Daily News Channel
Even as Congress belatedly tackles legislation that would cut U.S. carbon emissions and international negotiators bickered over a global climate deal in Bonn, Germany, a new report by several federal agencies underscores the truths that too often risk getting lost in politics: global warming is real, it’s happening now, and if we don’t act soon, the consequences are likely to be catastrophic.
In early June, the founders of Thailand’s New Politics Party unveiled their logo — usually a routine procedure in a country where new parties seem to come and go with the monsoons. But the yellow-and-green symbol of the NPP has generated controversy not just for its questionable 1970s color scheme but because it resembles a swastika. Asians are rightly miffed that Adolf Hitler hijacked an ancient religious symbol of luck and peace and turned it into the unofficial logo for genocide and racial hatred.
Myanmar pro-democracy figure Aung San Suu Kyi turned 64 in prison Friday, while a judge considers when to hear her appeal to allow more witnesses at her subversion trial. Suu Kyi, under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, had been expected to be freed by the military junta last month, until the new subversion charge was filed. Thousands of supporters left birthday messages of 64 words or less for the Nobel Peace Prize laureate on a Web site created for the occasion.
Iran’s supreme leader will deliver a sermon Friday at Tehran University, just days after a bloody crackdown at the school, according to a statement from the pro-government Basij militia. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will give his sermon during Friday prayers. It will be closely watched for a sign of how the government plans to resolve the stalemate over the country’s recent presidential elections.
For almost a week, tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets in daily protests — handkerchiefs shielding their faces from the pungency of tear gas, fists punching the air, and chants of "Down with the dictator" echoing against buildings. The massive outpouring is a result of a disputed presidential election that the protesters think coronated the incumbent hard-liner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, over their candidate, Mir Hossain Moussavi
Somalia’s internal security minister was killed Thursday in a massive suicide car bombing in central Somalia, the country’s president said.
Supporters of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi planned to turn Tehran into a sea of black Thursday when thousands of them march, dressed in dark clothes, to mourn comrades killed or wounded while calling for a new presidential election. Demonstrators expected to start their rallies from mosques across the Iranian capital, converging in a city square Thursday afternoon, for what is expected to be one of the largest protests since last Friday’s disputed election
Iranian-Americans demonstrated on the streets of Washington on Wednesday evening, marching from Iranian diplomatic offices to the Russian embassy, in protest of both governments’ actions.
Iranians have had to tailor their usual ways of communicating in the post-election tumult that has swept through the country. “Censoring is very bad here and they have reduced Internet speed,” two Iranians who had sent pictures of casualties from a reported attack on a dorm at the University of Tehran wrote to a friend outside the country
One election spot shows a masked wrestler fighting drug traffickers and promising to crack down on cartels. Another ad vows to give the death penalty to kidnappers. A third pledges to hand out free medicine to the poor