the Dominican Republic. Six years ago, a contractor hired by the Virginia-based AES Corp abandoned 50,000 tons of coal dust at a port near the village of Arroyo Barril. The poisonous dust sat there for three years until it was finally disposed of properly. According to a civil suit filed last week in Delaware, the dust is responsible for a surge in birth defects and other health problems afflicting local residents.

Giraffes are making a comeback in Niger. Niger's giraffes are a unique subspecies that is found nowhere else in Africa. Just a decade ago, local giraffe populations were on the brink of extinction. Today, thanks careful conservation efforts, an original herd of 50 individuals now numbers about 200.

HIV/AIDS is the leading killer of women between the ages of 15 and 44, a new report by the World Health Organization shows. The WHO's first-ever global survey of women's health revealed that women in developing countries were most likely to catch HIV through unsafe sex. Poor access to contraception, lack of sex ed, and iron deficiency were found to be contributing factors. The WHO sees a direct link between discrimination against women and ill-health. "We will not see a significant improvement in the health of women until they are no longer recognized as second-class citizens in many parts of the world," WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested that humanity might be better off if we spent more on peace and development and less on war. Global military spending now tops $1 trillion a year. “The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded,” Mr. Ban told said at a conference on religion and disarmament in Costa Rica last week. Ban said he sees a new wave of disarmament activism rising to counter out-of-control military spending and rampant violence.

Three U.S. journalists have been charged with espionage. The three reporters were arrested by Iranian border guards this summer while hiking in the wilderness of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. They had been held without charge for months. Now, as international negotiations over Iran's nuclear program enter a critical phase, the three have been charged as spies. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the charges against the three are baseless and called on Iran to set them free.

Some of the worlds' poorest countries are about to pay much more to service their debt, a UN trade official warned at the UN Conference on Trade and Development. Some countries are looking at a 17% hike in their debt servicing costs. In other words, they're going to be paying 17% more of their total revenue just to pay the interests on their national debts.

The Army psychiatrist charged with last week's shooting rampage at Ft. Hood was in touch with Anwar al-Awlaki, an anti-American imam in Yemen. U.S. intelligence agencies say they intercepted communications between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and the imam this year and last. The inquiry was dropped because the messages didn't hint at violence.

Four former Blackwater executives told the New York Times that the private security company authorized over $1 million in bribes to Iraqi officials in the wake of the 2007 Nissour Square massacre. Blackwater decided to pay off officials because it was afraid of losing its license to operate in Iraq. The former executives said they didn't know whether the money was ultimately delivered to the officials, only that then-president Gary Jackson authorized the payout.

A suicide car bomber killed 24 people and wounded 64 others in a busy market near Peshawar in northeast Pakistan. The Taliban is suspected of orchestrating the attack, their fourth this month in Peshawar with a total death toll of roughly 200.

The World Health Organization is set to receive 50 million doses of H1N1 influenza vaccine to distribute in 95 poor countries. The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is donating the shots. WHO hopes to receive enough vaccine to immunize 10% of the population of these nations. The first shipment of vaccine is expected to arrive later this month.

Think you're having a bad day? A Canadian teenager found himself adrift on a piece of ice with a mother polar bear and two cubs. Jupi Angootealuk, 17, was forced to shoot the mother when she got too close to him. The young man and his uncle were on a hunting trip when their snowmobile broke down. As they were walking back, the ice broke up, stranding Jupi on a piece of drifting ice 30 meters in diameter. He spent two days at sea before search and rescue technicians could parachute in to evacuate him.

Millions of Brazilians were plunged into darkness last night when a massive hydroelectric dam suddenly went offline. The outage lasted about two hours. About 80% of Brazil's power is hydroelectric, so a major malfunction at a single large facility can have far-reaching effects.

President Obama reportedly plans to reject all the options for Afghanistan presented to him by his national security advisers. Unnamed officials told the CBC that Obama would instead push for "clarifications" about how and when the U.S. would turn power over to the Afghan government. Obama's unexpected decision comes after U.S. envoy to Afghanistan, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, expressed grave doubts about sending more troops.

Chinese police have raided a counterfeit condom factory in Hunan province. They burst into the workshop to find shirtless workers lubricating unsterile condoms with vegetable oil before wrapping them in branded packages. Officials say the knockoff condoms had already been distributed nationwide. They warned that the fakes provide little protection against pregnancy or disease.

The UN announced that, henceforth, July 18 would be known as "Nelson Mandela International Day" in honor of South Africa's famous anti-apartheid leader and former prime minister. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described the 92-year-old Nobel laureate as " the embodiment of the highest values of the United Nations.”

China has a network of black site prisons, according to Human Rights Watch. In its new report, "An Alleyway in Hell," HRW details how people are snatched off the street and held for months without charge. Many of the victims are ordinary people who come toBejing seeking redress for their grievances. Detainees may not even be told why they've been locked up. The report is based on interviews with 38 former black site inmates.

Torture is "widespread and systematic" in Colombia, the Colombian Coalition Against Torture (CCAT) announced at a press conference in Geneva this week. The group is raising awareness about the issue ahead of its upcoming testimony before a UN panel. They say that the government is the leading perpetrator of torture followed by paramilitaries and guerrilla groups. The group cites 337 instances of torture between 2003 and 2008, half of which were committed by the government.

President Obama pledged that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed will receive due process when he goes on trial in New York. "I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it. My administration insists on it," Obama said. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is currently held at Guantanamo. CIA documents revealed that he was waterboarded dozens of times. It's unclear how much of the evidence against Mohammed will be admissible in court, given how it was collected.

A UN investigator has accused the U.S. of neglecting the homeless while pouring billions of dollars into plans to save banks. RaquelRolnik, the UN special rapporteur for the right to adequate housing, visited seven U.S. cities on a fact-finding mission. Rolnik wasn't allowed into the United States during the Bush administration. "The housing crisis is invisible for many in the US," Rolnik said. "I learned through this visit that real affordable housing and poverty is something that hasn't been dealt with as an issue."

Communist guerrillas killed at least 11 people in a raid on a logging company in the Philippines. At least 12 guerrillas were also killed in the shootout. The Maoist New People's Army has been waging guerrilla war against the central government for over 40 years. Peace talks between the government and the political wing of the NPA recently broke down, and violence is once again on the upswing.

U.S. authorities seized four mosques and a New York City skyscraper suspected of being controlled by the Iranian government. The seizures come just as Iran and the U.S. are locked in delicate negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. Iran recently charged three U.S. journalists with espionage, in what was widely seen as an attempt to gain leverage in the talks.

Militants in Pakistan rammed a truck into the Peshawar branch of Pakistan's main intelligence agency. At least nine people were killed in the blast, and fifty more were wounded, according to authorities. Schools were closed for the day. The attack coincides with the visit of President Obama's national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones.

President Obama acknowledged today at a summit in Singapore that a full binding climate deal will not happen in Copenhagen this December. He also expressed support for a Danish plan to restructure the negotiations into a two-stage process, aiming for a political deal in Copenhagen and binding emissions agreements at least a year later, most likely in Mexico City.

Mexico has shuttered is embassy in Pakistan for budgetary reasons, after only having been open for two years. Mexico, in the throes of an economic crisis, is expected to close more embassies around the world and downsize other diplomatic outposts.

Millions of Bangladeshis are suffering from arsenic poisoning, and scientists aren't entirely sure why. Twenty-five million people have been exposed to excessive arsenic, and two million have symptoms of arsenic poisoning. Experts call it the worst mass poisoning of a population in history. A new study in journal "Nature Geoscience" may have solved the tragic mystery. The authors point the finger at junk-filled ponds. Poison leaches out of the garbage and into the water table.

On his trip to Singapore, Barack Obama called on the Burman junta to free imprisoned dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. Afterwards, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed that the president had broached the issue of freeing Suu Kyi "directly with that government." Since taking office, the Obama administration has increased the U.S.'s engagement with the Burmese regime. Senator Jim Webb (D-WV) visited earlier this year. The senior U.S. envoy to Southeast Asia recently met with Suu Kyi and high ranking government officials.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's tax fraud trial has been postponed until January so that he can attend to pressing matters of state. The PM has a pretty good excuse: Berlusconi is currently presiding over the UN Food and Agriculture summit in Rome. Berlusconi, a media mogul in private life, is accused of fudging corporate taxes.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao met privately today near Tienanmen Square in Bejing. Top items on their agenda included trade, climate change, and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. After the meeting, the two leaders held a press conference where they took no questions. Each pledged that the two countries would work together to stabilize the global economy, grapple with climate change, and control nuclear proliferation.

While in Rome for the UN food summit, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi took time out to encourage 200 young Italian women to convert to Islam. A modeling agency paid the women $78 dollars to attend Gadhafi's soiree, according to an Italian reporter who infiltrated the gathering. Women who weren't tall enough or dressed modestly enough were left behind while Gadhafi and the remaining women went to a villa where he lectured them about women's rights and Islam.

An Argentine couple is preparing for what might be the first same-sex marriage in Latin America. José María Di Bello and Alex Freyre won the right to marry last week after a judge ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage violated Argentina's constitution. The city of Buenos Aires accepted the court's ruling and issued the men a marriage license. “On December 1st we will become man and man,” said Di Bello.

Pirates have hijacked a North Korean chemical tanker of the coast of Somalia. The Singaporean-operated MV Theresa VIII and its 28 crew members were captured on Monday about 180 nautical miles north west of Seychelles.

Move over Paris, Tokyo now has more three-star Michelin restaurants than any other city in the world. Japan's capital has 11 such establishments, according to the latest edition of the Michelin guide. New York, a noted foodie town, has only four three-star restaurants.

A new study of global CO2 levels by the British Antarctic Society has revealed that temperatures could rise up to 6 degrees if action is not taken to curb emissions. CO2 emissions have risen 29% in the last decade alone. And a new report by the UN Family Planning Agency (UNFPA) shows that poor women will bear the brunt of climate change.

Joe Biden must be so envious: Iraq's vice president has the power to veto bills. Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi announced today that he had vetoed Iraq's election law. His decision could postpone Iraq's election, which had been scheduled for January 16. Hashemi, a Sunni, objected to a provision giving only 5% of the seats in parliament to minorities and Iraqi refugees abroad. He insists that the Iraqi parliament can easily fix the bill and allow the election to move forward on schedule. Delaying the election could delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Former gold miners in South Africa are suing the mining giant Anglo American over occupationally induced lung disease. The 24 plaintiffs, who suffer from incurable lung disease caused by silica dust, worked in the mine between 1970 and 1998. They say the company knew that the dust was dangerous and failed to protect them.

A former SS sergeant has been charged with 58 counts of murder in connection with a massacre of Jews during the Second World War. The man, Adolf Storms, had lived quietly as a railway agent until a university student discovered his true identity while researching the massacre.

Listen up, this is serious: The worlds' cutest animals--as measured by eye-to-body ratio and general fluffiness--are in grave danger. Environmentalist say that political unrest and rampant logging are threatening the lemurs of Madagascar. We could be losing species of lemur we didn't even know we had. Madacascar's former president was working to conserve the country's forests, but he was ousted by a coup that ushered in a lawless "goldrush" of logging and poaching.

UN DEBATES PIRACY STRATEGY
The UN Security Council met yesterday to discuss the piracy crisis off the coast of Somalia. Over the past few weeks vessels from the U.S., North Korea, and Spain have been attacked or seized by pirates. Two weeks ago, the International Maritime Organization announced plans to help Somalia combat piracy by assisting it in the creation of a legitimate coast guard. In addition to their more predatory activities, the pirates gain the support of local people by acting as a kind of informal militia that protects the coast from foreign overfishing and toxic waste dumping.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/11/18/somalia-pirates-un-security.html?ref=rss

IPOD BLAMED FOR SUB CRASH
A new report says that "complancency" and poor leadership were responsible for a nuclear submarine crash that injured 15 submariners. The USS Hartford, a nuclear powered sub, plowed into a Navy ship in March of 2009. A report found that the ship's navigator was taking an exam while listening to his iPod. "Sleeping, slouching and a radio room with music speakers were tolerated on board the submarine," according to the report. No word on how poor posture may have contributed to the accident.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8367564.stm

BLACKWATER FACES STIFF FINES OVER GUNS
The private security firm formerly known as Blackwater could face stiff fines for gun running in Iraq. Company executives are reportedly in high stakes talks with government regulators to determine how big a fine Blackwater will have to pay for violating arms export laws. Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry has said the violations "went beyond weapons for personal use."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/world/middleeast/19blackwater.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

BLOWN DEADLINE
President Obama acknowledged that the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo will not close by the end of the year. Obama promised, upon taking office, that he would close the facility during his first year in office. In an interview with FOX in Bejing, Obama voiced support for the decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other alleged terrorists in civilian court.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/11/18/obama-guantanamo.html?ref=rss

SCIENTOLOGY ACCUSED OF TORTURE, FORCED ABORTION
Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has said he would consider an inquiry into the Church of Scientology, following serious allegations made by Australian senator Nick Xenophon against the sect. Xenophon has produced letters from high-ranking church officials alleging criminal misconduct, including involvement in forced abortions, assault, torture, false imprisonment, covering up sexual abuse, embezzlement, and blackmail.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/18/scientology-torture-allegations-australia

The European Union selected Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy as the EU's first president yesterday. Van Rompuy has pledged to tackle unemployment and the environment during his term, which begins on January 1, 2010. The EU also named Catherine Ashton, the UK's trade commissioner, as its chief of foreign policy.

The leader of Honduras's coup regime announced that he was stepping down temporarily to allow voters to "concentrate" on the upcoming election. Roberto Micheletti promised to step aide through the November 29 vote, until at least December 2 when the Honduran congress will vote on whether to reinstate ousted president Mel Zelaya. This is really a moot point since his term will all but elapsed by the time congress votes. Micheletti did not say who would be in charge of Honduras during his furlough.

Four people have been arrested in Peru on suspicion of murdering people to steal their body fat and sell it to European cosmetics manufacturers. The alleged killers are said to have lured their victims with phony job offers. Police say that the gang could be responsible for up to 60 disappearances.

A suicide bomber killed 13 people, including a police office, in a market in south western Afghanistan near the Iranian border. At least 36 others were wounded in the attack. The blast comes the day after Hamid Karzai was sworn in for his second term as president of Afghanistan.

A gunman opened fire at a World War II historical site on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas today, killing four people before turning the gun on himself. The shooting occurred in the town of Kannat Tabla. All those killed were residents of the U.S. commonwealth. Several South Korean tourists were wounded in the rampage.

The U.S. is funding a secretive program supporting anti-Taliban militias in 14 areas of Afghanistan according to the Guardian. American special forces troops are embedding with tribal fighters and even disgruntled "former" insurgents as part of the so-called Community Defense Initiative (CDI), a pet project of the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal. Astute readers will recall that the Taliban got its start as a U.S. backed anti-Soviet guerrilla force.

21 kidnapped politicians and journalists abducted in the southern Philippines have been found murdered and mutilated. The Philippine military says the group of 13 women and 8 men was seized on its way to file nomination papers for a local gubernatorial hopeful on the island of Mindanao. The candidate was reportedly planning to run against local clan leader Datu Andal Ampatuan.

The human rights committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution on Friday censuring Iran for human rights violations. The final vote was 74 in favour and 48 against with 59 abstentions. The resolution must now be approved at a plenary session of the UNGA. Iran's UN ambassador, Mohammad Khazaee, dismissed the resolution as "politically motivated."

An explosion at the Xinxing coal mine in Hegang has killed at least 104 miners, the highest death toll in a Chinese mine accident in over two years. An initial investigation revealed that the 500 miners working underground on Saturday were not properly evacuated when a "very high gas density" was discovered. Rescuers continue to search for survivors.

A high-priced private eye hired by the parents of Madeline McCann to search for their missing daughter is on the run himself. The FBI is hunting for Kevin Halligen, 48, who is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of public donations that were supposed to fund the search for Madeline. Halligen is said to have gone on the lam after he was accused of stealing $1 million from an oil company in an unrelated fraud.

For months we've been reading slightly condescending English-language news reports about how Pakistanis believe the private security firm is operating with impunity in their country. Well guess what? Jeremy Scahill reports in the Nation that Blackwater is indeed operating on behalf of the U.S. in Pakistan. Blackwater personnel are reportedly doing "snatch and grab" assassinations in the unstable country.

Iraq's presidential election, scheduled for January, will almost certainly be delayed. The Iraqi Parliament disregarded a veto by one of Iraq's vice presidents, Tariq al-Hashimi, and passed some new amendments to a recently passed election law. The vice president promises to veto those, too. This time, Parliament doesn't seem to have the 60 percent majority necessary to override the vice presidential veto. American and UN diplomats tried unsuccessfully to broker a compromise that would satisfy al-Hashimi.

The White House announced that the U.S. will reveal an emissions reduction target before next month's Copenhagen summit. The target is expected to be in line with that outlined in climate legislation before the Senate--a 17-20% reduction from 2005 levels by 2020. The European Union has pledged to cut 20% over the same period, or 30% as part of a global deal.

After years of delays, the UK is launching an official inquiry into the country's decision to join the Iraq war in 2003. The inquiry is expected to last 18 months. Key figures, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair, are slated to testify. On Tuesday, the committee heard from high-ranking officials who said that their counterparts in Washington were talking about "regime change" as early as 2001.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon offered his condolences to the family of a UN staffer whose remains were recently discovered in Lebanon. The staffer, Alec Collett, was abducted near the Beirut Airport in 1985. At the time of his disappearance, Collett was a former British journalist on assignment with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

The southern Philippines is in a state of emergency after at least 46 people were kidnapped and murdered in one of the worst acts of political violence in the nation's history. Authorities say the death toll may continue to rise. To keep the peace in Maguindanao, President Gloria Arroyo has cultivated allegiances with local strongmen, including clan leader Andal Ampatuan, whose forces are suspected of perpetrating the massacre.

In 2001, the world's rich countries promised to kick in hundreds of millions of dollars a year to help the developing world to address climate change. A new investigation by the BBC reveals that the money may never have been paid out. So far, only $260 million has been paid into two UN funds earmarked for the purpose. The European Union swears that it paid its share in bilateral deals but admits that it doesn't have the paperwork to prove it.

Today is the 10th annual International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. To mark the occasion, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that he was creating a network of fourteen men who had distinguished themselves as allies in the effort to curb violence against women. The list includes Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Teachers, nurses, tax collectors, clerks and other government employees in Ireland are staging the country's largest strike in three decades: 250,000 Irish workers picked to protest what they characterize as draconian cuts to public services. “Government seems to be taking out a large part of its anger on public servants,” a translator for the Irish parliament told Bloomberg as he stood on the picket line.

Libyan leader Muamar Gadhafi has volunteered to mediate soccer strife between Algeria and Egypt. Last week unrest erupted after Egypt lost its World Cup qualifying match to Algeria, 1-0. Dozens were injured when demonstrations outside the Algerian embassy in Cairo turned violent. Luckily, the Arab League has just the man to defuse this tense situation: Gadhafi. It is hoped that he can unite the two sides in a shared sense of pan-Arab enthusiasm. Nevermind that many Algerians self-identify as Berbers and bristle at any suggestion that they are Arabs.

The coup regime in Honduras held presidential elections yesterday in what the pro-coup media cheerfully called the "fiesta electoral." Ousted president Mel Zelaya called on his supporters to boycott the vote from the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. It's not clear how many Hondurans heeded Zelaya's call to stay home. It's hard to know because the UN and the OAS considered the election too compromised to dignify it by sending election monitors.

Listen up, Canada Customs: The Vancouver Olympics will be the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful international sporting event we've ever seen. Is that clear? We don't want to end up like U.S. journalist Amy Goodman, who was detained at the Canadian border by guards who were concerned that the host of the popular radio show Democracy Now! would speak out against the 2010 Olympics to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Everybody's favorite desert paradise built on slave labor is having some debt issues of its own. The City State of Dubai stunned world markets when it announced that its main investment arm, Dubai World, would not be able to pay its debts on time. It remains to be seen whether its big brother in the Emirates, Abu Dhabi, will bail it out.

Major labor unions in the Philippines have banded together to protest the November 23 massacre in Maguindanao. At least 57 people were killed when armed men linked to a local warlord attacked a group of people on their way to register a political rival to run in an election. Many of the victims were union members. At least 18 of the slain were journalists and 2 others were unionized government employees. The unions belong to a coalition called KONTRA WTO, which has pledge to help end to warlordism in the region. They say there will always be massacres as long as local strongmen control the "3 Gs" -- guns, goons and gold.

China has charged 58 people, including 10 journalists for allegedly helping to cover up a mining disaster last year. Mine bosses are accused of moving bodies of dead workers and paying journalists the equivalent of $381,000 to cover up an explosion. The blast took place on July 14, 2008, just before the Beijing Olympics. The cover up helped keep the tragedy out of the headlines in advance of the games.

President Obama approved a major increase in troop numbers for Afghanistan late Sunday night. He spent Monday making calls to key U.S. allies to brief them on his plan. The president will describe his strategy in greater detail in a public address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The size of the troop increase hasn't been officially confirmed, but most observers expect Obama to send 30,000 more U.S. service members, bringing the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 100,000. The White House stresses that the commitment is not "open ended."

Conservative rancher Pepe Lobo was declared the winner of the Honduran presidential election. Now he has to convince the world that his government is legitimate. The election was held five months after the democratically elected president of Honduras was overthrown by a military-backed coup d'etat. A U.S.-backed deal to resolve the constitutional crisis before the election fell through. Election organizers claim that Hondurans ignored deposed President Mel Zelaya's call to boycott the election. They say 60% of eligible voters turned out. It's hard to know for sure, because UN and OAS monitors considered the election to be too compromised to send observers.

On Sunday, the Swiss electorate stunned the world by voting to ban minarets from mosques. Few had expected the ballot initiative to pass. The Swiss government campaigned heavily against it. U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay condemned the measure as discriminatory and divisive. She said the ban unfairly singles out Swiss Muslims and deprives them of basic human rights.

On Tuesday, the International Court of Justice will consider whether Kosovo legally seceded from Serbia. Sixty-three countries have already recognized Kosovo as an independent state, but Serbia refuses to do so. This will be the first time the ICJ will decide whether a succession was legal under international law.

Russia's second- and third-largest unions announced that they will merge in a bid to increase their influence. Early next year, the All-Russia Confederation of Labor and the Russian Labor Confederation are scheduled to unite as a single union with about 2.6 million members. “It will be the most serious event in the past 20 years in terms of labor organization,” said ARCL President Boris Kravchenko. The influence of organized labor has been at a low ebb in Russia for the past several years. As president, Vladimir Putin all but outlawed labor strikes.

President Obama announced that the U.S. will deploy an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The extra boots are expected to start hitting the ground within the next six months. Obama also raised eyebrows with his promise that the U.S. would start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by the middle of 2011.

A U.K. climate scientist is stepping down pending an investigation into whether he and his colleagues overstated the case for man-made climate change. Phil Jones, the director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was one of the victims of a hacker who stole his private email correspondence and published it online about a week and a half ago. Nicolas Stern, who wrote the UK government report on climate change, has said, regarding the leak, that the "degree of skepticism [on climate change] among real scientists is very small," and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change researchers have called the leak an attempt to derail the Copenhagen negotiating process.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warns that the scourge of slavery is far from over. Contemporary forms of slavery pose a “grave” and unresolved problem on every continent, Ban said in a message marking the observance of the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.

The trial of alleged Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk is on hiatus today because the 89-year-old defendant is too sick to come to court. Demjanjuk has a fever and doctors believe it would be unsafe to transport him. He is accused of helping to kill over 20,000 Jews as a prison camp guard. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

Cybercriminals are capitalizing on a common typo to bilk unsuspecting web surfers. More than a third of websites in the West African nation of Cameroon pose a threat to users who navigate there, according to a new report by the McAffee corporation. The suffix for domain names in Cameroon is .cm. Unscrupulous individuals are registering .cm domains that sound similar to popular .com websites to lure victims.

On the eve of the World Cup, the UN is asking FIFA and five major European soccer leagues to add a small surcharge to help send poor kids to school. UNESCO says a "Better Future" levy of just .4% on broadcast and sponsorship fees would raise over $48 million per year--enough to keep half a million poor children in school between 2010 and the next World Cup.

To no one's surprise, the Honduran congress voted against reinstating ousted president Mel Zelaya. It was a largely symbolic gesture, seeing as Zelaya's term expires next month and a new president has already been selected.

Prosecutors say that a 26-year-old Iranian physician who exposed the torture of prisoners was killed by an overdose of a blood pressure drug concealed in his salad. Investigators are still trying to determine conclusively if Ramin Pourandarjani's death was a murder or a suicide, but many suspect he was killed for embarrassing the regime.

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince will be stepping down from private military contracting to become a high school teacher. Prince also revealed in the interview that he had been a CIA asset for many years.

A fantastic story about a gang of fat-stealing bandits stalking the back roads of Peru was probably a hoax. A top federal criminal investigator has been dismissed and an investigation is ongoing. A political blogger has speculated that the far-fetched tale was an attempt to divert attention from another news story that broke the same week alleging that the police had killed 46 suspects.

A prominent leader of the Ugandan Anglican Church warns that proposed anti-gay legislation would be genocide against the gay community. "I believe that this bill [if passed into law] will be state-legislated genocide against a specific community of Ugandans, however few they may be," said Canon Gideon Byamugisha. The law would impose draconian penalties on people who have gay sex--up to and including the death penalty. Even Ugandans who failed to inform on their gay neighbors would face prison time.

Attackers lobbed grenades into a mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, today and sprayed the crowd with bullets. The mosque was full of men, mostly retired military officers, attending Friday prayers. At least 30 people were killed and another 40 were injured, according to Pakistan's interior minister. Taliban insurgents have struck Rawalpindi several times since the national government began an anti-Taliban offensive in northeast Pakistan.

The United Nations will investigate whether hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia are proof that global warming data was significantly manipulated. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), announced yesterday that he wanted the claims investigated fully. "We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will look into it in detail," he said.

The staff of a Canadian-owned mining company in southern Mexico are being questioned in connection with the execution-style slaying of a local anti-mining activist. Activist Mariano Abarca Robledo was gunned down by an assassin on a motorcycle last Friday. A spokesman for Blackfire Exploration Ltd. insisted on anonymity when he told the CBC that his company had nothing to do with the killing.

Adebayo Ogunmeno is a respected trial lawyer in Kansas with an unusual destiny. The 54-year-old trial lawyer is a prince of the Yoruba tribe of southwestern Nigeria. The tribe's current king is getting old, and Ogunmeno is one of the heirs to the throne. He has decided to throw his hat into the ring after 26 years in the U.S. When the current king's reign ends, he and other princes will square off in an election.

A version of the same editorial calling for action in Copenhagen ran in 56 newspapers in 45 countries today. Many on the front page. This unprecedented effort was spearheaded by the Guardian. The editorial began: Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency...

Bolivian President Evo Morales appears to have won reelection by a landslide. Although the official results won't be released until later today, preliminary tallies gave Morales 63% of the vote, a 35-point lead over his nearest rival, right-wing former governor Manfred Reyes Villa. The vote is show of support for Morales' policies of empowerment for indigenous people, nationalization of industry, and social spending.

The divided Isle of Cyprus is the stage for yet another battle between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. This time, the bone of contention is a spectacular breed of house cat known as the Aphrodite Giant. In recent years, these large and gentle feline have caught the fancy of cat show judges worldwide. The Cypriot Feline Society wants to register the cat as a national breed, but it fears that its Turkish rivals will breed an Aphrodite Giant to a St. Helena cat and register the kittens as a new Turkish breed.

Police in the southern Philippines have arrested dozens of people and seized several caches of weapons in connection with the massacre of 57 people in the province of Maguinado two weeks ago. The province is under martial law to prevent a revolt by supporters of the Ampatuan clan, members of which are suspected of orchestrating the massacre of politicians, journalists, and innocent bystanders.

About 5,000 people turned out to protest the de facto military occupation of the Mexican border city of Juarez. President Felipe Calderon sent thousands of troops and federal agents to the city in March to quell a surge in drug-related violence. However, the murder rate continues to climb and many soldiers have been accused of violating human rights with impunity. "We are tired of living in hell. Things have only worsened since the army arrived," one protester, a 53-year-old businessman, told Reuters.

A series of apparently coordinated explosions killed over 101 people and wounded dozens of others this morning in Baghdad. The blasts started around 10am local time and continued for about 50 minutes. The targets were a university, a court, a mosque and a market, all in the vicinity of the Interior Ministry. The attacks came the day that Parliament announced that elections would be held on March 6.

The planet continues to warm, according to new research released today in Copenhagen by the World Meteorological Organization. The 2000s were the warmest decade in the last 150 years, the WMO announced. The interval from 2000 to 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” Michel Jarraud, the WMO secretary general, told a news conference.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said today that Afghanistan will not be able to pay for its own army until 2024. Karzai's remarks came just hours after a U.S. attack killed dozens of civilians and touched off widespread protest marches.

Lazy spies and lazy journalists have a lot in common: A gossiping taxi driver was the source of a major claim about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. The driver claimed to have overheard two Iraqi military commanders claim that Iraq's WMD could be launched in 45 minutes. This piece of information was recorded in a dossier used to justify the UK's role in the invasion of Iraq--even though this factoid was labeled as "verifiably inaccurate" in a footnote.

More than 40 people were killed by bombs yesterday in Lahore, Pakistan. Insurgents are ratcheting up their pressure on the federal government, which is under strong countervailing pressure from the United States and its allies to intensify the fight against the Taliban in the country's northwestern region. The government is also weathering a political scandal as the courts reconsider "amnesties" against politicians and bureaucrats. If the court throws out the amnesty, senior government face criminal charges including the defense minister and even President Zardari himself.

Developing countries are outraged by a leaked negotiating document from the Copenhagen climate change summit. "The text robs developing countries of their just and equitable and fair share of the atmospheric space," said Sudanese diplomat Lumumba Di-Aping of the so-called "Danish text," a draft proposal for the final political agreement that negotiators hope will be signed at the end of the summit. The UN's top climate diplomat said the document was only an informal draft.

The mayor of Kabul is still in power, despite having been convicted of corruption. Mayor Abdul Ahad Sahebi was found guilty on Monday of awarding a city contract without soliciting competitive bids. He was sentence to 4 years in jail and a $16,000 fine. The mayor remains free, and governing, while his case is appealed to a higher court. "It was a surprise that he has gone back to his job — that he dared to give a press conference. The court is the court in this country and nobody can stop the decision of the court," one Afghan official told the CBC.

Immediately after the November 29 presidential election in Honduras, the government claimed that two thirds of eligible voters cast ballots. If true, this would have been a sign that voters rejected ousted President Mel Zelaya's call to boycott the election and deny legitimacy to the coup regime that sponsored it. The Real News Network has since obtained data from the government's own data files which put the estimated turnout at less than 50%.

Twenty-four people have been charged with rebellion in connection with a mass killing in the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao, which has been under martial law since last Saturday. Several of those charged are members of the powerful and politically well-connected Ampatuan clan. Police accuse the clan's leader, Andal Ampatuan Jr, of organizing the massacre and personally killing several victims.

The Prime Minister of Jamaica asked two of the island's most popular DJs to end their violent 4-year-old feud. PM Bruce Golding met iwith Adijah "Vybz Kartel" Palmer and David "Mavado" Brooks and asked them to put an end to their beef, which is said to have contributed to numerous slayings. The DJs agreed to hold a peace concert and to remove pro-feud graffiti.

Labor leaders are calling for global green job creation at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. “The fight to reverse climate change must be fought in communities and in workplaces. Strong action by political leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen is essential to set the direction, but it is not sufficient to achieve climate change goals: to respond to this challenge, we must deepen solidarity and participation by creating sustainable jobs and bolstering democracy,” said Anita Normark, chair of the Council of Global Unions.

President Obama accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today. In his acceptance speech the president attempted to address the irony of being awarded a peace prize while escalating the war in Afghanistan. "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies," Obama said.

The chair of the G77 bloc of developing nations in Copenhagen famously said that the $10 billion in aid pledged by rich countries isn't enough to buy coffins for the developing world. Billionaire financier and philanthropist GeorgeSoros agrees. Soros suggested allocating $100 billion from the International Monetary Fund for climate mitigation projects in the developing world.

Three women known only as A, B, and C are challenging Ireland's abortion ban before a human rights court in the European Union. The women, who were forced to travel abroad to obtain abortions, argue that restrictions in their home country made the process expensive and traumatic. Their legal battle is being watched closely by Catholic countries across Europe.

The Taliban threatened revenge after South Korea pledged to send more troops to Afghanistan. Korea withdrew 200 troops in 2007 in exchange for the Taliban releasing a South Korean prisoner. Now, Korea has pledged 350 troops to protect its civilian aid workers and, at least according to an email faxed to various media outlets, the Taliban isn't happy about it.

When a performance by the jazz saxophonist Larry Ochs veered towards contemporary music, one Spanish jazz fan called the police. Apparently, the cat's psychologist had warned him not to listen to anything that sounded newer than hard bop. He wanted his money back. The cops listened for a while, concluded that he might have a point, and referred the matter

Kai Eide announced that he will not be renewing his contract as UN head of mission in Afghanistan. Eide maintains that the massive presidential vote-rigging scandal has nothing to do with his departure. U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith accused Eide of downplaying the extent of the fraud.

The private security firm formerly known as Blackwater took part in CIA "snatch and grab" raids against suspected insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq these raids occurred almost nightly between 2004 and 2006, the height of the insurgency. Officially, Blackwater was just supposed to be providing "security" for the CIA agents conducting the raids, but sources tell the New York Times that Blackwater guards sometimes carried out the actual snatching and grabbing. “[T]hey were the drivers and the gunslingers,” according to one former intelligence official.

Royal Dutch Shell bought the rights to the Manjoon field near Basra in an auction. Thirty years ago, Saddam Hussein kicked foreign oil companies out of Iraq. Now, the international petroleum giants are back and poised to make a killing.

The Campbell's monkey forms its distress calls in a language-like way, primatologists have discovered. Lots of creatures have distress calls, but they tend to be the same every time. Whereas, the these vervet monkeys can put different calls together to convey more information. For example, the basic "krak" call is used to warn of a leopard; but if the monkey adds an "oo" on the end, the call can be used in other contexts that have nothing to do with leopards.

A Russian police officer has been sentenced to a two years in prison for killing the proprietor of a website that tracked killings and disappearances in Ingushetiya. Magomed Yevloyev was shot to death in a police car. The officer, Ibragim Yevloyev (no relation), was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of the Kremlin critic.

Over a thousand protesters were arrested over the weekend in Copenhagen. The demonstrators gathered to demand decisive action from the delegates at the UN climate change summit. This week, developed, developing, and emerging economies continue to wrangle over emission targets, climate mitigation aid, and deforestation.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a broken nose when a man attacked him with a model cathedral in Milan yesterday. Before his aides whisked him away to hospital, Berlusconi tried to climb on top of a car to show his supporters that he was okay. Berlusconi was hospitalized. Police say the assailant had a history of mental illness.

A UN official says that drug money kept the world's banks afloat at the height of last year's financial crisis. The head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said in an interview that drug proceeds were the only liquid source of capital for many struggling banks. He estimates that $352 billion in drug money was absorbed into the world financial system as a result. (Presumably because desperate banks asked fewer questions of shady depositors.)

Iran will try three young Americans who strayed over the border with northern Iraq this summer. The hikers have been in custody since July. Iranian authorities previously accused them of espionage, a charge the State Department has rejected as preposterous. However, the government has not announced what formal charges the three will face.

They say you're only as old as you feel, but as it turns out, you're probably as old as you look. Danish researchers found that, among elderly identical twins, older-looking twins had shorter lifespans. Apparent age is correlated with the length of telomeres, pieces of DNA tied to cellular reproduction. Youthful-looking people tend to have longer telomeres. Since identical twins are genetically identical, the fact that some pairs have different telomere lengths points to the importance of environmental factors in aging.

The developing countries are back at the bargaining table, but the U.S. and China are at loggerheads over how compliance with a climate treaty would be monitored and verified. China pledged to reduce its emissions, but it is refusing to accept any kind of international monitoring of its emission levels. China's foreign minister implied in an interview that China was willing to scuttle the talks over verification, which he regards as a "matter of principle."

Do not pass Go, do not collect legal rights. The Obama administration is expected to announce that some detainees currently housed at Guantanamo Bay will be transferred to a maximum security prison in Illinois. The $120 million prison is currently sitting empty. About 200 detainees will be held indefinitely without trial.

The Bush administration made AIDS in Africa one of its signature issues. Millions of people received lifesaving drugs under the George W. Bush's version of the PEPFAR program, however, the administration disqualified all aid groups that recommended birth control. So, fewer groups offered birth control. Eight years later, experts say that Africa is experiencing a baby boom fueled in part by the Bush administration's war on contraception.

Islamic militants are suspected of setting a car bomb that killed 22 people and wounded 70 others in central Pakistan. The bomb went off outside the home of a senior adviser to the governor of the state of Punjab in central Pakistan.

What has eight legs and carries coconuts? It sounds like a joke, but this oceanographic find is for real. Australian scientists have discovered an Indonesian octopus that collects coconut shells from the sea bed and assembles them to form a nest.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai kicked off an anti-corruption campaign yesterday. Karzai, who came to power in an election tainted by massive fraud, is now trying to convince his people and his Western allies that he's tough on corruption. "As we fight corruption, we must be extremely careful that [the fight] does not become corrupt itself," Karzai told the audience. Note that Karzai's own brother is a notorious drug trafficker.

Police beat back a group of 50 to 100 climate delegates at the Copenhagen summit who were trying to meet up with hundreds of protesters who had marched to the Bella Center. Officers used batons and tear gas on the crowd and arrested over 250 demonstrators. Today's demonstrations were the largest so far at the Copenhagen summit. Protesters want delegates to take tougher action on climate change.

'tis the season for a tacky religious relic to surface in Jerusalem. Right on schedule, a team of archeologists claim to have found a burial shroud from the "Jesus era." They stress that their find is nothing like the since-debunked Shroud of Turin, which its discoverers claimed to have been the actual burial shroud of Christ. Tests ultimately showed that the Shroud of Turin dated to the Middle Ages, not to the "Jesus Era."

Mexican president Felipe Calderon has put forward a sweeping set proposals for political reform. These include abolishing term limits for public officials and allowing for run-off elections when a candidate gets less than 50% of the vote. The changes would make it easier for third party candidates to gain ground in the legislature. Calderon is expected to face stiff opposition from the Mexican congress over the reform package.

Hundreds of Iranian men are getting their pictures taken in hijab to show their solidarity with arrested student activist Majid Tavakoli. Tavakoli's supporters say the regime circulated staged pictures of him in women's garb in an attempt to discredit him. So, these men are snapping pictures of themselves in headscarves to make a point.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged that the U.S. will contribute to a $100-billion-year fund to help poorer countries mitigate and adapt to climate change. Clinton's announcement lends new hope to the Copenhagen climate negotiations, which had ground nearly to a halt with only days left. This is the first time the U.S. has agreed to pony up for medium-term financing. Clinton didn't say how much the U.S. was prepared to pay.

A prominent young supporter of ousted Honduran president Mel Zelaya have been assassinated by unidentified gunmen amid a government crackdown on the opposition. A 27-year-old gay rights activist and Zelaya supporter was gunned down in Tegucigalpa on Sunday night. The pregnant 16-year-old daughter of a prominent coup supporter was murdered by two men on a motorcycle while riding in her mother's car

The former second-ranking UN official in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace Afghan president Hamid Karzai in the wake of a massive election fraud, the New York Times alleges. Galbraith said in an interview that he "discussed" but never formally promoted the idea of "persuading" Karzai to leave office.

The U.S. claims that elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment are making their displeasure with the U.S. Af/Pak policy known by harassing U.S. diplomats. The harassment reportedly takes the form of refusing to grant visas for about 100 U.S. officials. Some aid programs have virtually ground to a halt because staffers can't get into the country. Military attaches, CIA officers, helicopter mechanics, and other key personnel are cooling their heels.

French biologist Pierre Jauffret died this week after being severely beaten at his home in a nature preserve the Amazon rain forest. The 72-year-old scientist succumbed to his injuries 2 weeks after the attack. Witnesses said that Jauffret got into a confrontation with a busload of tourists who got out to relieve themselves. The conflict escalated and Jauffret allegedly pointed a gun at the group. The tourists proceeded to beat him.

"Mitigation. Transparency. And financing. It is a clear formula," said U.S. president Barack Obama at the plenary session in Copehagen today. Obama was outlining his vision for action on climate change. In his speech the presient stressed the importance of international verification of emission levels, a major sticking point between the U.S. and China.

Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Americas, has been ravaged by years of over-logging. Today, less that 2% of the small island is covered with trees. Haitians are working to save what trees remain by recycling garbage for energy. Haiti is one of the many countries that would benefit from the $100 billion-a-year climate aid fund that the U.S. proposed at Copenhagen this week.

The president of Brazil said his country was willing to chip in for climate aid if an agreement is reached in Copenhagen today. "I have not said this at home, and not even to my team here in Copenhagen, but if it is necessary for Brazil to tap money to other countries, we will be willing to participate in the (UN) finance mechanisms – IF we reach a global agreement here in Copenhagen today," President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva told the plenary session in Copenhagen.

Arturo Beltran Leyva, a top Mexican drug lord, was killed in a shootout with Mexican Marines earlier this week. Beltran Leyva and his brother control the eponymous Beltran Leyva Cartel, an offshoot of the massive Sinaloa Cartel. Since then about 30 more drug-related murders have been acknowledged by authorities. Often the death of a major drug figure touchs off secondary violence as the remaining players exact revenge and jockey to fill the power vacuum.

The arctic is melting. As the ice melts, dry land is revealed. The U.S., Canada, and Russia are racing to claim this land as their own. It's not clear who owns what. The UN's Law of the Sea Treaty uses geological data to divvy up the territory, but those data have yet to be analyzed. In the meantime, rivals are exploiting the maxim that possession is nine tenths of the law. In 2007, a Russian submarine secretly traveled to a recently exposed outcropping to plant the Russian flag.

China is feeling pretty darned pleased with itself in the wake of the Copenhagen talks. The world's second largest emitter of greenhouses gasses skillfully stymied the climate change summit for the better part of two weeks. The secret? An internecine debate with the United States, the world's largest emitter, over verification for emissions reductions. China claimed it was willing to cut emissions but balked at allowing inspectors to check up on its claims. China and its BASIC allies also managed to shoot down every proposal for binding emission targets. At the last minute, President Obama cut a non-binding side deal with China and other emerging economies that called for what might be called "inspection lite."

The black iron sign that spanned the gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp has been recovered, Polish authorities say. Guards reported the sign missing on Friday. Several young men are being question in connection with the disappearance of the sign, which read "Arbeit Macht Frei," German for "Work Shall Set You Free." The original sign was made by Polish political prisoners in 1940. Between 1940 and 1945 more than 1 million people passed through the gates of Auschwitz. Most were executed in the gas chambers or worked to death.

A Burman court has agreed to hear an appeal by imprisoned Burman opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Suu Kyi was sentenced to house arrest for illegally sheltering a foreigner after a crazy American stalker swam more than a mile to show up at her home uninvited. Suu Kyi was convicted for letting him spend the night instead of sending him packing. She has been under house arrest for 14 of the last 20 years. Her lawyers say that her conviction is not valid because it is based on a now-defunct version of the constitution.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai promises to keep a close eye on his own cabinet ministers to root out corruption. Karzai is staking his political future on his ability to control endemic corruption. He has his work cut out for him. When Karzai unveiled his cabinet on Saturday, many of the ministers were accused of being incompetent holdovers from the first Karzai administration or new arrivals in thrall of Islamic militants and other regional power brokers.

The leader of Madagascar, former DJ Andry Rajoelina, has appointed a new prime minister. The new PM, Col Vital Albert Camille, was appointed days after a power sharing deal between Rajeolina terminated a power-sharing agreement with the previous prime minister, Eugene Mangalaza. Rajeolina agreed to appoint Mangalaza in November during talks brokered by African leaders.

A former NATO officer says that U.S. troops conducted clandestine cross-border raids in Pakistan without the Pakistani government's permission. The former officer says that the groups of elite soldiers flew into Pakistan by helicopter. These sorties too place between 2003 and 2008, only one made the news. Officially, the U.S. is launching drone strikes in Pakistan but stopping short of putting "boots on the ground." This report suggests that the U.S. is fighting a much more hands on war in Pakistan than either the U.S. or Pakistani governments are prepared to acknowledge.

A UN panel investigating the mass rape and murder of peaceful protesters in Guinea recommends that the country's military leader and some of his top aides be tried for crimes against humanity. In a report released Monday, the panel recounted the events of the September massacre in minute detail, based on over 700 interviews. Soldiers burst into a stadium where protesters were rallying peacefully. The soldiers opened fire at close range. Some people were trampled to death in the ensuing chaos. Some soldiers raped female protesters.

Serbian president Boris Tadic handed in his application to join the European Union. Before it can be inducted, Serbia must catch two war criminals who remain at large. Now Serbia must wait until for an international tribunal to evaluate whether it has made sufficient progress in tracking the criminals. If so, Serbia's application could move on to the next step. All told, it will probably take 4 years for Serbia to clear all hurdles to EU membership.

By a vote of 39-20, city legislators in Mexico City passed a bill legalizing gay marriage. The Mayor is expected to sign the bill. If the bill becomes law, Mexico City will be the first municipality in Latin America to recognize same sex unions.

Filmmaker and erstwhile fugitive Roman Polanski lost his bid to get the charges against him dismissed. However, the court acknowledge that there was reason to suspect judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in his case. Polanski excused his flight from justice on the grounds that U.S. justice system violated his rights.

Rev. Tim Jones touched off an international firestorm when he told his flock that it might be okay for poor, hungry people to shoplift food from large chain stores. The Anglican cleric from York, UK is sticking to his guns. Jones said the media distorted his message as a blanket license to shoplift. Instead, he was telling desperate people that it's better to shoplift than turn to crime or prostitution to survive. "My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift," he said to the congregation. "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither."

Dozens of people were injured today when a U.S. flight from Miami overshot a runway in Kingston, Jamaica. A Jamaican official told reporters that the plane had "broken in two" and that 29 people had been taken to hospital. Most injuries were minor.

Christmas Eve marks the 30th anniversary of Russia's invasion of Afghanistan. This year, veterans of that disastrous campaign look on as U.S. President Barack Obama prepares to escalate America's war. "It's very hard to fight in Afghanistan," one veterans' issues advocate told McClatchy, "Your leadership will have to find a way out."

The President of the UN General Assembly is looking ahead to next year's climate talks in Mexico. Most participants left Copenhagen feeling frustrated and disappointed. However, President Ali Treki insists that negotiators made real progress at the Copenhagen talks. He argues that the talks laid a foundation for next year's summit. In Copenhagen, the U.S., China, and a handful of emerging economies inked a last-minute deal that opened the door for some kind of emissions monitoring--a key sticking point during the talks.

The Swiss multinational Nestle recently caved to international pressure to stop buying milk from the wife of Zimbabwean leader Roberto Mugabe, now it's shuttering the plant all together citing harassment. The dairy farm in question was seized from its white owner transferred to Grace Mugabe. The company says that it is being pressured to accept milk from "non-contracted suppliers." Reading between the lines, it seems as if the Mugabe government is retaliating against Nestle for dropping Grace's milk.

The 23-year-old Nigerian who tried to blow up an airplane by setting his crotch on fire claims that he has ties to al Qaeda in Yemen. According to media reports, the U.S. has yet to corroborate his story. Still, the abortive bombing is being discussed in the press as if it explains why the U.S. is spending $70 million over the next 18 months to train the Yemeni military in counterterrorism. Actually, Yemen has actually been on the U.S.'s counterterrorism radar for a long time. Several of the 9/11 hijackers were from Yemen.

The Thai military began an operation today to expel about 4000 members of the Hmong ethnic group to Laos, whence they came. Many worry that the Hmong will not be safe there. The Hmong say they may be persecuted in Laos because the communist government disapproves of them. The Thai government denies that these people deserve refugee status. It claims they are simply illegal immigrants and not victims of political persecution.

Legendary Finnish ski jumper-turned-stripper Matti Nykanen has reportedly been arrested for attempting to murder his wife on Christmas Day. Nykanen, 46, is a four-time Olympic medalist. After retirement, Mr. Nykanen settled into a life as a busker and male stripper. He has a history of violence and alcohol abuse.

A suicide bomber killed 25 Shia Muslims in Karachi as they marched to celebrate the holy day of Ashoura. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, some survivors lashed out at the security forces who had been assigned to protect the marchers. Terrorist attacks have killed 500 people in Pakistan this month. This is the latest in a series of bombings that began after the Pakistani military took on al Qaeda militants on the northeast frontier.

A satirist whose act consists of impersonating Afghan president Hamid Karzai is testing the limits of the country's shaking free speech protections. The impersonator, whose vulgar shtick has gone viral on the cells phones of Kabul, mimics the president's distinctive rapid-fire diction. The performance, chock full of profanities and insults, has offended Karzai's aides, who have already chastised the impersonator in private. One told McClatchy that the mimic has gone too far. "President Karzai doesn't care if they make dramas, comedies or cartoons about him," said one unnamed aide, "But freedom of speech should have its limits. I don't think cursing one's wife — or insulting someone's personality — should have a place in freedom of speech."

A group calling itself a wing of al Qaeda in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the abortive attempted bombing of an airliner bound for Detroit. A statement purporting to be from the group was published on a Yemeni website. According to the statement, the attack was revenge for U.S.-sponsored attacks on al Qaeda in Yemen.

Bolivia's state owned energy company plants to spend $115 million dollars to hook up 150,000 households to natural gas lines. The beneficiaries will some of Bolivia's poorest citizens. The company hopes to hook up 61% of homes in the empoverished el Alto district of La Paz by the end of next year and 100% of homes by the end of 2011.

The Iranian government arrested the sister of Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, an associate of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. The arrest is part of a crackdown on the opposition following violent protests in Tehran. Mr. Ebadi says that his sister has nothing to do with human rights or the opposition movement. He says her arrest is an attempt by the regime to intimidate him.

Nearly 40 people were killed in clashes between members of the Yan Kala Kato sect in northern Nigeria. Officials say the fighting started after residents complained about the sect preaching through mass media. Media reports are hazy about the exact sequence of events that led from the complaints to the killings. The sect is a non-conformist Muslim group comprised primarily of poor people and workers.

Tourists and local residents acted quickly to save about 43 pilot whales out of a group of 125 that beached themselves at Colville Beach on North Island's Coromandel peninsula on Sunday. The bystanders doused the whales with sea water to keep them moist while they waited for the rising tide to re-float them. One rescued whale gave birth immediately after being rescued.

This week, Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre of Argentina became the first same-sex couple in Latin America to legally marry. Thousands of miles away in Malawi, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza celebrated the country's first gay wedding. Unfortunately, the Malawian newlyweds' joy was short-lived. They were swiftly arrested and charged with gross public indecency.

Thousands of people gathered in Karachi to protest an attack on a Shia Muslim procession that killed 43 people. The protest turned violent. Shias are furious at security forces which they blame for failing to protect the procession. Vandals rampaged in the city, setting fire to shops. The Karachi police were forced to call in out-of-town reinforcements to quell the unrest.

Afghanistan is looking for venture capital, and the People's Republic of China has money to invest. For example, Chinese mining interests are preparing to start work on a massive copper mine, located near Kabul. A Chinese company outbid rivals from other nations by more than $1 billion for the mining rights. It is ironic that the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has cleared the way for its leading rival to invest in the war-torn central Asian country.

The corpse of a woman has been found in the basement of the Lebanese embassy in Austria. The name of the 30-year-old woman has not yet been released but she is believed to have worked there as a housekeeper. The body has several stab wounds. The Lebanese Ambassador was out of the country when the body was discovered.

About 5,600 copper miners at the state-owned mining company Codelco rejected the company's contract offer. Union officials said the miners would begin their strike on January 1. It was a close vote. The offer was rejected by a margin of just 1,807 to 1,737. Codelco is the world's largest copper producer. The company said it would not resort to government mediation to avoid a strike.

Two suicide attacks in central Iraq on Wednesday left at least 23 dead and the governor of Anbar province severely wounded. Thirteen of the dead were police officers. The first bomb went off in a car near provincial administration buildings in the city of Ramadi. A few minutes later, after the police showed up to survey the damage, a second bomb went off.

Dutch authorities announced that passengers on flights to the United States would be subject to full-body scans. The change was prompted by the abortive attempt to bomb a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Eve. The would-be bomber concealed explosives in his underwear. It's not clear what kind of technology the scans will use. Let's hope it's not x-rays, which are potentially carcinogenic. It would be really ironic if these scanners killed more people from cancer than they saved from terrorism.

A suicide bomber in an explosive vest killed eight Americans including several CIA officers at the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province on Wednesday. Yesterday was the single deadliest day for the CIA since the attacks of 9/11. The intel agency has only lost 90 operatives in the line of duty since 1947.

Hundreds of demonstrators held an all-night protest to oppose a plan to move prisoners from a Mexican jail in order to film part of a Mel Gibson movie. The governor of the State of Veracruz gave permission to move the prisoners out.

The Obama administration is standing by John Brennan, the official appointed to review the terrorist watchlist. Some observers question whether Brennan can be an objective arbiter, seeing as he used to head an agency that he will be reviewing. Brennan is also the former president and CEO of a government contractor that did terror watchlisting.

The Afghan parliament rejected most of President Hamid Karzai's cabinet picks last week. The legislature voted down 17 out of 24 cabinet nominees including a former warlord and the lone female nominee. Now, the UN is apprehensive about the potential consequences. Top UN diplomat says the mass rejection will postpone the day when Afghanistan has a functioning government.

The Canadian government said Sunday that it would ignore Jordan's request to seize the Dead Sea Scrolls. The sixteen ancient relics were on display through Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum. The scrolls were discovered by Bedouin tribesmen in caves near the border between Israel and Jordan in 1947. Israel currently controls the scrolls, but their ownership has been disputed by Jordanians and Palestinians.

The U.S. and the U.K. have closed their embassies in Yemen after threats purportedly from al Qaeda. A senior U.S. counter terrorism official said the U.S. had intelligence that terrorists were planning to attack the capital city of Yemen, possibly the U.S. Embassy there. Yemen is a U.S. ally and a major recipient of U.S. aid. At this point, officials say that the U.S. does not consider Yemen to be on par with Iraq or Afghanistan in terms of its significance in the overall struggle against al-Qaeda.

A U.S. judge dismissed all charges against former employees of the private security firm Blackwater (aka Xe) in connection with the 2007 shooting deaths of 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nissour Square. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina criticized prosecutors for building their case on statements from witnesses who had been granted immunity in exchange for their testimony. (Why else do prosecutors have the power to grant immunity, if not to encourage people to come forward?) The dismissal can be appealed.

Diesel fuel discharged into a tributary of the Yellow River threatens to contaminate one of China's most important sources of fresh water. "A large amount" of fuel escaped from a pipeline in Shaanxi Province last Thursday, according to state news sources. No word on why a spill that happened on Thursday didn't make headlines until Sunday.

The suicide bomber who murdered eight Americans at a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan was revealed to be a triple agent working for Jordanian intelligence. CIA agents brought the bomber, a Jordanian doctor, into their base because they believed him to be a former al Qaeda figure whom they'd turned as a source. The bombing made clear where his true loyalties lay.

Burma's military leader confirmed that the country would hold elections--the first since 1990. General Than Shwe's advised the Burman people to make "correct choices" in the upcoming vote. Many interpret his admonition as a warning not to vote for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Last time Burmans voted, Suu Kyi's party won by a landslide and the junta ignored the vote.

Some of the world's top climate scientists are huddling with experts from the Central Intelligence Agency. The intelligence agency is giving scientists a rare glimpse at secret satellite images and other high readings that might offer clues about how global warming is affecting the planet. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. The scientists get rare data, the CIA learns more about a phenomenon that military and intel experts expect to play a key role in global security in the years to come.

The alleged mastermind of a massacre that killed 57 people in the southern Philippines last November has pleaded not guilty to 41 counts of murder. Andal Ampatuan, Jr. is accused of leading 100 armed men in an attack on a rival political family, journalists, and innocent bystanders. Observers say the upcoming trial will be a major test of the impartiality of the country's judiciary.

Thousands of Mexico City residents feasted on a massive confection known as Rosca de Reyes yesterday, but not before the 10.5-ton cake set a world record. The ring-shaped dessert had a circumference of 2,360 ft. It was a combined effort by more than 3000 bakers representing 300 bakeries around the capital. This Rosca de Reyes (aka King's Cake) is a jumbo version a confection traditionally prepared for the feast of Epiphany.

One of China's top climate negotiators, He Yafei, has been demoted from his post as vice foreign minister. In Copenhagen, Mr. He was at the forefront of China's efforts to block the universal adoption of the Copenhagen Accord. Also traded barbs with his U.S. counterparts. Hong Kong news outlets are speculating that He lost his job because he failed to smooth relations with the U.S. and Europe.

An association of UK motorists warns that the nation's grit supplies are dangerously low. Weeks of cold weather have taken their toll on stores of sand, gravel, and salt. If the cold snap continues, grit supplies could drop to "critically" low levels, according to the Automobile Association.

The UN's food agency has suspended food aid in southern Somalia because of attacks on staff. The World Food Program is pulling out of six areas controlled by the al-Shabab Islamist group. About a million people depended on those food distribution cites. WFP officials say that they can't operate unless armed groups assure them that their staff will be safe.

Entrepreneurs in South Korea are offering an unusual self-help experience: simulated death. Participants pay the equivalent of US $25 to participate in their own mock demise. Participants write simulated goodbye letters to their loved ones, plan their own fake funerals, and pick out their caskets. The dramatic final act comes when they are nailed inside their chosen coffin. Seminar leaders say the process helps participants assess their lives.

A strike of minibus operators in Kenya completed a two-day strike yesterday. The operators said they were protesting mistreatment and extortion by police. The timing of the job action also coincided with government attempts to regulate the industry. Minibuses are the main form of public transportation in Kenya.

A 23-year-old Nigerian has been indicted for his unsuccessful attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day with explosives hidden in his pants. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab faces six charges including attempted use of a WMD and attempted murder. Note that he has not been declared an enemy combatant, nor whisked away to a secret prison. Abdulmutallab is being held in a federal prison in Michigan.

A band of anti-whaling activists known as the Sea Shepherds are accusing a Japanese whaling vessel of slicing their boat in half by ramming it on the high seas. The Sea Shepherds say that the Shonan Maru No 2, a harpoon ship protecting Japan's Antarctic whaling fleet, deliberately slammed into their speedboat, the Ady Gil. Japanese fishery officials claim that the Shonan Maru collided with the Ady Gil accidentally after the Sea Shepherds sought recklessly to provoke a confrontation. The Sea Shepherds are famous for direct, non-violent anti-whaling actions on the high seas.

Disgraced director Roman Polanski has asked a judge to sentence him in absentia for the rape of a 13-year-old girl 1977. Polanski, 76, is currently under house arrest in Switzerland. Polanski fled the U.S. in 1978 after pleading guilty to improper sexual contact with the teen. He was arrested last year after traveling to Switzerland to attend a film festival. Judge Peter Espinoza said he would consider Polanski's request. Prosecutors oppose any attempt to sentence Polanski before he appears in court.

The 89-year-old white supremacist who opened fire in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. last June died in a prison hospital in North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon. James von Brunn had been awaiting trial for the murder of a 39-year-old security guard at the museum. Von Brunn was wounded in the shootout but survived until yesterday.

At least five Coptic Christians were killed in a drive-by shooting outside a church in southern Egypt. The victims were killed as they celebrated Coptic Christmas Eve. Two Muslim bystanders were also wounded in the attack. The shooters appeared to fire indiscriminately into the crowd. About 10% of Egypt's population is Coptic Christian. Copts often report discrimination and harassment, but outright sectarian violence is rare.

Honduran military officials have been charged with abuse of power in connection with the June 28 coup that removed democratically elected president Mel Zelaya from office. All six members of the Honduran joint chiefs of staff have been charged with abuse of power for deporting Zelaya at gunpoint. Zelaya says that these charges are just a slap on the wrist to distract from much more serious crimes committed during and after the coup, including treason, murder and human rights violations.

A UN human rights expert says that video shown on British TV in August shows extrajudicial executions by Sri Lankan soldiers. Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, retained a team of forensic experts to analyze the footage. The experts said the footage was real. Alston called for a full investigation of alleged war crimes by Sri Lankan government forces against Tamil Tiger rebels last spring.

More Afghan women are taking their own lives according to a human rights report written by Canada's Foreign Affairs Department and obtained by a media outlet through an open records request. The report found that women account for the majority of all suicides in Afghanistan. Increasing numbers of women are attempting to end their own lives by self-immolation. One burn unit in Herat reported over 80 cases of attempted self-immolation in 2008.

Yemen is a U.S. ally, but that doesn't mean it's eager to become the next hub in the U.S.'s war against al Qaeda. A Yemeni group claimed responsibility for the abortive attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day. The would-be bomber reportedly received training in Yemen. Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security, Rashad al-Alimi told a press conference that, while his country is grateful for U.S. defense and intelligence aid, Yemen doesn't want U.S. troops on Yemeni soil.

According to the UN, more than half a million alleged illegal drug users are being held in drug "treatment centers" in China at any given time. According to the New York Times, life for inmates is "an unremitting gantlet of physical abuse and forced labor without any drug treatment." The minimum stay is two years. Yesterday, the NGO Human Rights Watch released a report on the so-called detox facilities. Government-run facilities have been described as little more than money-making opportunities for the police.

Race riots broke out in a small town in Calabria on Thursday after a legal immigrant from Togo was shot with a pellet gun by an unidentified assailant. Perceiving the attack as racially motivated, some African immigrants retaliated by burning cars and smashing shop windows in the town of Rosarno. The authorities responded by forcing more than 1000 immigrants onto buses bound for immigration detention centers. Some allege that ‘Ndrangheta, a powerful organized crime family, of instigating the violence.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai has named an official widely regarded as corrupt and incompetent to be the country's top drug warrior. The UK, which is leading NATO's efforts to curb the multi-billion dollar opium trade in Afghanistan, had lobbied for Zarar Ahmed Moqbel to be disqualified for sheer ineptitude. On the bright side, it's not like anybody else can could stop the opium trade in Afghanistan, either.

On Monday, the UN kicks off the International Year of Biodiversity. Eight years ago the international community agreed to reduce global biodiversity declines by 2010. Unfortunately, it's already clear that the world will fall short of those ambitious goals. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warns that the world must pick up the pace when it comes to saving species. We are losing lifeforms at 1000 times the natural extinction rate, Ban says.

Deposed Honduran president Mel Zelaya is still holed up in the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa. Security forces loyal to the regime that deposed Zelaya are refusing to allow basic supplies to enter the embassy. Officials say pens are a no-go because the embassy guests might use them to harm each other. Also on the banned list are pants, pillows, apples, forks, the Bible, and cigarettes (though the guards will sell cigarettes to guests at inflated prices). No word on why pants are a security threat.

A hundred days after gaining power, the Greek socialist part maintains a 9.2 to 10.6 lead over the conservative opposition, according to a new public opinion poll. Greece is weathering its first full-blown recession in 16 years and the government is scrambling to cut the deficit. The same poll found that Greek voters are evenly divided on the issue of whether the government can turn the economy around, 43.9% say yes but an equal percentage say no.

North Korea says it wants a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, but the U.S. and South Korea aren't prepared to negotiate unless NORK returns to the six-party talks. Washington and Seoul flatly rebuffed Pyongyang's request that the UN sanctions against North Korea be lifted. Those aren't going anywhere as long as Nork has nukes.

In case you haven't been paying attention, Northern Ireland is gripped by a political sex scandal involving a 60-year-old member of parliament and her 19-year-old ex-lover. The MP, Iris Robinson, is married to Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland's first minister. Peter Robinson announced that he was taking leave to deal with the fallout from the affair and alleged financial improprieties stemming from the liaison. Did we mention that Iris Robinson is a noted defender of traditional marriage and "family values"?

The medical officer who opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood was promoted despite a history of bizarre behavior, an investigation has determined. During Nidal Hasan medical training, his supervisors expressed their concern about his zealous religious views and unprofessional behavior. One time, he got in trouble for letting a patient with homicidal and suicidal tendencies wander out of the hospital without permission. Despite lapses in basic medical standards, like answering his beeper when on call and not proselytizing to patients, Hasan was promoted.

Collisions between planes and birds are on the rise as man and fowl compete for crowded airspace. If current trends continue, bird strikes may top 10,000 in 2010--a historic high. Serious accidents are rising faster than minor incidents. Fifty-seven planes were destroyed during the first 7 months of 2009, according to government figures analyzed by the AP. One of the was the famous AirBus that touched down in the Hudson River.

The Confederation of African Football says that Togo is disqualified from the Africa Cup. The Togo team flew home on Friday after their bus was fired upon. The attack killed three people. Togo's sports minister asked that the team be allowed to return to the tournament after a 3-day mourning period. The CAF refused saying that Togo had disqualified itself by missing a qualifying match with Ghana.

The headquarters of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti collapsed in an earthquake yesterday, killing nearly everyone inside. Among the dead is the Tunisian head of mission. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a few people have been pulled from the wreckage alive, but that they are badly injured. About 9000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed in Haiti since 2004.

Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appealed to the world community for assistance after a major earthquake rocked the impoverished island nation yesterday. Buildings and infrastructure in the capital of Port-au-Prince have suffered extensive damage and water and electricity are on the brink of collapse. It's not yet clear how many people died in the quake, Ban told reporters in New York.

The World Health Organization will review allegations that it exaggerated the risks of an H1N1 influenza pandemic. Members of the Council of Europe accuse the WHO of knuckling under to pharmaceutical companies that stood to profit handsomely from sales of anti-viral drugs.

Iran is pointing the finger at the U.S. over yesterday's assassination of physics professor Masoud Ali Mohammadi. The prof was killed by a remote control bomb strapped to a motorcycle. Two others were hurt in the blast, which shattered nearby windows and blew out a garage door. The State Department denies that the U.S. had a hand in the killing of the nuclear expert.

China announced plans to build the world's highest airport in Tibet. The Nagku airport will sit 4,436 m (14,500 ft) above sea level, just 764 m lower than the the Mount Everest base camp. The project is scheduled to begin in 2011 and take 3 years to complete.

Yesterday Mexican authorities announced the arrest of notorious Tijuana drug trafficker Teodoro ("El Teo") Eduardo Garcia Simental. Garcia became known as the stewmaker for boiling his victims in lye to liquefy their remains. Drug-related murders hit an all-time high in Mexico last year, despite strenuous efforts by the Calderon regime to control the drug trade.

Nigeria's president broke a 7-week absence from public life to refute rumors of his death. Umaru Yar'Adua spoke to the BBC to reassure the country. He is undergoing treatment for a heart condition in Saudi Arabia and he had not been seen or heard from in public for weeks. Critics say his absence creates a dangerous power vacuum in Nigeria.

International relief efforts begin in earnest today in Haiti, reports Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch. A massive earthquake on Tuesday afternoon and dozens of aftershocks have reduced the country to ruins. Fourteen UN peacekeepers are confirmed dead and dozens more are still missing. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the catastrophe affected 3 million people, a third of Haiti's population. The U.S. has sent 3500 soldiers and 2200 Marines to help with relief efforts.

Nice going, consigliere. Harvard-educated attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg was gunned down by hitmen in May shortly after recording a macabre video predicting his own assassination at the hands of Guatemalan president Alvaro Colom. Now, UN investigators say that Rosenberg orchestrated his own death to frame the president. According to the UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala Rosenberg, distraught over personal problems, decided to make himself into a martyr. His death rallied conservatives against the left-wing president.

The latest World Health Organization mortality report was released this month. Amongst many other things, the report found that radon gas kills about 20,000 Americans every year. Radon is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas released by the breakdown of naturally-occurring uranium in the soil. It rises up from the ground and accumulates in people's homes. Radon is the second-leading cause of lung cancer in the U.S. after smoking.

A delegation of U.S. Senate Democrats has returned from senate Dems' first visit to Afghanistan since president Obama sent an additional 30,000 troops. Sens. Carl Levin and Al Franken came home optimistic that a Taliban takeover of the U.S.-backed Karzai regime could be avoided. However, the senators remained skeptical of the surge itself. Levin indicated that Democrats would back Obama if he asks for a supplemental appropriation to pay for the escalation in Afghanistan.

A CIA drone strike aimed at Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appears to have missed its target. It appears that Meshud left the compound in Waziristan moments before the drone struck the building. Meshud is suspected of helping to organize the recent suicide bombing of a CIA base.

UN food warehouses in Haiti have reportedly been looted--a sign of mounting anger and desperation among the population of the Caribbean nation, which was devastated by the largest earthquake in the country's history on Tuesday. Many have been without food, water, or shelter for over 2 days. Greg Barrow of the World Food Programme said that the UN was still trying to confirm the reports. UPDATE: CNN Reports this was a false rumor

Haitian earthquake survivors searched for loved ones among the thousands of corpses strewn about the Port-Au-Prince morgue. The morgue ran out of room yesterday, forcing people to stack additional corpses outside in the blazing sun. "I have been to many things, and I have never been to anything like this,'' Canadian medical consultant Yuri Zelenski told McClatchy.

An Iraqi election commission disqualified 500 would-be candidates for the upcoming elections for alleged ties to Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. The full list of names has not been made public but several prominent Sunni businessmen are reported to have been excluded. It's not clear from medi reports what evidence the commission used to make its rulings. The commission has been accused of Shia partisanship.

Why should the Mormons have all the fun? A self-proclaimed polygamist messiah has been arrested in Israel. Jewish sage Goel Ratzon, whose name means "messiah" in Hebrew, reportedly ran a sect with at least 17 female members. He is now in a jail in Tel Aviv awaiting trial for unspecified abuses of his acolytes.

A Ugandan pastor with close ties to U.S. evangelicals announced that he is organizing a massive demonstration in February in support of proposed legislation to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda. Pastor Martin Ssempa, a close ally of President Museveni and mega-church pastor/entrepreneur Rick Warren, is larding his homophobic rhetoric with nationalism. Uganda has been under massive international pressure to quash the law. "We want to give a postcard that (Museveni) can send to his friend (U.S. President) Barack Obama," Ssempa told reporters at a press conference.

Officials are struggling to distribute food and water to Haitians in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake. Relief has poured in from all over the world, but getting the supplies to those in need is proving a formidable challenge. The U.S., the United Nations, and many private aid groups are trying to coordinate their efforts, but coordination is difficult amid the chaos and shattered infrastructure.

On Saturday UN Secretary General confirmed that Hedi Annabi, chief of mission to Haiti, was killed in the earthquake. Annabi, a Tunisian, was believed to have been 65. Ban also confirmed the death of Annabi's deputy and the acting head of the UN police force. Ban departed for Haiti yesterday.

Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini has reinstated ritual circumcision for teenage boys nearly 200 years after a previous king abolished the practice. Public health authorities are alarmed because the public circumcision rituals specified in the king's decree are associated with an unusually high death rate compared to circumcisions performed in hospitals.

The Afghan parliament voted down 10 of 17 of president Hamid Karzai's nominees for cabinet jobs. This is the second time parliament has rejected a majority of Karzai's cabinet picks. One female nominee was approved however. She will be the minister of Work and Social Affairs/Martyred and Disabled.

More details have emerged about Rodrigo Rosenberg, the Guatemalan lawyer who orchestrated his own contract killing in order to frame the president of Guatemala. In the weeks before his death, Rosenberg started claiming he was receiving death threats and even shared the mobile number where the threats were coming from. Investigators later learned that Rosenberg bought that phone and another, which he gave to his assassins.

Rescue workers pulled a survivor from the rubble of UN headquarters in Haiti. The Danish worker was pulled from the rubble about 15 minutes after Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited the site. As each day passes, the prospect of finding victims alive diminishes. So far, international search and rescue teams have worked feverishly to save 62 people. A fleet of 60 government trucks has already picked up the remains of 70,000 quake victims for burial in mass graves, according to a Haitian official.

Chilean voters elected the first right wing president in 52 years. Sebastian Pinera, a billionaire, won 60% of the vote. His rival conceded defeat on Sunday afternoon. Some observers fear that a right-wing government will erode the progress Chile has made on human rights.

A new report in Harper's Magazine casts doubt on the official story about how three Guantanamo detainees met their end in 2006. The U.S. authorities claimed the men committed suicide. That's hard to reconcile with the fact that they were found with rags stuffed down their throats. One of the dead men was severely bruised. The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing former SecDef Donald Rumsfeld and nearly two dozen other U.S. officials over the deaths.

Taliban fighters in suicide vests attacked Kabul in broad daylight on Monday. The attackers paralyzed the city for hours. Suicide bombings and gun battles erupted near the presidential palace and other key cites in the capital.

Yesterday, thousands of Haitians streamed out of the capital city of Port-Au-Prince in old school buses and rickety trucks. They are headed for the interior of the island, which suffered less damage in last Tuesday's massive earthquake. Long lines formed at gas stations as travelers tried to fill up on their way out of town. The price of gas is skyrocketing and there are reports of profiteers gouging consumers.

The FBI has announced the arrest and indictment of 22 people in a foreign bribery sting. One of the men is a former top Secret Service official who ran the Vice President's protective detail. The arrestees allegedly sought to pay bribes to obtain a security contract with an African nation. In fact, they were set up by FBI agents.

Erich Segal, the former Yale classics professor who became famous for his spectacularly schlocky novel "Love Story" has died in London at the age of 72. The novel's famous opening line is: "What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died." The book was published in 1970 and later became Oscar-winning movie starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali MacGraw.

Archaeologists in Egypt may have found a 2000-year-old temple dedicated to the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet. The ruins were unearthed in the heart of Alexandria, a major modern-day port city. The investigators surmise that the temple was dedicated to the cat goddess because it contained so many images of Bastet.

The UN Security Council unanimously voted to send an additional 3500 troops and police officers to Haiti to grapple with the aftermath of last week's devastating earthquake. The reinforcements will bolster the 7000 UN troops already in the country.

Police corruption is the number one concern of ordinary Afghans, ahead of insecurity and unemployment, according to a report released Tuesday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. The report was based on interviews with 7600 people across the country. The report found that Afghans payed more than $2.5 billion in bribes between the fall of 2008 and the fall of 2009.

An earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter Scale shook Port-au-Prince Wednesday, the strongest tremor since the initial quake on January 12. The tremor sent people running into the streets, but no major structural damage was reported. Seismologists say that the aftershocks could continue for days or weeks as the earth adjusts to the original quake.

Pakistan announced that it will not launch any attacks against the Taliban in 2010. The official reason is that the military is stretched to thin. Unofficially, the reticence probably has a lot to do with the merciless bombing campaign that militants have unleashed on Pakistani civilians since Pakistan launched its 2009 offensive against the Taliban on the Northwest Frontier. The U.S. is taking the announcement as a major snub.

Physiology doesn't stop just because civil order breaks down. The UN Family Planning Agency estimates that there are 37,000 pregnant women among the earthquake survivors in Haiti. There are already reports of women giving birth in the streets. Without a concerted effort to address the unique health needs of women, the problem will only get worse. Groups like Circle of Health International are mobilizing to address women's health needs in Haiti.

The non-binding agreement on climate change reached in Copenhagen last month is already in trouble, according to Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC. Countries are supposed to submit their plans for reducing greenhouse emissions by January 31, but so far, fewer than two dozen countries have formally agreed to the terms of the 3-page Copenhagen report.

The words "international scandal" and "wildlife photography" don't often go together. Enthusiasts were shocked when the Natural History Museum's "Wildlife Photographer of the Year", José Luis Rodriguez, was stripped of his title after it was revealed that in his prizewinning photo was a tame rented animal and not a wild specimen. The contest judges didn't say how they learned tht the photo was posed.

UN personnel in Haiti are expanding their earthquake relief efforts beyond the capital of Port-Au-Prince. Peacekeepers from Sri Lanka offered security for a large food delivery in the town of Léogâne, 18km west of the capital. Canadian and Japanese medical teams hope to set up field hospitals soon.

Yesterday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced a kind of stimulus package for Haiti. The somewhat awkwardly named "cash-for-work" program will hire young Haitians to demolish condemned buildings and clear roads of debris. The initiative is part of a long-term strategy for supporting Haiti as it struggles to recover from the worst earthquake in its history. The UN Development Agency has requested $41 million for the project.

Last fall, the Pakistani military tried to force President Zardari to resign over the Kerry-Lugar aid bill, a $7.5bn aid package for Pakistan, according to a new report by the NGO Human Rights Watch. The military reportedly didn't like provisos in the bill that would commit it to fighting terrorism and not interfering with the civilian government.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering regulations to ban the import of nine species of giant snake including the Burmese python. Now that's change we can believe in. A new report by the U.S. Geological Survey found that imported giant snakes are escaping and wreaking havoc in U.S. ecosystems.

The defense contractor that inscribed scripture codes on rifle sites for the U.S. military says it will remove the offending markings. Trijicon said it would send out free modification kits to remove the Scripture citations. GI's are going to have a lot of scraping to do. The U.S. military has already purchased 300,000 rifle sights from Trijicon.

The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan says that at least some Taliban leaders should be stricken from the UN's official list of terrorists as a prelude to entering direct negotiations with the group. Eide also called on the U.S. to expedite its review of the cases of about 750 detainees. He said their incarceration is the major bone of contention with the Taliban.

The top NATO commander in Afghanistan has opened the door to a negotiated peace with the Taliban. However, Gen. Stanley McChrystal also warned that Taliban violence could increase sharply this year as the militants try to destabilize the Karzai government.

An Ethiopian Airlines jet plummeted into the Mediterranean just minutes after taking off in Lebanon. All 90 passengers are believed to have been killed. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined.

A lack of building codes contributed to the staggering death toll of the Haitian earthquake, experts say. While poor construction is endemic in Haiti, structural engineers were surprised at how many major buildings collapsed during the Jan 12 quake. "This was pseudo-engineering. It was terrible," one forensic engineer told McClatchy.

Ousted Honduran president Mel Zelaya announced that he will leave Honduras when the new president takes office on the 27th. Zelaya was deposed in a coup last June. In September, he sneaked back into the country and installed himself in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa where he remained through the compromised elections that brought Lobo to power. Zelaya promises to return someday.

Baghdad was rocked by a series of bombings today, including a suicide attack on a forensics facility that killed at least 18 people and injured 80 others. The confirmed deaths include 12 police officers and 6 visiting civilians. Violence has been intensifying in Iraq since August.

Haitians in Port-au-Prince are struggling to subsist on what little food they can get from emergency relief centers or scavenge from the rubble. "The whole food chain has been trashed," an expert from the UN World Food Program told the New York Times. Meanwhile, the UN announced that it will host a major donor's meeting in New York in March to better coordinate aid efforts for Haiti.

Taking stock of women's rights 2009 at the Association for Women's Rights in Development. Highlights: The UN Commission on Population and Development passed a sweeping affirmation of sexuality rights and sex ed; U.S. president Barack Obama repealed the Global Gag Rule; and Nepal restrictions on abortions.

The Ethiopian jet that crashed into the waters off of Lebanon yesterday made a "strange turn" shortly after takeoff, officials say. For reasons as yet unknown, the pilot defied the control tower and flew in the opposite direction. All 90 people on board are believed to have died in the crash.

China has paid a grandiose tribute to the blockbuster 3D hit Avatar, renaming a mountain in honor of the movie. The mountain formerly known as "Southern Sky Column" in Hunan province, will henceforth be known as the "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain." And you don't even need special goggles to see it.

The UN has removed five former Taliban officials from its sanctions list. They are now allowed to travel freely and their assets are unfrozen. The five were originally placed on the list because of their suspected ties to al-Qaeda. The de-listing is part of a strategy to build trust with the Taliban in the hopes of ultimately negotiating a peace deal.

When you're famished and wracked with pain from an untreated crush injury in Haiti, what better time to learn about Dianetics, "the modern science of mental health"? That's how Scientology sees it. Its volunteer missionaries say they're using "the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems." I hope they remember to wash their hands between patients.

Chinese lawyers and pet lovers are pushing back against ancient culinary traditions. They want dogs and cats off the menu. A group of lawyers are drafting a proposal to ban the sale of dog meat. Proponents say that China is prosperous to give up dog and cat meat and shift to less cute and cuddly forms of protein.

North Korea twice fired mortars into the sea off South Korea, the South Korean media say. The South fired back. None of the shells appear to have hit anything. The North later said that the initial shots were part of a drill.

Polls show that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has been reelected with 58% of the vote. But Rajapaksa's opponent, former Army chief Sarath Fonseka, isn't accepting defeat. Fonseka said he would challenge the election results in court. He also said he feared being arrested as thousands of troops surrounded his hotel.

The "Friends of Haiti," 19 of the ravaged nation's allies, have committed to 10 years of assistance to help Haiti rebuild after the earthquake. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that there would be a more comprehensive UN meeting in New York in March to address Haitian reconstruction.

Three powerful Democratic senators are urging Hillary Clinton to review Plan Colombia, a multi-billion dollar military aid package intended to bolster Colombia's war on drugs. The program was only supposed to last a few years, but 7 years later, it's still going strong. Unfortunately, so is the drug trade. Sen. Russ Feingold doesn't think the U.S. taxpayer is getting value for the money.

1.5 billion people, over half the world's labor force, are at risk of losing their jobs, according to a new report by the International Labor Organization. The ILO is urging governments to act as swiftly and decisively to save jobs as they did to save banks during the financial crisis.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview with Tavis Smiley of PBS that it was "unlikely" that she would seek a second term as Secretary of State if President Obama won a second term. She also stress that she had no interest in running for president. The interview will air tonight.

The democratically elected president of Honduras will leave his homeland. The new president, a favorite of the coup faction that ousted Zelaya, was sworn in as president yesterday. The new president, Porfirio Lobo was elected in a vote so compromised that the UN declined to send election observers.

The Guardian is reporting that the UN held secret peace talks with the Taliban in January. Taliban commanders met with a UN special envoy in Dubai on Jan. 8 to discuss the terms of a peace deal. The meeting offers hope that the Taliban might be willing, for the first time, to accept some kind of international arbitration of the conflict.

British anti-vaccination crusader Dr. Andrew Wakefield was censured by a medical board this week. Wakefield was a co-author of a paper, published in the Lancet in 1998, which purported to show a link between vaccinations and autism in children. Ten of the study's 13 authors have since renounced the paper. The medical board found that Wakefield erred in not disclosing that he was suing the manufacturers of the MMR vaccine while he was doing the research. He was also rebuked for his callous disregard for the pain of children. Wakefield could lose his license to practice medicine.

A UN envoy to Haiti warns that relief efforts are not keeping pace with the tremendous needs of the earthquake survivors. Paul Farmer, the United Nations deputy special envoy to Haiti, told a Senate committee that there is a mismatch between the amount of aid contributed and the relief effort's ability to absorb it. A lack of coordination between aid agencies, a dysfunctional Haitian government, and various U.S. policy failures are contributing to the problem, in Farmer's view.

After a year-long review a panel recommended that about 50 detainees at Guantanamo be detained indefinitely even though there isn't enough evidence to charge them with any crime or put them on trial. Human rights advocates are disappointed in the panel's findings. President Obama's National Security Council is not bound by these recommendations.

The entire budget of the U.S. State Department will be exempt from the 3-year discretionary spending freeze that President Obama announced in his State of the Union address this week. State is spared because it is considered an arm of the national security apparatus. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she's gratified that State is being recognized as a key player in national security.

Israel has reprimanded two senior army officers for setting the UN headquarters in Gaza on fire with white phosphorous shells during the Israeli occupation of Gaza last year. The two officers, a general and a colonel were said to have "exceeded their authority" in calling in the attack. The misdeed will be noted on their permanent records, but they will not be demoted. Israel has already paid the UN more than $10 million to repair the damage to the building.

Thirteen teenagers died early yesterday morning when 15 armed men stormed a house party in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The massacre is believed to have been a case of mistaken identity. The attack was a paramilitary-style raid and observers surmised that the attackers were looking for drug trade rivals. Over 16,000 people have been murdered since the Mexican government declared all-out war on the cartels 3 years ago.

A former spokesman for Bush-era UN Ambassador John Bolton and a New York Post columnist taking shots at the current ambassador, Susan Rice for only spending four days a week in New York. Mark Goldberg of UN Dispatch points out that Rice is the first cabinet-level UN Ambassador, which means that she has work to do in Washington and New York. Furthermore, UN policy is officially made in Washington and implemented in New York. So, the fact that Ambassador Rice spends 3 days a week in DC isn't remarkable.

A woman walked among pilgrims in the Shia neighborhood of Shaab on Monday morning. When she detonated the bomb strapped to her body, and 41 people died. Pilgrims are frequent targets of attacks in Iraq. This week, thousands of Shia are traveling to Karbala, southwest of Baghdad to mark the holy day of Ashura.

Plus ca change... USAID awarded a non-bid contract worth over $25 million to the firm of a major Democratic campaign donor to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in Afghanistan. Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., owned by Democratic donor Vincent Checchi, will train the next generation of Afghan lawyers. The normal bidding process for this contract was waived by the USAID administrator.

Afghan women fear that their rights will be casualties of a peace deal with the Taliban, Una Moore of UN Dispatch reports. Last week in London, more than 70 countries agreed to back Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan to reconcile with at least some of the Taliban. As rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban achieved international notoriety for their brutal repression of women. Female emancipation was a common justification for overthrowing the Taliban in the first place. Activists complained that women rights activists and defenders of civil society were shut out of the conference.

South African President Jacob Zuma is a father again, but neither of his three wives is the mother. Like former U.S. presidential hopeful John Edwards, Zuma has been named in the press of the father of a baby daughter borne to a much younger woman. The mother of Zuma's child is reportedly the daughter of the head of South Africa's World Cup organizing committee.

A feng shui master has lost his bid to inherit the fortune of a multi-billionaire client known to all as "Little Sweetie." A Hong Kong judge threw out a "feng shui" will that purported to leave Sweetie's fortune to the good luck wrangler, who also also claims to have been her lover. Little Sweetie's real estate fortune will now go to charity. Of all the luck!

A group of 14 scientists has broken with tradition and aired its dirty stem-cell speckled laundry in public. The scientists allege in an open letter journal editors that a small clique of researchers has a stranglehold on publishing stem sell research in good journals. Dr Philip Campbell, editor of the prestigious journal Nature denies the existence of any such clique, noting that Nature used 400 different reviewers in stem cell research and developmental biology last year.

Geologists say that Haiti is at such high risk of another earthquake that Port-Au-Prince residents should continue to sleep in tents for the time being, rather than rebuilding structures. They say that there's about a 90% chance of an aftershock of at least magnitude 5 and a 3% chance of a quake of at least 7 on the Richter Scale within the next 30 days.

The Central Intelligence Agency has give agents the go-ahead to moonlight for Wall Street firms. The agency confirmed the allegations after they appeared in a forthcoming book by U.S. reporter Eamon Javers. An intel-linked company, Business Intelligence Advisors (BIA), got official permission to train hedge fund managers in so-called "tactical behavior intelligence," techniques that supposedly suss out liars.

In the immediate aftermath of the devastating earthquake of Jan 12, Haiti was plunged into chaos. The government was paralyzed. The UN, international military forces, and aid agencies struggled to help survivors. Now, the UN is cautiously optimistic about a new food program that has been operating for 4 days. Food coupons redeemable for 55-lb bags of rice have become the new de facto currency of Haiti. Officials hope that the coupon system will make food deliveries more orderly and efficient.

The International Criminal Court in the Hague has ruled that there is enough evidence to try Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for crimes against humanity and war crimes. The ruling overturns an earlier ICC ruling that there wasn't enough evidence to try al-Bashir for these alleged offenses. al-Bashir and his regime are accused of trying to eliminate three Sudanese ethnic groups: the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa peoples.

Think it's cold where you are? Temperatures are so low in Mongolia that even massive hairy yaks are freezing to death. The UN is warning that up to 20,000 families are in economic jeopardy in Mongolia because an extreme cold snap killed their livestock. Nearly 2 million head of livestock, the economic lifeblood of the country's large population of nomads, have died. Mongolians need $6 million in emergency aid to survive until spring, the UN agriculture agency says.

On Monday, the U.S. and Russia began finalizing an agreement that would cut the two countries' stocks of nuclear warheads about to a third. The treaty would also limit each nation to about 700 or 800 airplanes armed with nuclear weapons.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed in a Taliban suicide attack in Pakistan yesterday. The presence of U.S. troops and "advisers" in Pakistan has been downplayed for political reasons, but the deaths make the phenomenon harder to ignore. The soldiers were part of a team of at least 60- 100 Special Forces personnel training Pakistani soldiers.

The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has release a 325-page report detailing the lax anti-money laundering controls in the United States. Huge sums of money are moving around with inadequate supervision thanks to the inaction of banks, lawyers, lobbyists, and others. This is serious because, ultimately, money laundering is what makes big crime pay. What good is hundreds of millions of dollars in drug money if you can't buy houses and cars without getting caught? Money laundering also helps fuel insurgencies and terrorist groups.

The Haitian government is worried that temporary housing erected to shelter victims of last month's devastating earthquake may become permanent. Haitians are taking matters into their own hands and building structures wherever they can find room, with whatever materials are at hand. Aid agencies, grappling with tent shortages, are encouraging people to build their own shelters ahead of the rainy season. But the government is worried that these temporary dwellings will turn into permanent slums and frustrate efforts to rebuild safer communities with more durable buildings.

Hundreds of candidates for Iraq's upcoming elections are back in the race. A court ruled that there was no time to screen the 500 hopefuls before the March vote. However, winners could still be disqualified after the fact if they are later found to have ties to banned organizations. This arrangement was a compromise suggested by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden to avert a boycott of the elections by Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs. Most of the banned candidates were Sunnis and many suspected they were banned for political reasons.

Two U.S.-born giant pandas are due to be returned to China. All giant pandas are officially "on loan" from China must eventually be returned, even if they are born abroad. U.S. zoo goers and the panda's trainers are sad to see them go. The good news is that the bears are returning to find mates and, hopefully, have babies of their own.

To mark World Cancer Day, Mark Leon Goldberg of UN Dispatch reports about a little-known portfolio within the International Atomic Energy Agency: curing cancer. We tend to think of cancer as a disease of the developed world, but the stereotype is false. Half of all cancer diagnoses are for people in developing countries. Over half of all cancer patients in rich countries get radiation therapy, but the treatment is out of reach for many in the developing world. That's where the IAEA comes in. IAEA technicians upgrade an calibrate radiation therapy equipment in 116 poor countries to keep it running safely and effectively.

President Barack Obama will meet with the Dalai Lama, whether China likes it or not. Actually, we already know that China doesn't like it one bit. Bejing has warned Washington that a meeting between the POTUS and the leader of the Tibetan independence movement would harm U.S.-China relations. China is also upset over the U.S.'s decision to sell arms to Taiwan. On the U.S.'s part, there is lingering bitterness towards China for its blatant obstructionism during the Copenhagen climate summit.

Five crates of Scotch whisky and two crates of brandy have been discovered in an antarctic hut that belonged to explorer Ernest Shackleton. Some of the bottles cracked since they were left there in 1909, but many are intact. The bottles were frozen in the ice until preservationists from New Zealand extracted them.

Ten Baptist missionaries are accused of trying to take 33 Haitian children out of the country without permission. A lawyer for all the defendants is trying to shift all the blame to the group's leader, Laura Silsby. The lawyer says that the other nine missionaries were just hapless pawns who had no idea that they needed any stinkin' paperwork to take other people's children to another country. Easy mistake to make. Here in America if you see a cute kid on the street, you can just take him home with you.

Turkish police say they've recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl, known only as MM, who was reportedly buried alive by her relatives for talking to boys. Thanks to an anonymous tip, her body was discovered bound in a meter-deep pit underneath a backyard chicken coop. She had previously been reported missing.

Pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych, rather presumptuously, declared victory in Sunday's run-off election in Ukraine after exit polls gave him a narrow lead over incumbent Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Election officials said that Yanukovych 51.3% to Tymoshenko 43.3% with 27.4% of the vote counted. Tymoshenko says the race isn't over yet. She vows to fight for every ballot.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadineja signaled to his top nuclear official to make purer uranium for a planned Tehran nuclear reactor. Iran and West have agreed in principle to allow Iran to produce nuclear energy, provided the uranium is supplied by other countries, to ensure that Iran doesn't use the uranium to make weapons. But talks are lagging and Iran is seeking leverage to get them started again.

Costa Rica elected its first female president on Sunday by a landslide. Laura Chinchilla of the National Liberation Party swept to power by a nearly 2:1 margin. Chinchilla will replace President Oscar Arias, who defeated her in a close election four years ago. Arias, a Nobel laureate, will be remembered for taking the (notably unsuccessful) initiative to resolve the coup in Honduras.

The American reality TV Show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here" has been fined $3000 Australian dollars for animal cruelty after a contestant killed and ate a jungle rat. Italian celebrity cheft Gino D'Acampo killed the rat and shared it with U.S. actor Stuart Manning. This isn't D'Acampo's first brush with the law. He was sentenced to two years in prison in the late nineties for burglarizing the home of singer Paul Young.

Two Japanese mega-brewers, Kirin and Suntory, broke off merger talks. The two firms had hoped to form one of the world's largest food and beverage firms, but they failed to reach an agreement over merger ratios and governance. Kirin stock dropped 5% on news of the nixed union.

The latest in the brinksmanship between Iran and the West of nuclear power: On Monday Iran told the UN that intended to start making a purer form of uranium for use in its nuclear program. Now, Iran says that it is prepared to call off the plan if it gets the fuel that the West promised to supply. Since striking a tentative deal, Iran and the West have been deadlocked over whether Iran will get to keep its existing stockpile of uranium or hand it over to Russia for further processing. Now, Western countries are calling for yet another round of sanctions against Iran.

Prosecutors in the Philippines indicted clan boss Andal Ampatuan, Sr. and 195 others in connection with the slaughter of 57 people last November on the southern island of Maguindanao. The targets were a local politician from the Mangudadatu clan, his family and associates, and the media who had gathered to watch him file paperwork to campaign for local office. A hundred gunmen ambushed the party. A witness claims that Ampatuan, Sr. said to his son: "You know what to do" [with the people in the convoy]. The Ampuatans maintain their innocence. The indictments coincided with the beginning of a presidential election campaign in Philippines.

A 28-year-old man has reportedly been rescued nearly a month after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti. The man claims to have been trapped their since the quake. Doctors said the survivor was emaciated and disoriented with festering sores on his hands and feet. They have no idea how he could have survived this long. His family said they were able to get water to him to sustain him during the ordeal.

India has postponed what would have been its first commercial GM crop, the brinjal eggplant, due to safety concerns. The plan to grow GM eggplants has faced intense public opposition. India is the world's largest producer of eggplants. Over 4000 varieties are grown there. The GM crop in question is a product of a subsidiary of the U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto. It is said to be more resistant to pests.

Women have been bombarded with the message that their fertility declines precipitously after age 35. These predictions of infertility have lead many to slack off on birth control and even suffer unintended pregnancies as a result. The UK's Family Planning Association (FPA) says that the message has gone too far. Fertility does decline with age, but many women are capable of getting spontaneously pregnant through their forties and even into their fifties. The FPA is mounting a public information campaign called "Conceivable" to educate women about their fertility and their need for contraception.

Unionized public servants in Greece brought the country to a standstill for 24 hours as they pushed back against government cutbacks in the wake of the financial crisis. Air traffic controllers, doctors, teachers, and customs officials walked off the job. The Greek government is trying to save money by cutting public services, freezing hiring, and raising the average retirement age for government workers.

A series of deadly avalanches has killed at least 157 people in a mountain pass north of Kabul, according to officials. More people remain trapped in the ice and snow. Hundreds of vehicles were buried. Four hundred police and 100 volunteers are frantically searching for survivors, 3,800m above sea level.

The Haitian government estimates that 230,000 people have been killed by the devastating earthquake of January 12. That's about 16,000 more than previously estimated. Amazingly, this figure only includes victims were been buried by the government. It doesn't count anyone who was buried by their family or by a private funeral home.

Apple shareholders breathed a sigh of relief upon news of the discovery of three new species of big cats, the Sundaland clouded leopard, the flat-headed, cat and bay cat. Mac has been naming its operating systems after large felines and analysts worry that the company is running out of species. The discovery of three new kinds of big cats postpones a major marketing headache for Apple.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has declared an electrical emergency. A drought has depleted the rivers that turn Venezuela's hydroelectric dams, resulting in acute power shortages.

Contractors are salivating at the prospect of lucrative cleanup contracts in Haiti. It's not even clear who will be awarding these jobs. The Haitian government, the UN, aid agencies, and various mlitaries might have work to outsource. Two politically well-connected U.S. firms, AshBritt and DRC Group, are already meeting with Haitian government officials.

While UN headquarters in New York undergoes a 4-year, $1.9 billion renovation, many staffers find themselves reassigned to spartan interim quarters. Even Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office is making sacrifices--relocating to what the New York Observer calls "a drab, three-story corrugated aluminum box," which some wag has christened "Bantanamo."

The U.S. is taking decisive action to stop the marauding Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes and destroying a $7 billion fishing industry. Nobody knows whether the $78.5 million plan will work. Canadians, who share the Great Lakes, are keeping their fingers crossed. There is a simple, decisive, and effective solution close at hand: Seal off the Lake Michigan from the Mississippi River Basin. However, U.S. authorities aren't ready to take such a drastic step yet.

The government of Bolivia has signed off on a plan to create a space agency. The Bolivian Space Agency will oversee the implementation of a telecommunications satellite. The agency's initial budget will be $1 million.

The U.S. military finally saw fit to release Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam after 17 months in captivity. According to Jassam, the actual release came more than a year after the military admitted to him that they'd made a "mistake." The U.S. military acknowledges no such error. They claim Jassam was disseminating material about insurgent attacks. Jassam was released under the terms of a security agreement.

Former president Bill Clinton was hospitalized for chest pains on Thursday and released on Friday morning with new stents in his carotid arteries. Clinton is the UN Special Envoy to Haiti. He just got back from his second post-quake trip to the ravaged island.

Yvo de Boer, the UN's top official on climate change, abruptly announced his resignation after four years on the job. De Boer says his departure is unrelated to the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit, which was widely regarded as disappointing. He says he's bowing out now in order to give UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon enough time to replace him before the next big climate change summit in November 2010.

First, the good news: Foreign aid to developing countries is at an all-time high. Now, the bad news: Several rich countries won't give all that they promised, according to a new report by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, and Portugal will give considerably less than they said they would at the Gleneagles and Millennium + 5 summits.

Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, U.S. mega-pastor Rick Warren's man in Africa, screened gay porn for his congregation to build support for a proposed law to intensify the legal persecution of homosexuals. Ssempa, who equates homosexuality with pedophilia, evidently had no problem exposing the minors of his congregation to sexually explicit material in church. The BBC quoted Ssempa as saying: "We are in the process of legislation and we have to educate ourselves about what homosexuals do."

Plagiarism allegations are flying fast and furious these days: the Daily Beast's Gerald Posner, that NYT Dealbook blogger... Now, J.K. Rowling author of the beloved and lucrative Harry Potter series is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit by the estate of an obscure writer whose heirs believe that Rowling lifted material from his book, "The Adventures of Willy the Wizard - No 1 Livid Land." The estate of Adrian Jacobs, who died in 1997, is suing Rowling's publisher. Rowling, no doubt livid herself, vehemently denies the charges.

Mexico City, one of the world's most polluted cities, is launching a loaner bike program to help curb emissions. The city is wrapped in a dense smog that accounts for 9.1% of CO2 emissions for the entire country. Ecobici program will distribute 1,114 bicycles to 85 depots around the city. For an annual fee of 300 pesos (U.S. $23), users will be allowed to borrow bikes for up to 30 minutes at a time.

A disgruntled software engineer crashed his small plane into an Austin outpost of the Internal Revenue Service yesterday. The crash killed the pilot, Joseph Stack and at least one other person and engulfed the building in flames. Stack appears to have posted an anti-government manifesto on his website before the attack. He said he hoped that the attack would galvanize others to rebel against what he saw as a tyrannical state.

The United Nations is appealing for a record $1.44bn dollars to help Haiti recover from the earthquake that devastated the island last month. UN special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton made the appeal, the largest humanitarian ask since the 2004 tsunami. Time is of the essence. The rainy season is coming and Haitians desperately need shelter, medicine, food, sanitation, and other necessities. "Pledge less and give it. And do it sooner than later," Clinton said at a fundraiser.

Despite an active lifestyle and a sugar-free diet of raw fish, some bottlenose dolphins develop insulin resistance--every night. Scientists discovered that trained dolphins that snacked all day and fasted during the night became insulin-insensitive in much the same way that humans with type-2 diabetes do. The dolphins, however, snapped out of their insulin insensitivity every morning. Marine biologists hypothesize that dolphins naturally manipulate their insulin sensitivity to preserve their blood sugar levels when they're fasting. The genes behind this capacity may one day help humans with diabetes.

A series of cyber-attacks on Google and other U.S. corporations has been tentatively linked to two post secondary schools in China, one with close ties to the Chinese military. Investigators told the New York Times that the attacks were aimed at capturing trade secrets and correspondence between Chinese human rights activists. The attacks may have started as early as April.

Canadian foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon is concerned that the election laws in Afghanistan may rewritten to "diminish the expertise" of the Electoral Complaints Commission--an international oversight body that helped monitor the last presidential vote. According to a news report, Afghanistan has drafted changes to election laws to kick the three foreign members of the five-member ECC off the commission. The draft changes would also reportedly limit the number of women in the Afghan parliament.

The leaders of the most powerful rebel group in Darfur signed a temporary cease-fire agreement on Saturday. The deal between the rebel Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese government took effect immediately. A spokesman for the JEM said that more details on security and refugees would be hashed out the coming days in Qatar, which is hosting the talks.

A minaret at the Meknes World Heritage site in central Morocco collapsed on Feb 19, killing 41. In the wake of the disaster, the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization (UNESCO) is offering to help. The head of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, expressed her sympathies to the victims. She offered to dispatch UNESCO experts to evaluate the structural integrity of other ancient mosques in Morocco.

A spokesman for the junta that seized power in Niger last Thursday promises that the small African country will return to democracy ASAP. Many of the same military leaders overthrew the government of Niger in 1999 and subsequently held elections. The junta stepped in after Niger's now-deposed president tried to abolish term limits and dissolve parliament. UN Diplomats and representatives of the African Union met with the leader of the coup on Sunday.

About 4000 pilots for the German airline Lufthansa are holding a 4-day strike against outsourcing. The Cockpit union fears that the airline will shift jobs to foreign subsidiaries like Austrian Airlines in an attempt to save money. The company has reportedly asked a German court to halt the strike, arguing that its impact is "disproportionate." About two thirds of flights on Lufthansa and its sister airlines will be canceled during the strike.

A NATO airstrike on a suspected military convoy killed 27 civilians on Sunday in the southern province of Uruzgan, according to a statement released by the Afghan cabinet. The airstrike was not part of the major NATO offensive in Helmand province. The Afghan government condemned the attack as counterproductive to successful counter-terrorism.

The disgraced private security firm formerly known as Blackwater is "likely" to win a contract to run an Afghan police training program, reports Laura Rozen of Politico. An unnamed source told Rozen that both Gen. Stanley McChrystal and US Ambasador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry had recommended Blackwater for the gig.

Electronic waste is a growing environmental threat in the developing world, according to a new report by the United National Environment Program (UNEP). The report predicts that China will produce seven times more e-waste in 2020 from mobile phones than it did in 2007. China produced 2.3 million tones of e-waste in 2010. Officially importing e-waste to China is illegal, but the country remains a global dumping ground for toxic byproducts of electronics manufacturing.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, 69, has been hospitalized after an episode of chest pain. Doctors say Cheney is "resting comfortably" at George Washington University Hospital. The former vice president has a long history of heart disease. Cheney has been in poor overall health lately, attending last year's inauguration of President Barack Obama in a wheelchair after a fall.