The US believed that Britain would take an active part in the Iraq war even if there were no attempts to solve the crisis through the UN, the inquiry into the conflict heard today.

During the first evidence so far from senior military and defence ministry figures, Admiral Lord Boyce, the chief of the defence staff from 2001 to 2003, told the inquiry panel that US generals and America's then-defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, seemingly refused to countenance the possibility that Britain would not commit troops.

The Pakistani prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, today claimed that Osama bin Laden was not in Pakistan - just days after Gordon Brown criticised the Islamabad government for not doing enough to capture the al-Qaida leader.

Bin Laden is widely believed to be sheltering in the north of Pakistan - a belief reiterated by the CIA director, Leon Panetta, over the summer - and on Sunday Brown criticised the Islamabad government for not doing more to track him down.

But quizzed by British journalists at a joint press conference with the UK prime minister in London as to why the al-Qaida leader remained at large, Gilani said the Pakistani administration had not been provided with any "credible or actionable intelligence" as to his whereabouts.

"I don't think Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan," he said.

It's 25 years since the world's worst industrial disaster struck Bhopal, a town in central India. On 3 December 1984, a toxic leak in Union Carbide Corporation's factory unleashed 40 tonnes of lethal gas into the sleeping town. It killed 3,500 people instantly and an estimated 20,000 have died from complications since. According to activists, the actual figures are much higher.

The compensation paid by Union Carbide to the Indian government was laughably low: nowhere near enough to pay for the actual numbers of people affected by the gas spill. For victims, getting the money from the government proved a Sisyphean task. For those who did manage to obtain compensation, the measly amount quickly ran out in the wake of new or persistent medical complications, hospital bills, and economic problems compounded by disabilities. Many have still not been paid.

Cooking pots and pans stained with blood were still scattered around the courtyard of the Martini Hospital. A mortar bomb had landed in the garden of this war veterans' retirement home in the Somali capital the day before, killing nine people and injuring 23. In the kitchen, weeping relatives and angry civilians had gathered to mourn the victims. Corpses covered with sheets were being prepared for burial and the air was heavy with incense burned to cover the stench of death. Sunlight filtered in through cracks in the roof, lending the scene a hellish air. "These two were 13 and 14," said a Red Crescent volunteer, pointing to the bodies of two victims. "Nobody knows who did it."

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European, American and Canadian foreign ministers are later today (3 December) meeting at Nato headquarters in Brussels to discuss the new strategy for Afghanistan, Nato enlargement and relations with Russia.

US secretary of state Hillary Clinton expects some of her European colleagues to signal willingness to increase their national contribution to the Nato mission in Afghanistan, after President Barack Obama on Tuesday outlined his new strategy for the country.

Amanda Knox told a court today she did not want to be branded an assassin.

The 22-year-old American, on trial for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, addressed the courtroom in Perugia, Italy, in a voice trembling with emotion just days before a verdict is due.

Prosecutors accuse her of stabbing 21-year-old Leeds University student Ms Kercher to death in November 2007, but she said today that they are only doing so because it is their job to do so.

Kazakhstan takes over the chairmanship of Europe's top security body next month. But many question whether the Central Asian country, with its weak record on human rights and basic freedoms, should even have the job.  

At state-run Radio Astana in the Kazakh capital, journalists choosing the stories to cover in their newscasts at the top of the hour have some of their work done for them. Even before the newscasts air, listeners know, at least partly, what to expect.

The first story will almost always be about Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and invariably positive. The second item will cover the government - a program, a parliamentary vote or an election - which will also be presented in glowing terms.

Only then do journalists have the freedom to broadcast what they think are the newsworthy items of the day.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A suicide bomber disguised as a veiled woman killed at least 19 people including three Somali government ministers on Thursday at a medical graduation ceremony in a Mogadishu hotel, witnesses and officials said.

It was the worst attack in the lawless Horn of Africa nation since June, when hardline al Shabaab insurgents killed the security minister and at least 30 other people in a suicide bombing at a hotel in the town of Baladwayne.

The U.N.-backed government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed controls little more than a few streets of the capital. In the days ahead of Thursday's attack, residents said it had apparently been planning a new offensive against the rebels.

Muslims in Cairo - once dubbed the City of a Thousand Minarets - have described a referendum in Switzerland banning new minarets as intolerant, but few have called for a boycott of Swiss goods.

At the prestigious al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's main seat of learning, authorities were dismayed after more than 57 per cent of Swiss voters on Sunday approved the Right-wing motion to ban minarets on mosques.

Sheikh Mohammed Abdel Aziz, secretary general of Al-Azhar's Fatwa Council, which issues religious edicts, described the vote as an attack on religious freedom.

"European countries are supposed to be democratic and free. If there is freedom, why ban the construction of minarets? Will they also ban church bells?," said Abdel Aziz.

(3 de diciembre, 2009) La recuperación de las economías de América Latina y el Caribe tras la crisis financiera internacional tomó impulso y ha alcanzado niveles más positivos que los previstos apenas hace algunos meses.  La magnitud de esa recuperación y los desafíos para el año 2010 son analizados en el informe de la CEPAL Balance preliminar de las economías de América Latina y el Caribe 2009, que se presentará el jueves 10 de diciembre.

MoveOn is one of the handful of groups breaking from the White House's hold on big liberals to raise money, activate volunteers and threaten for the first time, Obama's left flank. And so is a pixie-ish 50 year old former Hollywood producer who named her blog after her dog, and is taking what she calls "the next step in our evolution."

The campaign launched by Jane Hamsher, whose blog Firedoglake first came to national attention for obsessive coverage of the Valerie Plame investigation, is called, "One Voice for Choice," and uses the nifty online phone banking tools that helped power Obama's campaign to put a scare into House Democrats who voted to attach the anti-abortion Stupak Amendment to health care legislation.

The calls will target, in particular, pro-choice Democrats in those typically conservative district, threatening to cut the base out from under Democrats who are straining to reach out to the other side.

"We're taking something that was like gold to them and that they were counting on having and saying they can't take it for granted," she said, describing House Democrats' tendency to take the progressive base for granted.

The initiative is Hamsher's latest assault on what she calls "the Veal Pen" - the tightly-managed coalition of Democratic groups centered financially around the Democracy Alliance and organizationally around the Center for American Progress, both in turn creations of the left in exile in the Bush years. She borrowed the phrase from Douglas Coupland's 1991 "Generation X," in which he used it to describe a generation trapped in cubicles.

As Ben Bernanke's confirmation hearing begins in the Senate Banking Committee, a source tells FDL News that one Senate staffer and an outside source confirmed to him that at least one Republican on the committee will also place a hold on the Federal Reserve chairman, throwing the process into potential turmoil and giving Chris Dodd a difficult series of choices to make.

....

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because of his work behind the scenes on the Bernanke confirmation, told me that two separate sources assured him that the Republican hold would be made public after today's hearing. One staffer said that two Republicans would place the hold, while the other said it would just be one. The source said that the trans-partisan nature of opposition to Bernanke, with a conservative Republican and a socialist independent uniting to block the appointment, shows the intensity of the feelings on the issue. "It's great to see everyone come together - Democrats, Republicans, progressives and libertarians, against this Federal Reserve, which is not federal, and not a reserve, just a group printing money and giving it to their buddies," the source said.

While most people think that the multiple holds would delay the process, it's unclear whether or not it would succeed. Dodd would probably have the discretion to roll over the hold in committee, though he may be reluctant to do so, experts in Senate procedure said. Harry Reid could also seek cloture on the motion to proceed on Bernanke's nomination on the floor, which would require 60 votes.

At the very least, this delay and the publicity surrounding bipartisan opposition to Bernanke would bring attention to the issue of the Federal Reserve and the desire for transparency, like the movement to audit the Fed. That provision has already passed in the large financial reform bill in the House Financial Services Committee, and Barney Frank said yesterday that he didn't expect any changes to the bill as it passed the House, citing the public anger over the issue of transparency. There is language on Fed audits in the draft financial reform bill written by Sen. Dodd, which also strips the Fed of some of its power, but it is not the same as Bernie Sanders' audit the Fed bill, which has as many as 30 cosponsors.

UPDATE: Sen. Jim DeMint announces through Twitter that he will become the third Senator to place a hold on Bernanke's confirmation:

    "I will oppose Bernanke and hold his nomination until we get a vote to audit the Fed."

DeMint joins Jim Bunning and Bernie Sanders. The bedfellows, they are strange.

In what is believed to be the first legal action of its kind in the world, a Haifa Theater may be hit with a class-action lawsuit for allowing an actress to smoke on stage as part of her role.

The application to have the suit recognized by the court was filed by lawyer Amos Hausner, chairman of the National Council for the Prevention of Smoking, on behalf of a fellow lawyer, Einav Avrahami.