Fox News:
The community organizing group ACORN mismanaged about $200,000 received from the Justice Department, which failed to track how the allocated money was used, according to a report by the department’s watchdog.
The news is the latest blow to a group whose public image has taken a beating in recent months after some of its employees [...]
A
Times Online:
The two children chosen to front Richard Dawkins’ latest assault on God could not look more free of the misery with which he associates religious baggage.
With the slogan “Please don’t label me. Let me grow up and choose for myself”, the two children, their hair flying and with broad grins, seem to be [...]
“exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit”
The Telegraph:
If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker [...]
GENEVA (AP) — Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery — essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech [...]
Washington Post:
Listening to President Obama and his Chinese counterpart this week, it was hard to tell who was Hu.
One is the leader of a great democracy. The other is the head of a repressive regime. But as the two men faced reporters in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Obama deferred to the wishes of [...]
The LA Times:
Writing From Kabul, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration today will be a somber affair. Gray storm clouds are slowly replacing the blue skies, and the sour tang of charcoal smoke hangs in the air. The mood among the internationals here is similarly gloomy. So many conversations end with the scratching [...]
Times Online:
President Hamid Karzai today signalled the beginning of the end of foreign military intervention in his country, when he pledged that Afghan security forces would take the lead in combating the Taleban over the next three to five years.
In a much-anticipated inauguration speech, the Afghan leader told dozens of visiting foreign dignitaries what they [...]
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Showing impatience with Iranian foot-dragging, President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. and its allies are discussing possible new penalties to bring fresh pressure on Iran for defying international attempts to halt its contested nuclear program.
Obama’s warning came after Iran rejected a compromise proposal to ship its low-enriched uranium [...]
The American Spectator:
Barack Obama was supposed to be America’s answer to the suave, European head of state. A debonair gentleman of the world, he would charm even the most sophisticated foreign leaders and prove, finally, that the United States is developed culturally, not just economically.
Then he gave some DVDs.
Ian Drury of London’s Daily Mail [...]
NPR:
The professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is expected to arrive in New York for trial by the end of the year. But it won’t be his first trip to America. He has been here before, as a college student in the early 1980s.
Mohammed’s first real taste of America came [...]
KABUL (AP) - Security forces increased patrols on some streets in the Afghan capital and blocked others entirely Wednesday, bracing for possible militant attacks during the inauguration ceremony that will cement President Hamid Karzai’s tumultuous re-election victory.
Karzai will be sworn in Thursday for his second five-year term, with many in the international community hoping he [...]
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.
A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the cargo ship as it steamed on to its destination.
Pirates hijacked the Maersk [...]
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian state television reports five people have been sentenced to death over the unrest that followed the country’s disputed June presidential election.
At least three others caught up in the turmoil have received death sentences previously.
The report on Tuesday quotes a statement by the Justice Department saying the five sentenced were members [...]
Reuters:
Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.
Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall [...]
British paper, don’t mind the typos.
Times Online:
British forces should buy off potential Taleban recruits with “bags of gold”, according to a new army field manual published yesterday.
