World News

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second right, gestures, as he visits Iran's Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP), a new facility producing uranium fuel for a planned heavy-water nuclear reactor, just outside the city of Isfahan, 255 miles (410 kilometers), south of Tehran, Iran, Thursday, April 9, 2009.

photo: AP / Vahid Salemi

Defiant Iran vows to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants
read more Khaleej Times

TEHRAN - A defiant Iranian government led by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Sunday to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants and also to study a plan to process the material to 20 percent purity, state media reported. The hardline stance - seen as hitting out at world powers led by Washington - came after the conservative-dominated...

A model of a minaret, burning candles and a banner that reads "This is not my Switzerland" are seen on the Bundesplatz square in front of the governments building in Bern, Switzerland, to protest the acceptance of a minaret ban initiative on Sunday, Nov. 29, 2009.

photo: AP / Keystone, Peter Klaunzer

Swiss ban mosque minarets in surprise vote
read more The Guardian

ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer= GENEVA (AP) â Swiss voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on minarets on Sunday, barring construction of the iconic mosque towers in a surprise vote that put Switzerland at the forefront of a European backlash against a growing Muslim population. Muslim groups in Switzerland and abroad...

In this photo taken Saturday Nov. 28, 2009 a taxi passes the Gate building, left, of Dubai International Financial Center, DIFC, and a billboard of Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, United Arab Emirates prime minister and ruler of Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

photo: AP / Kamran Jebreili

UAE to Back Banks Amid Dubai Meltdown
read more Fox News

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Arab Emirates' central bank is saying it "stands behind" local and foreign banks operating in the country, offering them access to money in a sign the Gulf Arab nation's federal government is racing to curtail investor fears over Dubai's crushing debt. The UAE's official WAM news agency said...

U.S. soldiers stand guard by an Afghan prisoner near Zunchorah Village in Khost area, about 250 km (155 miles) from Kabul in this photo taken on April 3, 2004. The U.S military has launched its second probe into prisoner abuse in Afghanistan in a week, a spokesman said, Saturday, May 15,

photo: AP / Emilio Morenatti

'Black jail' at Bagram prison site
read more Al Jazeera

The US military is holding detainees at the Bagram detention centre in Afghanistan without allowing access to the International Committee of the Red Cross, US media has reported. The New York Times newspaper on Saturday quoted former detainees as saying that they were held in a secret "black jail" at the site, north of the...

Iran will commisision its first nuclear power plant in Bushehr by the end of 2007 (construction 95% complete)(ss2)

photo: public domain

Iranian warns of treaty pullout
read more Tulsa World

A conservative Iranian legislator warned Saturday that his country may pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty following a U.N. resolution censuring Tehran — a move that could seriously undermine world attempts to prevent Iran...

In this combination of two pictures taken in Montevideo, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009, the two candidates in Uruguay's presidential runoff elections are seen. At right is the National Party's Luis Lacalle, and at left is Frente Amplio's Jose Mujica. Uruguayans go to the polls Nov. 29.

photo: AP / Natacha Pisarenko, Eduardo Di Baia

Uruguay elects president, with polls pointing to ex-rebel who now scorns 'stupid ideologies'
read more Hartford Courant

MONTEVIDEO, (AP) — A plain-talking former leftist guerrilla is heavily favored to win Uruguay's presidential run-off election Sunday and keep the country's popular center-left coalition in power for another five years. Jose Mujica's opponents claimed he would transform the South American country into a radical socialist state, but he...

A street vendor walks behind pictures of presidential candidate Porfirio Lobo that read in English "Pepe is change now!" in Tegucigalpa, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009.

photo: AP / Esteban Felix

Honduras hopes to move past coup with election
read more The State

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- Hondurans choose a new president Sunday whose first challenge will be defending his legitimacy to the world and his people, and ending a debilitating, five-month-long crisis caused by Central America's first coup in more than 20 years. Porfirio Lobo and Elvin Santos, two prosperous businessmen from the political old-guard,...

Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, addresses the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, Monday Nov. 3, 2003. ElBaradei delivered his annual report to the United Nations on Monday

photo: AP / Richard Drew

IAEA chief ElBaradei steps down
read more Khaleej Times

VIENNA – UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who once described himself as a 'nuclear pope', quoted the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi in his farewell remarks at the International Atomic Energy Agency. 'Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt,...

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II speaks during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Port-of-Spain, Friday, Nov. 27, 2009.

photo: AP / Andres Leighton

Leaders of the Commonwealth countries say momentum building on climate change
read more The Star

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP): Leaders of the Commonwealth countries called Saturday for a legally binding international agreement on climate change and a global fund with billions of dollars to help poor countries meet its mandates. The 53-nation meeting was the largest gathering of international leaders before next month's global climate summit in...

Flames burts from a parked car that has been set on fire by demonstrators during a protest against the seventh WTO Ministerial Conference in the streets of Geneva, Switzerland, Saturday, Nov. 28, 2009.

photo: AP / Keystone, Dominic Favre

Swiss WTO protest turns violent
read more Al Jazeera

Swiss police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters who broke windows and set cars alight during a demonstration ahead of a major World Trade Organisation (WTO) conference in Geneva. The clashes on Saturday occurred during a march by at least 3000 demonstrators, protesting the meeting scheduled to start on Monday, in which the United...