All 152 people on board a Pakistani plane have been killed after the aircraft plunged into the Margalla Hills near the capital, Islamabad.

The interior minister said no survivors had been found as rescuers searched the site after the accident on Wednesday. 

"Nobody survived," Rehman Malik told Express TV.

The accident occurred as the plane was attempting to land in bad weather.

The search operation was complicated as the plane had plummeted into a gorge between two densely wooded hills, more than an hour by foot from the nearest road.

Georgia should seek to increase its role in the NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said on Wednesday.

There are currently some 1,000 Georgian servicemen in Afghanistan.

"Georgia has a direct interest in the success of the Afghan operation and in putting a halt to terrorism once and for all," Saakashvili said, adding that Georgia's military could learn a lot from the "school" of Afghan warfare.

At least 17 civilians have been killed in fighting between the Somali government and al-Shabab fighters in Mogadishu.

The fighting took place in the capital's Taleh district, which was hit by a number of mortars fired by both sides.

Several homes were destroyed, and scores were injured, according to reports from local officials.

"The ambulance servicemen collected 10 civilian bodies and 46 others who were injured in the clashes yesterday afternoon," Ali Musa, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance services, said.

With its sedate pace and genteel drip, drip revelations, one could be forgiven for thinking of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war as an academic exercise, delving into some distant historical event in an attempt to understand what happened. But to many Iraqis, the inquiry is something else entirely. It is an inconsequential charade, a classic case of fiddling while Baghdad burns.

Yesterday it was Hans Blix's turn to appear before the laid back and suitably emotionless inquisitors. The former chief UN weapons inspector revealed nothing we didn't know. He told Chilcot there was no justification for war, because his inspectors found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction; and he told them that he had needed a few more months to finish his task.

As an Iraqi living in Britain, and fearful for my compatriots back home, I remember waiting with baited breath for Blix to utter those undiluted words when he appeared before the UN security council in 2003, 11 days before the war of aggression was launched. Back then, he minced his words, providing enough ambiguity for Tony Blair and Jack Straw to push on with their plans to drag Britain into the US-led war.

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Chilcot inquiry: too late, Hans Blix, too late | Sami Ramadani | Comment is free | The Guardian

Meanwhile, the litany of repressive policies gets longer. It is illegal to be a member of a trade union, just as it was under Saddam. Paul Bremer, the US envoy who ruled Iraq after the invasion, revived Saddam's infamous "decree 150" in 2004, effectively banning all public sector unions. Activists are now treated as if they were terrorists. Only last week troops and police raided the offices of workers' unions across the country, following a government decree under the 2005 anti-terrorism act, to ban them and seize their assets.

Amnesty International has condemned the executions of two Japanese men in the first death sentences carried out since the country's new government came to power last year.

Convicted killers Ogata Hidenori, 33, and Shinozawa Kazuo, 59, were hanged in the Tokyo Detention Centre on Wednesday, exactly one year after the last executions took place.

"Japan continues to go against the international trend toward abolition and mete out this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment," said Donna Guest, Deputy Director of the Asia Pacific Programme

A federal judge on Wednesday, weighing in on a clash between the federal government and a state over immigration policy, blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law from going into effect.

In a ruling on a law that has rocked politics coast to coast and thrown a spotlight on a border state's fierce debate over immigration, Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court here said that some aspects of the law can go into effect as scheduled on Thursday.

But Judge Bolton took aim at the parts of the law that have generated the most controversy, issuing a preliminary injunction against sections that called for police officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.

Judge Bolton put those sections on hold while she continued to hear the larger issues in the challenges to the law.

Israel is aiding an exiled Arab sheikh who is vying to seize control of a strategically important Gulf emirate only 40 miles from Iran.
...
Khalid, who has been based in London and has hired a solicitor from Ickenham as his agent, is bidding to replace his ailing father, Sheikh Saqr, and half brother, Sheikh Saud, to take control of RAK.

Israel's involvement in what would be a bloodless coup in one of the most sensitive regions in the world, would be "extremely uncomfortable", according to Dr Christopher Davidson, an expert on the politics of the UAE at Durham University.

Khalid, who was sent into exile in 2003, claims RAK is now acting as a trafficking hub for nuclear arms parts to Iran and has spent more than £4m on an international public relations and lobbying campaign to persuade American politicians and the pro-Israel lobby in the US that it would be safer if he were in charge.

Costa Rica - The Costa Rican Supreme Court last week agreed to take a case challenging the constitutionality of a US-Costa Rican agreement that would allow for a massive US military presence. The agreement cannot go into effect until the Supreme Court rules, thus postponing the arrival of US forces.

Costa Rica - The Costa Rican government officially declined to reverse the presidential decree that declares the mining project in Las Crucitas de Curtis as being in the national interest. The decision would seem to clear any legal impediment to the open pit gold mine operation, which the nation's highest court (Sala IV) had approved in April.  The project approved by the previous administration is deeply controversial, and environmental groups had Marched on the Supreme Court to voice their opposition.

Hollman [Morris] is the noted Colombian journalist who was awarded a Nieman Fellowship to come study here at Harvard -- only to have his request for a student visa rejected by the United States government. An American official told Hollman he was being rejected under the terrorist activities section of the Patriot Act; Hollman has done much courageous reporting on ties between right-wing militias and the Colombian government, which has opened him up to criticism from those he reports on. I'm happy to say that the U.S. State Department has reversed its decision and decided to allow Hollman into the country. He'll arrive here in Cambridge within the next few weeks and will be able to study at Harvard as we'd originally hoped.

Appearing on Fox News, Thune and host Greta Van Susteren discussed the bill's call for the creation of a Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction, tasked with reducing the deficit 10 percent year over year.

"It would be required to find 10% in savings -- 10% of the deficit in savings every budget cycle," Thune said.

"So in 10 years we wouldn't have a deficit?" van Sustern asked.

"Theoretically, yes," Thune replied. "10% Is a floor. Obviously -- you can go beyond that."