SOUTH KOREA: President Barack Obama delivered a stern message on Thursday to North Korea and Iran telling them to halt their nuclear ambitions to avoid facing further sanctions and isolation.

BANGLADESH: Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld death sentences on the five ex-army officers convicted of killing the country’s first president in a coup 34 years ago.

SOUTH AFRICA: South African leader Jacob Zuma vowed to make the fight against corruption a top priority for his government.

Runner Castor Semenaya, whose gender was questioned, will keep her  World Championship medal.

GUINEA: An African Union human rights representative says he was denied entry into Guinea, where he planned to investigate alleged mass killings and rapes by the country’s military.

EU leaders are meeting today in Brussels to decide who will be the new EU President. France and Germany are likely to support the Belgian Prime Minister, Herman van Rompuy.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development doubled its 2010 growth forecast for developed economies, which is largely due to accelerated growth in Asian economies.

France beat Ireland in a contentious win in its World Cup Soccer qualifying match Wednesday night, on a play that many believe included an illegal “handball” from French player Thierry Henry.

RUSSIA and CIS:

Russia’s Constitutional Court has extended a moratorium on the death penalty, which was imposed after it joined the Council of Europe in 1996. The Court chairman said the ban has set in place an “irreversible process to abolish capital punishment” in Russia.

Speaking at the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, President Medvedev spoke out against the 3,500 deaths caused daily by accidents on the road. Russia is one of six countries that will receive part of a $125 million donation from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to promote road safety.

Kyrgyzstan has deported a human rights activist who was investigating abuses against Muslims. The activist, Bakhrom Khamroyev, who worked for the human rights group Memorial, was detained and deported to Russia. Actisits say political freedoms in Kyrgyzstan have been declining since Kurmanbek Bakiev came to power in 2005.

Opposition activists in Moscow have obtained a copy of of a high-level police memo ordering officers to disrupt a series of lawful protests.

The Russian Foreign Ministry is expressing concern about the declining status of the Russian language in former Soviet Republics, particularly in the Baltics and in Ukraine, where Russian has no official status and where there reportedly is pressure on Russian-language education. In Kyrgyzstan, the country’s main political party has adopted draft legislation making Kyrgyz the official language for diplomats and diplomatic record-keeping.

MEXICO: Mexico’s abortion debate is headed to the federal level after a 17th state in the country passed a law declaring life begins at conception.

CUBA: Experts in Cuba say 70 percent of the soil on the island is threatened by erosion.

YEMEN: The Yemeni army said that it has succeeded in pushing back an attack by Houthi rebels on the northern Yemeni city of Saada.

AFGHANISTAN: In a ceremony in the capital Kabul, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a second five-year term.

PAKISTAN:At least 19 people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan.

PALESTINE: Israeli jets bombed a weapons-manufacturing facility and two smuggling tunnels in the southern Gaza Strip today. The airstrikes came in response to recent rocket attacks on Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in an interview with Egyptian television denied that Israel, or the US has asked him to remain in office.

IRAN: US President Barack Obama warned of “consequences” if Iran does not accept the IAEA-backed proposal on a nuclear fuel deal.

ISRAEL: China criticized the Israeli government’s decision to build 900 more units in the part of Jerusalem claimed by Palestinians, saying it poses new obstacles to the Middle East peace process.

A group was formed to restore Jewish presence to the Joseph’s tomb compound in Nablus nine years after the Israel Defense Forces withdrew from the area.

Cordesman explains how foreign fighters are playing a role in the conflict and the obstacles blocking success for the Pakistani military.

Al Jazeera English’s Kamal Hyder reports from South Waziristan on the Pakistani army’s claims of progress against the Taliban — only one month after the offensive began.

CHINA: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met with US President Barack Obama in Beijing, where they discussed a range of issues of common concern to both countries. China made few concessions to the U.S.

INDIA: Ahead of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington, the U.S. is asking Pakistan to take actions against the groups allegedly responsible for the Mumbai attacks.

SOUTH KOREA: Legislators of South Korea’s National Assembly were in favor of the government’s latest decision to dispatch military forces to protect civilian aid workers in Afghanistan.

SOMALIA: Late Tuesday a woman accused of committing adultery was stoned to death in Somalia. A judge working for the militant group Al-Shabaab said the women had given birth to a stillborn baby. Her boyfriend was given 100 lashes.

Pirates on Wednesday attacked the US flagged ship Maersk Alabama for the second time. Just seven months ago the ship was attacked and the captain taken hostage, though he was eventually rescued. This time the ship was able to repel the attack.

ITALY: The UN Food and Agriculture Summit ended Wednesday with little progress in the way of a new strategy to combat hunger, as aid agency Oxfam said the effort offered little more than “crumbs” to the one in six people who do not have enough to eat.

GERMANY: Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that German troops would stay in Afghanistan for another year, though she would not commit additional troops to the region.

UK: Queen Elizabeth II laid out new plans for financial regulation in her speech at the opening of Parliament on Wednesday.

LATIN AMERICA: Analysts say that the number of people per household in Latin America will drop by 18% in 2020.

EL SALVADOR: The government in El Salvador estimates $880 million worth of damage due to flooding and mudslides in the country in early November.

MEXICO: Experts in Mexico say that the epidemic of obesity in children could reduce life expectancy rates in the country.

IRAQ: Preparation for Iraq’s January general elections are on hold because Iraq’s Sunni Arab vice president vetoed part of an election law.

ISRAEL: The United States, in an unusually strong criticism of Israel, voiced dismay at the approval of new Jewish housing in annexed east Jerusalem.

A charity linked to the militant Hamas group offered $1.4 million dollars for anyone who takes an Israeli soldier hostage.

UAE, DUBAI: American talk-show queen Oprah Winfrey apologized to her followers for an episode of her show featuring women from around the world in which a guest from Dubai gave false information about life in Dubai.

PALESTINE: Israeli bulldozers demolished a two-family Palestinian home in the town of Al-Isawiya in occupied East Jerusalem today, the second home demolition in two days.

CHINA: U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged cooperation between the two countries on a range of issues including the climate change and nuclear safety in the Korean peninsula and in Iran. However, both leaders have not refrained from pointing out remaining differences between the two nations.

SOUTH KOREA: South Korea has promised to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent below expected levels in 2020. The announcement is expected to put pressure on other developed nations to fight global warming more aggressively.

GUINEA: Recruits for Guinea’s military junta are being trained by South African and Israeli military officials according to the news agency AFP. Witnesses claim to have seen the training exercises in a town south of the capital Conkary.

Man using a vuvuzela at a soccer game

SOMALIA: Somalia is once again the world’s most corrupt country. In Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index which measures perceived levels of public sector corruption, Somalia took the lowest spot with a score of 1.1 out of 10.

SOUTH AFRICA: The noisy South African vuvuzela trumpet is under attack again, this time by Japan. The Japanese Football Association President has requested the trumpet be banned from next years World Cup saying its loud noise limits communication with players, coaches, broadcasters, etc. The vuvuzela is a common instrument used by South African soccer fans.

GERMANY: A 90-year-old former Nazi SS member was charged Tuesday with 58 counts of murder in the deaths of forced Jewish laborers in Austria.

SPAIN: Pirates have released a Spanish vessel with 36 crew members which they had held for 6 weeks, according to Spain’s prime minister.

FRANCE: A Frenchwoman who was kept in Iranian prison after allegedly “provoking rioters” during Iran’s post-election protests appeared in Iranian court on Tuesday, and then returned to the French Embassy, where she has been permitted to remain since August.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Czechs mark the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution today, which lend to the end of Communist rule in the former Czechoskovakia. Thousands of people in the capital Prague are celebrating with with reenactment of a student protest.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

A British security software firm says Russian criminals are making millions off the H1N1 flu epidemic by selling fake flu drugs over the Internet. The firm, Sophos, intercepted web sites and hundreds of millions of fake pharmaceutical span adverts, many of which are based in Russia.

A Russian human rights campaigner has been killed with a bullet shot to his head, as he entered his apartment building. The 26-year-old, Ivan Khutorsky, reportedly campaigned actively against neo-Nazi groups.

Vladimir Nabokov’s last unfinished novel “The Original of Laura” goes on sale today in London and New York. Nabokov had made his wife promise to burn the manuscript after his death, but she refrained from doing so, leaving it to their son Dmitri to decide its fate.

The Russian Orthodox Church is considering severing ties with the Evangelic Church in Germany, after the latter elected its first female leader last month. The Orthodox Archbishop reportedly said the church could not maintain a dialogue with a church headed by a woman.

The Wall Street Journal reports on the death in a Russian prison of a lawyer for the investment fund Hermitage Capital. The lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was jailed a year ago on tax evasion charges. At a court hearing this past September, he complained of inhumane conditions at the prison and of being denied medical treatment.

EL SALVADOR: The Yaqui indigenous group in Mexico has finally won the battle to get back the remains of some of their lost heroes, held in the storage of New York’s American Museum of Natural History for more than a century.

ARGENTINA: Argentina has granted its first marriage license to a gay couple, both men HIV positive.

GUATEMALA: Forty percent of Guatemala’s elderly are living in a state of poverty.

PALESTINE: The European Union said that it is “premature” for the Palestinians to try to have the UN recognize an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.

ISRAEL/SYRIA: French president Nicolas Sarkozy says his country is ready to mediate between Syria and Israel and warns that extremists could benefit from a continued deadlock in the Mideast peace process.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia’s government has said that all military activities have ceased on its southern borders with Yemen.

EGYPT: Amnesty International warned in a report out today that Egypt must take immediate steps to ensure there is no repeat of a 2008 rockslide that killed more than 100 residents of a Cairo shantytown.

IRAN: Iran’s nuclear envoy denied that the IAEA tour of its recently revealed uranium enrichment site has turned up any evidence that the Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

ISRAEL: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned today that Iran’s nuclear program posed a threat not just to Israel, but to the entire world.

CHINA: President Barack Obama pointed out the importance of unlimited access to information and called for Internet freedom during a town hall-style meeting with Chinese students in Shanghai. President Obama’s meeting was not broadcast live on national TV across China and the national news website Xinhua only made the transcripts of the meeting available even though it had earlier announced the meeting would be broadcast live online.

Police detained dozens of activists and petitioners in Beijing and other parts of China as President Obama arrived on his first trip to the country, human rights groups said on Monday.

AUSTRALIA: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd offered a historic apology to thousands of impoverished British children who were forced to migrate to Australia with promises of a better life and were abused and neglected under state care. However, the government ruled out paying compensation.

MAURITANIA: Law enforcement and justice officials are learning some key tools to fight the practice of slavery. On Sunday training began to help these groups of officials uphold the 2007 law that bans slavery in Mauritania.

KENYA: Eleven people were killed when cattle raiders ransacked a village in central Kenya. There has been in increased amount of similar attacks as pressure from severe conditions due to the ongoing drought pushes clans to vie for resources.

ZIMBABWE: Tourism seems to be on the rise in Zimbabwe. According to the chief of tourism hotels have been around 60% full since the formation of the unity government in February compared to last years occupancy of only 30%. He attributes the increase to better political and economic stability brought about by the new government.

FRANCE/BRAZIL: The leaders of France and Brazil presented a joint plan on Saturday aimed at cutting emissions in advance of the Copenhagen climate change conference next month. They hope to convince other world leaders to adopt their plan.

UK: The British and Australian governments have issued an apology to the thousands of poor British children who were shipped to Australia and other former British colonies until the 1960s. Many of the children were abused and neglected, and often wound up in institutions or as farm laborers.

KOSOVO: Kosovo has peacefully conducted its first independent elections. Despite minority Serb calls for a boycott, voter turnout was estimated at 45 percent.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

Russia’s Energy Minister announced that it has delayed the launch of Iran’s first nuclear power plant, citing technical reasons.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke out following President Medvedev’s meeting with Barak Obama on Sunday, declaring that Moscow is still hoping for a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear problem.

The world’s largest country is growing even bigger. As a result of earthquakes in the far east, Russia’s territory has expanded 4.5 square kilometers over the past three years.

Chechnya’s international airport opened this morning, when its first international flight in 15 years set off with passengers traveling to Saudi Arabia to make the Hajj pilgrimage.

LATIN AMERICA: Due to the fact that Europe is tightening its immigration laws, more and more immigrants from Africa are headed to Latin AmerIca.

EL SALVADOR: Authorities in El Salvador have raised the death toll to 192, after heavy rains caused massive mudslides in the country last week.

BRAZIL: Wrapping up a visit to Brazil, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights decried discrimination against Afro-Brazilians and indigenous groups, who she said lack access to basic services, employment, and are “mired in poverty.” She said these problems would hamper Brazil’s progress in other areas.

YEMEN: Yemen is once again is accusing Iran of funding Houthi fighters in their war against government forces in northern Yemen. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s military is continuing its shelling of Huthi positions in northern Yemen while a spokesman for the rebels said the Huthis have fired Katyusha rockets at a Saudi military base.

IRAN: The IAEA reported that Iran may have more secret nuclear sites.

PALESTINE: Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat said yesterday that seeking UN Security Council recognition was aimed at protecting the two-state solution, which the PLO still prefers.

An Israeli cabinet minister said that Israel could annex more of the West Bank if Palestinians declared statehood without concluding a peace agreement.

PAKISTAN: A suicide bomber attack has killed at least four people in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.

JAPAN: The United States and Japan must “find ways to renew and refresh the alliance for the 21st century,” said President Barack Obama in Tokyo on Friday. He agreed to reopen talks on the contentious issue of the relocation of a U.S. airbase in the island of Okinawa.

CHINA: The general consensus at today’s APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting was that the balance of global growth is shifting towards Asia, with China, India and to some extent Indonesia leading the recovery from the global economic recession.

SUDAN: Eleven people were recently killed in tribal clashes in South Sudan’s Jonglei state. Clashes among rival ethnic groups often erupt over issues of cattle rustling and natural resources. Over 2,000 people have died and 250,000 been displaced in South Sudan since January.

SOMALIA: Twelve Somalis were arrested on Thursday on suspicion of piracy by the French navy. The suspects were captured 650 miles off the coat of Somalia.

Europe has officially emerged from the worldwide economic recession. The European Union expanded by 0.2 percent in the third quarter.

SWITZERLAND: Google Inc. is headed to court over charges of violating Switzerland’s personal privacy laws though the use of its Street View application. The application — which allows users to see a 360-degree view of a street-level location– is being criticized for identifying people without their knowledge.

VATICAN: A four-day symposium to bring the Vatican into the digital age began on Thursday. Officials and bishops are being trained on internet tools such as Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

Russian President Medvedev will meet with US President Obama on Sunday on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Singapore. On the agenda: a new arms reduction deal and the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.

The diaries of a British journalist who was one of the first to write about the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine will go on display to the public for the first time in London tomorrow.

Three people have been killed in a blast in a cemetery in the southern republic of Dagestan. The victims had come to pay tribute to police officer Abdumalik Magomedov, who had been killed last year.

Russia’s police scandal is widening. Two more policemen have posted appeals to President Medvedev on YouTube speaking out against abuse and corruption in the country’s police force: Mikhail Yevsev, who alleges police fabricated cases against innocent citizens, and Gregory Chekalin.

Lake Titicaca in Bolivia Photo: flickr user: Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak

BOLIVIA: Evaporation due to global warming has caused the Lake Titicaca in Bolivia to be at its lowest level since 1949.

MEXICO: Mexican President Felipe Calderon says he rejects a proposal by business leaders in the border town of Ciudad Juarez for U.N. peacekeepers to enter the town and quell drug-related violence.

CHILE: Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean president, said that there are signs that the economies of Latin America are turning the corner after the global recession.

EL SALVADOR: Aid agencies say that as many as 10,000 people may need food assistance in the Central American country after massive floods which left at least 140 people dead and destroyed acres of crops.

PAKISTAN: A suicide bomber today attacked the northwestern regional headquarters of the Pakistani intelligence agency killing more than 17 people and wounding many more.

TURKEY: A Turkish diplomatic source has said that the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog (IAEA) revealed the details of a proposal suggesting Turkey as a third-country destination for transport of Iran’s enriched uranium. On another front, the Turkish government announced new details today of its plan to reconcile with its minority Kurds in hope of ending an insurgency that has dragged on for 25 years.

SYRIA: Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, in France to meet with President Nicolas Sarkozy, says Syria wants peace with Israel but questions Israel’s commitment to the process.  The visit comes after talks between Sarkozy and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

ISRAEL:Israeli army officials said today that Israeli troops killed one Palestinian and wounded four others along the Gaza border in what the military described as an attempted bomb attack.

An American Jewish group criticized Hezbollah for removing the “Diary of Anne Frank” from textbooks in a private school in Beirut.

AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban claimed responsibility on Friday for a suicide bombing attack near US military base outside the Afghan capital Kabul. The attack target was a NATO convoy.

For more on the emerging U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, Daljit Dhaliwal talks with Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute and a former State Department analyst on Afghanistan.

Weinbaum discusses what he sees as the most important strategic focus in Afghanistan and an assessment of Ambassador Karl Eikenberry’s recently leaked comments calling for fewer troops.

There is another issue that permeates just about any conversation surrounding troop levels — the perception and the reality of widespread corruption in Afghanistan. Jonah Hull of Al Jazeera English reports on the perceptions of corruption from inside Afghanistan.

SINGAPORE: Asia-Pacific nations pledged on Thursday to embrace more flexible exchange rates as they start to scale back their stimulus spending in the wake of easing of the global financial crisis.

NEPAL: Tens of thousands of Maoist demonstrators flooded the streets of Nepal’s capital on Thursday to call for the resignation of the government.

CHINA: Human Right Watch released a report on Thursday accusing China of running unlawful detention centers called “black jails” in which ordinary citizens can be kept for months.

SOMALIA: A judge well known for sending Islamic militants and pirates to prison was gunned down outside a mosque in Somalia’s Puntland region. Three people have been arrested in relation to the killing.

SUDAN: The Sudanese government has announced that the Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camps that house millions of displaced Darfuris will be shut down beginning in 2010. The government says they have begun constructing housing units to relocate the IDPs. Rebel groups have criticized the move.

NIGERIA: A Nigerian group is demanding that traditional leaders follow in the footstep of Britain and the US and apologize for their complicity in the transatlantic slave trade.

FRANCE: France has begun vaccinating high-risk people as it launches its swine flu vaccination campaign, despite a recent poll which revealed 76% of the public does not want to be vaccinated.

UK: Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced plans to toughen immigration rules into the UK by restricting the number of professions that can recruit in countries outside of Europe.

NORWAY: A freelance journalist from Norway who was captured in Afghanistan with his interpreter has been freed, according to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev presented his annual address to the nation today, emphasizing the need for Russia to refocus its economy on telecommunications, space and information technology.

Vladimir Putin has been named the third most powerful person of the year by Forbes Magazine, following Chinese President Hu Jintao and US President Barak Obama.

The legendary Russian goldsmith Faberge, known for the jeweled eggs it produced in the 1880s, is back in business. The House of Faberge is introducing a new line of jewels that will be sold on-line and at its single shop in Geneva.

A German court has dropped all charges against Dmitry Kovtun, who had been a suspect in the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Estonia’s economy shows signs of improvement: the country’s economic decline slowed in the third quarter for the first time since 2007.

AFGHANISTAN: The White House has said that US military commitment to Afghanistan is “not open-ended,” warning that the Afghan government must take steps to improve the way the country is run.

LEBANON: The leader of the Lebanese group Hezbollah has accused US President Barack Obama, of “absolute bias” in favor of Israel and of disregard for the dignity of Arabs and Muslims.

ISRAEL: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signalled to French President Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel is willing to withdraw from the Golan Heights as part of a peace deal between Syria and Israel.

YEMEN: A Yemeni Houthi leader has called for a ceasefire and expressed his group’s willingness to engage in dialogue with Saudi Arabia amid reports that Saudi Arabia’s forces have penetrated inside Yemen.

PALESTINE: The Palestinian Election Commission has recommended the postponement of presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for January.

U.S. soldiers at a ceremony recognizing bravery in Afghanistan. Photo: Flickr user USarmyafrica

As President Obama considers his options in Afghanistan, a strong voice of dissent has emerged challenging the American commander in Afghanistan’s call for another 40,000 troops.

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, says that no more than 15,000 additional forces should be committed — mostly to train the Afghan army. Meanwhile, NATO allies are also pledging to send more troops.

Should the United States commit any more troops to the war in Afghanistan?

In this week’s New Yorker, Seymour Hersh, the well-known national security correspondent, writes about a secret plan by the Obama administration to use American troops, if necessary, to protect Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

Daljit Dhaliwal talks to Hersh about why the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only — or even the greatest — concern. Hersh contents that the principal fear is mutiny: extremists inside the Pakistani military could stage a coup and take control of some of the country’s nuclear assets.

A North Korean sailor on the U.S.S. Pueblo, captured in 1968. Photo: Ben Piven.

KOREAS: A North Korean patrol ship exchanged fire with a South Korea naval vessel along their disputed western naval coast. The North Korean ship was badly damaged and retreated in flames. Both sides blamed each other for the incident.

JAPAN: Japan’s government has pledged five billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan over the next five years. The money will mostly go to civilian aid, infrastructure, job training and rehabilitation efforts for former Taliban soldiers.

AUSTRALIA: An environmental group wants the Australian government to categorize koalas as endangered.  The Australia Koala Foundation says the population of koalas has declined by 90% in the past two decades due to drought, over-development and disease.

LIBYA: Libya’s interior minister on Monday said that the country has reduced the number of  African migrants attempting to reach Europe illegally by sea by 90% through greater cooperation with Italy.

RWANDA: A Belgian court has ruled that the case against Ephrem Nkezabera, also know as the “Banker to the Genocide,” will go ahead despite his absence due to illness. Nkezabera is charged with helping to fund the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

SOMALIA: The United Nations is warning of significant displacement of Somalis due to heavy rains. The rains also make aid distribution even more difficult.

UK: Lloyds Bank has announced plans to cut 5,000 jobs by the end of 2010.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Czech officials said they would discipline soldiers for wearing Nazi symbols while in Afghanistan.

TURKEY: The Turkish government announced a plan to make peace with its Kurdish insurgents who have been waging a separatist battle for decades.

RUSSIA AND CIS: Swine flu cases in Russia have surpassed 4,500, and 19 people have died from the pandemic. In the far eastern Khabarovsk region, people working in shops, food services and the transportation sector are required to wear masks; those who refuse to comply will be fined.

Some 72 percent of Russians consider themselves happy, up from an all-time low of 42 percent in 1992, according to a poll conducted by the All Russian Public Opinion Research Center. The “happiest” respondents were young people living in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Russians today celebrate the birthday of Mikhail Kalashnikov, founder of the AK-47, who turns 90, and note the death of Nobel-prize winning physicist Vitaly Ginzburg, who helped develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb.

Russia’s security service caught fourteen members of an international prostitute ring. The ring, including citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, recruited girls from the Russian provinces and sent them to Europe, where they were forced into prostitution.

Russia’s Constitutional Court held hearings yesterday on whether or not to reimpose the death penalty in the country. There is currently a moratorium on the death penalty, which expires on January 1.

Videos posted by a policeman from Novorossiisk have become a media sensation in Russia. Policeman Alexei Dymovsky posted the videos last week, in which he addresses corruption in the police and appeals to Prime Minister Putin to improve conditions for the demoralized force. In response, Dymovsky was fired from his post. He now faces three investigations, including one for slander.

PAKISTAN: At least 30 people were killed and 50 injured in a bomb blast ripped through a busy traffic intersection in northwest Pakistan.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defense Minister said that his country’s military will continue its air assault against Yemeni rebels until they retreat from the two countries’ border. Also, a Saudi Arabian government adviser says the kingdom has imposed a naval blockade on northern Yemen’s Red Sea coast to try to prevent weapons and fighters flowing to Shiite rebels in the area.

ISRAEL: Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi said that the Lebanese group Hezbollah currently possesses tens of thousands of rockets, some capable of reaching up to 185 miles within Israel.

LEBANON: Months after parliamentary elections, Lebanon’s prime minister Saad al-Hariri formed a new Cabinet, which includes members of Hezbollah and its allies.

PALESTINE: Aides close to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said that he intends to resign and that other Palestinian officials would follow suit.

Remains of the Berlin Wall Photo: via flickr by riotcitygirl

SOUTH KOREA: As Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall, South Koreans reflect on their own version of the wall, which represents the last Cold War frontier - with communist North Korea. Editorials in South Korean newspapers urge the country to contemplate their own division and be seriously prepared for a possible re-unification of the Koreas.

CHINA: China blocked a website that displays twitter messages with thoughts on the fall of the Berlin Wall after nearly 2000 Chinese web users in the country posted their tweets on the site. The Berlin Twitterwall is supported by Reporters without Borders and has displayed more than 6000 messages so far.

JAPAN: President Barack Obama will visit Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea later this month.

SUDAN: Sudanese President Omar al Bashir will not attend the Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting held in Turkey on Monday. Turkey was experiencing pressure from the European Union over its decision to invite Bashir to the conference with an warrant out for his arrest for war crimes in Darfur.

SOMALIA: Two Kenyans working at a printing business in Somalia were kidnapped on Sunday in the capital Mogadishu. The kidnappers are now demanding a ransom.

ZIMBABWE: A top aide to Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai went on trial on Monday on charges of terrorism. Roy Bennett’s case has caused serious friction within Zimbabwe’s unity government with Tsvangirai saying the case is politically motivated.

UK: Britain is taking new steps to create eco-friendly public transportation. An airport bus at East Midlands Airport will be run on fuel produced from decomposing organic waste.

Gordon Brown apologized to the mother of a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan to whom he had sent a handwritten condolence note on which he misspelled both the family name and her son’s first name.

GERMANY: As the world marks the 20th year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, many Berlin residents celebrated the event. Yet others marked the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht, known as the Night of Broken Glass, during which Jewish business were ransacked in 1938.

EL SALVADOR: Mudslides in El Salvador have left 124 dead and dozens missing.

VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez has warned the Venezuelan military to be prepared for a possible war with Colombia.

LEBANON:Lebanon’s opposition has agreed to a proposed national unity government, paving the way for Prime-Minister designate Saad al-Hariri to form a government.

SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabia announced that its forces regained control of territory seized last week by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

SYRIA: During Monday’s meeting in Istanbul of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that the failure of the Middle East peace negotiations will lead Arabs to turn to resistance as an “alternative solution.”

IRAN: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also in Istanbul for a one-day Islamic summit, while international pressure is increasing on Iran to agree to United Nations agreement on its nuclear program.

ISRAEL: US President Barack Obama will meet with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli leader’s trip to Washington amid growing tension over the stalled peace process and Israeli settlement policy.

PALESTINE: Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah marching towards the Palestinian presidential compound in an attempt to persuade President Mahmoud Abbas to reconsider running for reelection. Also, Palestinian protesters managed to remove a segment of the Israeli-built wall in the West Bank village of Qalandiya today.

Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Gideon Lichfield, deputy editor of The Economist online in New York, about British public sentiment and the reaction of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Read more about his experience overseas in his blog, Embedded in Afghanistan.

The wait continues for the president’s decision on General McChrystal’s recommendation. The unfortunate aspect of all of this business is that the debate is taking place in the public eye. While having a public debate on the efficacy of sending more troops certainly satisfies the exigencies of American politics, it’s most certainly not beneficial to the war effort as a whole. I say this because if the decision is made to not send more troops, or even not send as many as asked for the by the general, we will be perceived by the Afghan government, people, and security forces as abandoning them and losing our will to fight the insurgents. I can confirm that the ANA leaders I habitually talked with were always worried about our ability to stick things out and did not want to see us go anywhere until the country had progressed significantly.

Perception is an incredibly important part of any counter-insurgency, as winning the support of the people should ultimately lead to victory. I can confirm that many of the people of Afghanistan don’t really care who wins this war, just so long as someone wins it, and they can live a semblance of a normal life…i.e. the people will support the side that appears to be on the path to victory.

For these reasons, any action leading to the perception of weakness or lack of commitment on our part needs to be scrupulously avoided. It would have been better to avoid all of this public debate on the issue…unless the request is granted of course, in which case we may take some small benefit from all of this publicizing of our intentions on the matter.

The views expressed by contributing bloggers do not reflect the views of Worldfocus or its partners.

But we don’t hear much about the toll on average Pakistanis and how they cope with the menace of militant attacks every day.

Daljit Dhaliwal talks about everyday life in Lahore with Saeed Shafqat, adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

MYANMAR: The United States wants to see real progress in Myanmar towards democracy before any policy changes, said a senior U.S. diplomat after the first high-level talks between the two nations in more than a decade were completed.

JAPAN: Toyota Motor Corporation announced a surprise profit last quarter, suggesting a gradual recovery may be under way for Japan’s automakers.

CHINA: China’s ministry of health is going to ban the use of beating to treat teenagers addicted to the web. There are dozens of treatment centers in the country that offers to help teenagers withdraw from their web addiction by using military-style boot camp methods with tough extreme physical exercise and counseling.

NIGERIA: Late Wednesday Nigeria recorded its first swine flu case. The virus was found in a 9-year old girl from the United States living in Lagos.

MAURITANIA: Despite a law enacted in 2007 criminalizing slavery, the practice still persists in the northwest African country of Mauritania. That’s according to an independent UN representative who recently toured the country.

GERMANY: Thousands of Opel workers went on strike to protest GM’s move to stop the sale of Opel, a move which GM has said will cost thousands of German jobs.

SWEDEN: The Scandinavian country approved a gas pipeline which would bring natural gas from Russia to Germany. The move has already been approved by Denmark, and needs the go-ahead from Finland, Russia, and Germany to move forward.

UK: The Bank of England said Thursday it would inject an additional 25 billion pounds into its economy.

CZECH REPUBLIC: Forty-five percent of Czech citizens believe that social conditions are better today than before 1989, according to a poll published prior to the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Seventy-four percent pointed to the desire for freedom as the main factor behind the revolution.

RUSSIA AND CIS:

Russian investigators have arrested two people they say are responsible for last summer’s killings of human rights activist Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburina.

Swine flu deaths are on the rise in Russia, where fifteen people have died thus far from the epidemic. Buryatia–the latest region to declare a swine flu emergency–has banned all mass gatherings and is requiring every individual to wear a mask in public.

A Wassily Kandinsky painting has sold at Sotheby’s for $9.4 million. Sales of Russian art at Sotheby’s this week have netted more than $13 billion.

Police have seized more than 48 buckets of salmon caviar and 9 boxes of crab meat from poachers on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. Illegal poaching is a main source of livelihood for many residents of the area.

Time reports on global warming skeptics in Russia and the challenges the rest of the world faces in getting Russia to sign on to reductions in emissions targets in advance of next month’s Copenhagen conference.

Bloggers and free speech activists are criticizing Russia’s largest search engine Yandex for pandering to Kremlin censorship, the Times of London reports.

MEXICO: An American airman was killed in a Ciudad Juarez bar along with five other people last night, bringing the total number of homicides to 30 over the last four days.

Authorities in Mexico have arrested three doctors and a nurse at a private hospital for telling mothers that their newborns had died and then selling the babies.

CUBA: Russia and Cuba have signed four accords that will allow a Russian state energy firm to run oil exploration projects on the Island for the next 25 years.

ISRAEL: Haaretz newspaper reports that a ship seized on Wednesday by Israeli security forces has been released. Israeli officials said it contained tons of weapons supplied by Iran to Hezbollah.

LEBANON: In its official channel Al Manar TV, Lebanese militant group Hezbollah denied Israeli allegations that the ship Israel intercepted on Wednesday was headed for Lebanon. Hezbollah says that Israel is creating a distraction from the Goldstone report on war crimes in Gaza.

IRAN: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei’s said that a resolution to the dispute over Iran’s ongoing nuclear program could be the key to a stable Middle East.

PALESTINE: In an emotional speech, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed he will not seek reelection.

SAUDI ARABIA: Al Jazeera English is reporting that Saudi fighter jets have pounded the strongholds of Houthi combatants in northern Yemen after an earlier confrontation between Shia fighters and Saudi security forces killed two Saudi security men.

PAKISTAN: The Pakistani military said it has killed some 28 militants in South Waziristan.

AFGHANISTAN:The United Nations announced today said that it is temporarily relocating more than half its international staff in Afghanistan following last week’s deadly Taliban attack against UN workers. Also from Kandahar, Afghanistan, an overnight airstrike by international forces killed nine civilians, including at least three children.

A British Field Hospital in Helmand province. Photo: Flickr user foreignoffice

After news yesterday of the deaths of five British soldiers in Afghanistan, public opinion in the U.K. seems to be shifting. Amid growing calls for a policy change, Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to deliver a major speech tomorrow.

Does growing British opposition to the war affect your perspective on America’s role in Afghanistan?

Tell us what you think in the comments section below. Please remember to be respectful and on-point in your comments. Malicious or offensive comments will be deleted and repeat offenders will be banned.

But as Google has gained a foothold in markets around the world, adapting its versions to different countries and languages, an inevitable problem has emerged: how do you delineate international boundaries when they are disputed by multiple countries?

This caused problems for the tech giant earlier this year, when its Chinese characters mislabeled an area called Arunachal Pradesh, which is under Indian administration.

While a simple solution to border disputes would be to stick to internationally recognized demarcations, Google has taken things a step further. Rather than risk antagonizing disputes among its partner countries– each with its own market potential– Google has customized its maps according to different countries’ official positions on their versions of its Google Maps application.

“This does not in any way endorse or affirm the position taken by any side,” according to a Google spokesperson, “but merely provides complete information on the prevailing geo-political situation to our users of global properties in a dispassionate and accurate manner.”

Take, for example, the Chinese version of Google Maps:

The disputed boundaries between India and Pakistan are indicated by dotted lines. But the border with China (to the northeast of India) is nevertheless solid.

Consider, then, the Indian version of the same region:

Here, it appears the only disputed area lies between Tajikistan and China, to the north of India. Indian territory itself, including the western part of Kashmir which is often attributed to Pakistan, is not in question. Furthermore, the area between China and India, which in China’s version belong to China, now lies within Indian territory.

Finally, compare these two version to the standard version of Google Maps:

Here, all disputed boundaries are indicated by a dotted line.

These border disputes predate the Internet — and are unlikely to go away any time soon.  Google has at least managed a temporary diplomatic resolution in cyberspace.

Google has customized their Maps application to reflect border disputes around the world. While border disputes predate the Internet — and are unlikely to go away any time soon — Google has at least managed a temporary diplomatic resolution in cyberspace. http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_china_map.jpg http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_china_map.jpg ]]> http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/03/for-google-maps-diplomacy-trumps-geography/8021/feed/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/03/dnb/8139/ http://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/11/03/dnb/8139/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:36:21 +0000 Worldfocus http://worldfocus.org/?p=8139 Stories compiled by Mohammad al-Kassim, Channtal Fleischfresser, Connie Kargbo,
Ivette Feliciano, Christine Kiernan and Gizem Yarbil and edited by Rebecca Haggerty.

NORTH KOREA: North Korea said it has reprocessed 8000 spent nuclear fuel rods and extracted enough plutonium to add to its atomic stockpile. If reprocessed with chemicals, this would give the regime enough weapons-grade plutonium for at least one more atomic bomb, according to experts.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is sending a special mission to Pyongyang next week Envoy Jack Lang said today that European aid to North Korea in exchange for nuclear guarantees is on the table.

MYANMAR: The United States embarked on a new policy of engagement with Myanmar’s military government on Tuesday, sending two senior diplomats for the highest-level visit in more than a decade.

Representatives of African countries at UN climate talks in Barcelona boycotted meetings on Tuesday and demanded industrialized countries do more to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

SOMALIA: Three women’s organizations were ordered closed in the Somali town of Balad Hawa by the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab. The chairman of the town said that according to Islamic law women should be at home taking caring of their children and not in the office.

TANZANIA: A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said that 85% of the snow on Mount Kilimanjaro had melted from 1912 to 2007 and could disappear entirely in 20 years.

FINLAND: Nokia Siemens Networks mobile phone manufacturer will lay off as many as 5,700 employees, as a cost-cutting move.

NETHERLANDS: Radovan Karadzic appeared at his trial in the Hague Tuesday, after having boycotted his trial for the previous three days.

FRANCE: November 1 marked the start of France’s yearly ban on housing evictions. Between November and March 15, French law makes it difficult for landlords to evict tenants who are unable to make rent payments.

RUSSIA AND CIS:
The Lisbon Treaty has moved once step closer to adoption, following the Czech Constitutional Court’s ruling today that the treaty does not violate the Czech constitution.

Swine flu deaths in Russia continue to grow. Fourteen people have now died from the virus, and 3,122 cases have been confirmed, according to the Ministry of Health.

There are few bookstores left in Uzbekistan’s legendary city Samarkand, which used to be a literary mecca.

Samarkand Photo: Flickr user Xiamara_ugajin

A Russian businessman and former KGB spy was gunned down near his Moscow apartment yesterday. Shabattai Kalmanovich, who served five years in an Israeli jail for spying, had been working as director of a central Moscow shopping center since 1994.

Twenty years after the fall of communism, opinions are mixed in Eastern Europe and Russia as to whether people are better off today, according to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Forum. People born shortly after the Berlin Wall’s fall were overwhelmingly more supportive of the move towards democracy and a market economy than older generations.

The New York Times reports on a “drunk tank” in a Moscow suburb, where people caught drinking are taken to sober up. Russians consumer 4.75 gallons of pure alcohol per person per year–more than double the level the WHO considers a “healthy threat.”

CUBA: Cuban purchases from U.S. companies are down 37% this year compared to last year.

HONDURAS: The Honduras Congress today will begin debating a plan that would restore ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. The deal was agreed to last week by representatives of Zelaya and the de facto government.

AFGHANISTAN: A day after wining the election by default, Al Jazeera English reports that Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai promises to create a government of national participation.

MOROCCO: At a time of strained relations between Jews and Muslims, Al Arabiya TV reports on a music festival in the Moroccan city of Essaouira is helping to break down political divides.

ISRAEL: According to Israel’s head of military intelligence Maj-Gen Amos Yadlin, the Palestinian group Hamas has test-fired a rocket capable of reaching the outskirts of the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

JERUSALEM: The Palestinian news agency Ma’an reports on a home take-over by Israeli settlers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.

IRAN: Al Alam TV reports on Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is warning against the United States attempting to impose its will in any negotiations with Tehran.

PAKISTAN: Despite a Taliban spokesman denial, the Pakistani military is advancing in its offensive in tribal South Waziristan, according to Dawn TV.