MAPUTO (Reuters) - Police opened fire on demonstrators protesting against rising prices in Mozambique's capital on Wednesday, killing two children and at least four other people, police and hospital sources said.

Police shot live ammunition after running out of rubber bullets, police officials said. They also fired tear gas as protesters blocked roads and burned tyres across the city.

The government said it had the situation under control.

BAGHDAD -- The United States changed commanders in Iraq Wednesday, beginning the final phase of American military involvement in the country despite political uncertainty and persistent violence.

The transfer of authority came a day after President Barack Obama announced the shift from combat operations to preparing Iraqi forces to assume responsibility for their own security. Obama made clear in Tuesday's speech that this was no victory celebration.

A six-month stalemate over forming a new Iraqi government has raised concerns about the country's stability and questions over whether the leadership can cope with a diminished but still dangerous insurgency.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's largest labour confederation on Wednesday suspended a one-day sympathy strike that could have shut mines to give about 1.3 million striking state workers more time to consider a new wage offer.

The decision removes some of the pressure on President Jacob Zuma's ruling African National Congress to quickly reach a deal or risk a massive labour action that could have dealt a blow to Africa's largest economy.

Palestinian security forces have swept through the West Bank, arresting more than 150 Hamas members, after the group's military wing claimed responsibility for killing four Israeli settlers, according to senior Palestinian security officials.

The crackdown on Wednesday comes on the eve of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians in Washington, and appears to be an attempt by the government of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, to send a message that his organisation is serious about the talks.

"Dozens of Hamas members have been arrested, mainly in [the] Hebron area and across the West Bank," the Palestinian security source said. "We are investigating if they have any links to the shooting attack. There will be more arrests."

During the seemingly never-ending conservative freak-out over the proposed Park51 community center, right-wing media have dismissed the idea that the right's extreme anti-Muslim rhetoric has fueled "Islamophobia" throughout the country. As we've documented extensively, based on numerous hateful protests and vandalisms of mosques around the country, this is clearly not the case. Unfortunately, we can add another piece of evidence to the growing trend.

San Diego radio station KFMB, which features a lineup of conservative talk programming, is currently hosting the following poll on their homepage:

I've spent most of the day trying to reduce a fallen 30 foot tree to manageable slabs of wood and my hands are swollen and bleeding.  Also, we still have no electricity.  And I'm at the office about to give my first 3 hour night class of the semester.

"Beware of the man who does not talk, and the dog that does not bark." Cheyenne

More than 10,000 trucks mainly carrying coal are stuck in a 120 km (75 mile) traffic jam in the northeastern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, in the latest dramatic snarl-up on the country's roads.

[...]

Just over a week ago the authorities finally cleared a previous 100-km jam that had lasted nine days.

Amazingly, that's just what Utah is now proposing, after its  Republican governor intervened to prevent the state legislature from  passing its own version of an Arizona crackdown law.  Momentum behind a  copycat law in Utah was slowed after a federal district court judge  ruled that the heart of Arizona's law, SB 1070, was likely  "pre-empted" by federal law, and issued a temporary injunction  blocking SB 1070's full implementation.

But rather than dropping the matter, the state's governor decided to  convene a roundtable of key stakeholders to come up with a better  approach.  Out of these discussions came the proposal for a state  guest worker program that would effectively bypass, or at least run  parallel to, current federal visa policy.

The basic idea is that Mexican and Utah state officials would sit down  to discuss their respective labor situations, and out of these  discussions a system for regulating the importation of Mexicans into  Utah would be established and administered more or less jointly by the  two sides.