Ruhollah Solook (78) was dying before a donated kidney and complex radiotherapy saved his life. Recovering in an isolation room in Teheran's oldest hospital, he expressed his joy in a telephone interview. "They saved my life already. I hope they will be able to cure me entirely now."

But Solook's treatment has become a race against time, as has that of 850,000 other Iranians suffering from heart and kidney disease and various cancers. Somewhere after March 2010, the country will run out of technetium-99, a radioisotope crucial to the treatment of these diseases. Technetium-99 is currently produced locally in Iran.

"We recommend treatment with these products to hundreds of patients every month in our hospital alone," said Dr. Gholamreza Pourmand, Solook's physician. Technetium-99 is essential to radiotherapy, Pourmand said: "If we cannot help these people, some will die. It's as simple as that."

Yemeni forces on Monday killed at least two al Qaeda militants they said were behind a threat which forced the U.S. and European embassies to shut as concerns grew about the impoverished Arab country's stability.

The raid took place after the attempted bombing of a U.S.-bound plane on Christmas Day thrust Yemen into the foreground of the U.S.-led war against Islamist militants.

"Security authorities had been monitoring them for several days and struck today," a Yemeni security official told Reuters.

Germany continues to discuss what to do about its mission in Afghanistan. The US, meanwhile, has decided to send 2,500 soldiers to Kunduz, the region under German command in the northern part of the country. The move is sure to increase the pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

The visits made by Stanley McChrystal as 2009 changed to 2010 were primarily of a symbolic nature. The US general, head of all NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, flew by helicopter to all corners of the country to thank his troops -- particularly in those areas where the situation is most precarious.

But this year, his trip didn't just lead him to those regions in the south and east which have long been instable. The four-star general spent an entire day in Kunduz, the German-controlled region in northern Afghanistan, once known for its relative stability but now descending ever further into violence. The visit made it clear once again that McChrystal is keeping close tabs on developments there.

Citizens of 14 nations, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, who are flying to the United States will be subjected indefinitely to the intense screening at airports worldwide that was imposed after the Christmas Day bombing plot, Obama administration officials announced Sunday.

But American citizens, and most others who are not flying through those 14 nations on their way to the United States, will no longer automatically face the full range of intensified security that was imposed after the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight, officials said.

The change represents an easing of the immediate response to the attempted bombing of a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that had been in place the past week. But the restrictions remain tougher than the rules that were in effect before the Dec. 25 incident. And the action on Sunday further establishes a global security system that treats people differently based on what country they are from, evoking protests from civil rights groups.

Iraq will file lawsuits in US and Iraqi courts against Blackwater, a private security firm, after an American court threw out charges against five of its guards accused of killing 14 civilians in Baghdad.

Making the announcement, Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, in a statement on Monday said his government "rejects the ruling issued by the American court acquitting the company of the crime of killing a number of citizens".

Last week, a US federal judge threw out the murder charges against the guards, saying prosecutors violated the defendants' rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a US State Department probe.

The guards, who had been part of a convoy of armoured vehicles, had been charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others in September 2007 at a busy Baghdad roundabout using guns and grenades.

The US secret service is investigating an apparent effigy of Barack Obama hung from a storefront in Georgia. Local television news showed what appeared to be a black doll at the end of a noose on the main road in Plains, home of Jimmy Carter, the former Democratic president, Georgia governor and Nobel peace prize winner.

Witnesses said the doll bore a sign with Obama's name. The effigy was quickly removed by the fire department after it was discovered on Saturday.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Envelopes containing white powder have prompted at least seven anthrax scares across Alabama.

The FBI said Monday that five letters were sent to the offices of senators or congressmen. One was sent to U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner's office in Mobile, and another to his office in Foley. Letters were also sent to the offices of U.S. Rep. Bobby Bright of Montgomery, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions and U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby.

Burma's military leader confirmed today that the country would hold its first elections in two decades this year but warned voters to make the "correct choices" when they go to the polls.

The long-awaited election would be Burma's first since 1990, when the main opposition party, led by the democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, won by a landslide. The junta ignored the result.

In an occasionally cryptic message to mark the anniversary of Burma's independence from Britain in 1948, General Than Shwe said his seven-stage road map was the sole process in the country's transition to democracy.

The punishing winter weather has brought transport chaos to China and South Korea and claimed at least 60 lives in northern and eastern India.

Reports suggest that the states of Punjab, Bihar, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have borne the brunt of the freezing temperatures in India. "We are looking into the deaths and in the meantime have asked local authorities to arrange bonfires in the evening for the homeless," said a government official in Bihar, who added that all schools had been closed.

A heavy blanket of fog in New Delhi forced airport authorities to cancel or delay dozens of flights from the capital and train services were also disrupted.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Last March, three American evangelical Christians, whose teachings about "curing" homosexuals have been widely discredited in the United States, arrived here in Uganda's capital to give a series of talks.

The theme of the event, according to Stephen Langa, its Ugandan organizer, was "the gay agenda -- that whole hidden and dark agenda" -- and the threat homosexuals posed to Bible-based values and the traditional African family.

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how "the gay movement is an evil institution" whose goal is "to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity."

Now the three Americans are finding themselves on the defensive, saying they had no intention of helping stoke the kind of anger that could lead to what came next: a bill to impose a death sentence for homosexual behavior.

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

A gunman in a black trench coat opened fire Monday morning in the lobby of the Federal Courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, killing a court security officer and wounding a deputy United States marshal before fleeing. He was then shot in the head and killed nearby.

"The suspect was in the lobby, but he never made it past the security checkpoint," said Barbara Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas police.

The building is a huge structure that houses federal courts as well as other agencies, including the offices of Senators Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, and John Ensign, a Republican. Both Senators were in Nevada, their offices said, but not in the building.

The gunman entered the building shortly after it opened at 8 a.m. and began firing in the lobby. An Associated Press reporter within sight of the building counted 20 shots over several minutes, although it was not clear how many were fired by the gunman and how many by responding law enforcement officials.

Police and federal agents poured through the building looking for signs of any other suspects, but none were found.

The world is a tough neighborhood. Mr. Bush was not loved, but he was feared, which Machiavelli advises is a more durable position. Mr. Obama has sought only to be loved, but in the process has disappointed America's allies and encouraged our adversaries. The world has the measure of the man in the White House, and he doesn't measure up to the task at hand. Unless he shows a stronger hand, Mr. Obama will continue to increasingly follow global events rather than lead them.

It helps if you've read the book, rather than just the out of context quote.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Indians living in border areas neighbouring China are beginning to envy fast-paced development brought by Beijing to the point of regretting being Indian, a senior member of India's ruling Congress party has warned.

Mani Shankar Aiyar, a former senior diplomat and cabinet minister with responsibility for India's volatile northeast region, described the development that China was bringing to its southwest and Tibet as "simply spectacular".

He said impoverished local people in India's northeast were asking themselves: "What is the mistake we have made by being Indians [rather than Chinese]?" He also warned of the consequences of families divided by the colonial era border "beginning to hear stories about the kind of progress happening on the other [Chinese] side".

Even Americans who are lucky enough to have work in this economy are becoming more unhappy with their jobs, according to a new survey that found only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work.

That was the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue. In 2008, 49 percent of those surveyed reported satisfaction with their jobs.

The drop in workers' happiness can be partly blamed on the worst recession since the 1930s, which made it difficult for some people to find challenging and suitable jobs. But worker dissatisfaction has been on the rise for more than two decades...

Workers have grown steadily more unhappy for a variety of reasons:

    * Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting.

    * Incomes have not kept up with inflation.

    * The soaring cost of health insurance has eaten into workers' take-home pay.

The governments of Iran and China have grown considerably closer in recent years as the two regional powerhouses find themselves with complementary economies and little love for Western-led attacks on their domestic and foreign policies.

But now it appears relations are warming from the bottom-up, which could pose a threat to both governments.

Chinese democracy activists have launched an online campaign known by its Twitter tag #CN4Iran, or "China for Iran," expressing solidarity with the Iranian opposition and condemning their own government's complicity in the crackdown.

When pictures surfaced of Chinese armored trucks being unloaded in Iran, the CN4Iran contributors were quick to translate and spread the message through Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites.

The movement's website is slickly designed and sports the opposition's signature green as a background; a banner at the top reads: "We are watching you, and we are supporting you! Go, our great Iranian friends! Go!"

See China Is Losing a War Over Internet

La Chine dorme. Laisse la dormir. Quand la Chine s'éveillera, le monde tremblera.

American voters have done their job: they've elected politicians who promised to satisfy their preferences. But politicians haven't delivered. Should we blame the voters? That's one approach, taken recently by Chris Hedges, Tony Judt, Jane Hamsher and quite a few others. A sudden spate of self-criticism from the left. Another approach is to blame our leaders -- you can't toss a pebble on the internet these days without finding some recently disillusioned soul. All such complaints, though, have to do with either power or authority.

Nowhere do we see intelligent discussion regarding whether the government of the United States is legitimate or, if not, to what degree it is not, how it got that way, and what should be done about it. Assuming that the system is broken we can play by our current rules over and over and over, but we're going to keep on getting the same results. Assuming the system is broken -- and I absolutely believe that it is -- it does no good to complain about voters or politicians. The real question is legitimacy or, more precisely, how to get it back.

There are, indeed, only two constructive paths available: the first is to point out, insistently, that the government of the United States is in many fundamental respects illegitimate and, incidentally, completely out of step with the modern world; the second is to debate what alternative system of rules, what governing covenant, could be appropriate for our society.

This will take time.

Given the scale of the disconnect, it's inevitable.

it'll take time, but how long?

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

The Christian right reached the mountaintop with the presidency of George W. Bush, shrouding science and reason in the shadow of the cross and the flag. But even at the height of Bush's glory, in his 2004 campaign, a few isolated moderate Republicans warned that the Republican Party was in danger of collapse. Of course their jeremiads were ignored. That year, Christie Todd Whitman published a book titled It's My Party Too, decrying the takeover by what she called the "social fundamentalists." A member of a distinguished and wealthy eastern Republican family, with deep ties to the party, she had been governor of New Jersey and head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Bush, only to quit when fundamentalist ideologues substituted right-wing doctrine for science in its studies. After the 2008 Republican debacle, Whitman pointed out that even though McCain was not considered a champion of the religious right, his percentage of so-called "values voters" increased by 3 percent over Bush's in 2004. McCain, the last Republican moderate on the national stage, had lost among "moderate voters" by 21 points to Obama.

As soon as Obama took office, the movement camped in the wilderness prepared to take political advantage of the worst economic troubles since the Great Depression by injecting a renewed sense of anti-government resentment. As most people agonized and even panicked over the sudden economic collapse, the Christian right's peddlers of crisis lifted their hands to the heavens. They had a whole new world of trauma to exploit, more desperate and embittered followers to manipulate, and maybe--just maybe--another chance at power.

Republican Gomorrah is an intimate portrayal of a political, social, and religious movement defined by an "escape from freedom." As Erich Fromm explained, those who join the ranks of an authoritarian cause to resolve inner turmoil and self-doubt are always its most fervent, rigidly ideological, and loyal members. They are often its most politically influential members as well. President Eisenhower described the "mental stress and burden" that animates such movements. His admonition to beware the danger posed to democracy by those who seek "freedom from the necessity of informing themselves and making up their own minds concerning these tremendous complex and difficult questions" should be as memorable in history as his caution about the "military-industrial complex" in his farewell address.