Daily News Channel
Pakistani authorities on Thursday deployed paramilitary troops to a district, only 96 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital, where Taliban militants appeared to be consolidating control after this week’s land-grab. Militants locked up courthouses and seized court documents in the district of Buner, said police Superintendent Arsala Khan.
World economy — better luck next year. That’s the message the International Monetary Fund gave this week, further downgrading its projection of 2009 global economic growth to -1.3 percent — nearly 2 percent less than originally forecast. The IMF called it “the most severe recession since World War II.” A modest recovery is predicted for 2010, but at 1.9 percent would be “sluggish relative to past recoveries.” “These projections are based on an assessment that financial market stabilization will take longer than previously thought, even with strong efforts by policymakers,” Oliver Blanchard, IMF chief economist and Jose Vinals, head of the IMF’s monetary and capital markets department, said in a joint statement.
Taliban militants, who implemented Islamic law in Pakistan’s violence-plagued Swat Valley last week, have now taken control of a neighboring district.
An Iranian human-rights activist and Nobel laureate has joined the legal team of an Iranian-American journalist convicted of spying and jailed in Iran. Shirin Ebadi, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, took up the case of Roxana Saberi at the request of Saberi’s family, her father, Reza Saberi, told CNN Wednesday.
Details emerged Wednesday from the first government-to-government talks between the two Koreas in more than a year. Tuesday’s talks ended quickly — after 22 minutes — South Korea’s Unification Ministry said
The U.S. Senate confirmed veteran diplomat Christopher Hill as U.S.
Russia’s leaders are getting used to cutting budgets this year. As the country sinks deeper into recession — unemployment, according to some estimates, is as high as 12% and the economy is predicted to shrink by about 4.5% in 2009 — the government is slashing spending at most of its ministries. The Energy Ministry’s budget is down by 33%, and that of the Transport Ministry by 30%
Government officials from South Korea arrived in the North on Tuesday for the first inter-Korean talks in more than a year. The details surrounding the session were sketchy. The exact nature of the talks, their agenda and location were to be determined after the delegation’s arrival, a Unification Ministry official said.
In a surprising gesture of white knighthood, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to the aid of Roxana Saberi, the Iranian-American journalist detained in a Tehran prison on spying charges.
The head of Iran’s judiciary Monday ordered a "careful and speedy appeal process" for an Iranian-American journalist who was convicted of spying, Iran’s state-run news agency reported. Roxana Saberi, 31, was sentenced Saturday to eight years in prison after a one-day trial that was closed to the public. The decision prompted sharp denunciations from President Obama, as well as other U.S.