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Unbowed, Ahmadinejad Shows Up in Russia

On Tuesday, amid reports of escalating violence and protest across his country, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slipped into a plane and jetted off to Yekaterinburg, a Russian city nestled in the Ural mountains. Iran seethed in the aftermath of Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory last weekend even as foreign journalists were officially barred from reporting street protests a day after the largest demonstrations seen in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Meanwhile, the powerful Guardian Council is investigating allegations of poll fraud, and has suggested a partial recount — a solution main opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi has rejected.

Google’s censorship struggles continue in China

Google was going to help democratize data in China. Instead, about three years after entering the Middle Kingdom, the search company still finds itself in an uncomfortable working relationship with government censors

Iran’s Lesson: Even in a Tainted Election, Voting Still Matters

Four years ago, during a similarly sultry Tehran summer, I had an argument with Shirin Ebadi about whether Iranians should vote in their country’s presidential elections.

N. Korea: U.S. journalists were creating ‘smear campaign’

North Korea’s state media released a "detailed report" Tuesday claiming that American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee entered the country illegally in order to record material for a "smear campaign" against the reclusive communist state. It added that the two women “admitted that what they did were criminal acts … prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of the DPRK by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it.” Ling and Lee were sentenced this month to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea

Pakistan’s Next Fight? Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud

No one has contributed to Pakistan’s slide into chaos over recent years more than Baitullah Mehsud From his base in the wilds of South Waziristan, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban has overseen the killing of over 1,200 civilians and several hundred soldiers through brutal means including suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. He has been accused of masterminding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late December 2007. In late March, Washington announced a $5m reward for information leading to his capture, describing Mehsud as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator.” And over the past week alone, he claimed responsibility for five separate terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a luxury hotel in Peshawar and the killing of a vocal anti-Taliban cleric in Lahore

Will the Public Plan Make or Break Health Reform?

To the leaders of the Republican Party, a public health-care insurance option is a “non-starter,” the first step on a slippery slope to socialized medicine; in the eyes of the American Medical Association , it could “restrict patient choice”; and for President Barack Obama, as he put it Monday during his speech to the AMA in Chicago, it’s an essential part of any health care reform package that will “put affordable health care within reach for millions of Americans.” With all the hand wringing over a public plan, you could be excused for thinking there is already a specific plan on the table. There is not. But that hasn’t stopped House and Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle from turning a public plan into one of the most contentious issues being debated inside the Beltway, one that could potentially make or break the passage of landmark health care reform this year

Analysis: The changing fight in Pakistan

Every time I come to Pakistan these days I see more security. This time is no exception. On the road from the airport to my hotel I counted nearly a dozen police checkpoints

Missing teen’s family pushes on after closing volunteer center

The parents of a California teen who disappeared on her way to school in February have closed the center that was the staging ground for search efforts, citing a lack of volunteers and a shift in direction. But the parents of 14-year-old Amber DuBois say the search will continue with a small group of dedicated volunteers. “We’re absolutely going to keep going

Anger boils in Mexico over 46 deaths at day care center

Anger is growing in Mexico over a fire at a government-run day care center that claimed its 46th child this weekend. Parents of the dead children and their supporters have held two noisy rallies in Hermosillo, the city in northwestern Mexico where the fire broke out June 5. They blame the government for laxity in enforcing safety regulations, for conducting a weak investigation and for failing to punish anyone in the 10 days since the fatal blaze

Anti-war campaigners slam ‘secret’ Iraq probe

Anti-war protesters have criticized a decision by the UK government to hold an investigation into Britain’s involvement in the Iraq war behind closed doors. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the House of Commons on Monday the inquiry into the war would hear evidence in private so witnesses can be “as candid as possible.” He added that it would be held along the lines of the Franks inquiry into Britain’s war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the early 1980s.