Amnesty International has urged Kyrgyzstani authorities to ensure a fair trial for eight ethnic Uzbeks facing charges over the death of a police officer during mass violence across southern parts of the country in June.

The appeal comes after the accused, their lawyers and families were attacked by relatives and colleagues of the dead policeman at the opening of their trial in the southern town of Massi on 2 September, following repeated requests from the defence to move the trial away from the region.

The leading US and Nato commander in Afghanistan today said threats by a US church to burn copies of the Qur'an could endanger troops in Afghanistan and Americans worldwide.

General David Petraeus's warning followed a protest by hundreds of Afghans yesterday over plans by the Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre - an evangelical Christian church espousing anti-Islamic philosophy - to burn copies of the Qur'an on church grounds to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Several hundred Afghans rallied outside a Kabul mosque, burning American flags and an effigy of Dove World's pastor and chanting: "Death to America." Members of the crowd briefly pelted a passing US military convoy with stones, but were ordered to stop by protest organisers.

As if they haven't suffered enough, Cantabrians toiling to clean up after Saturday's quake now face a potential shortage of Canterbury Draught beer.

And the rest of the country also faces running out of a number of well-known brands, including Guinness, Beck's and the Macs Craft range.

Lion Nathan's Christchurch brewery - which suffered heavy damage in the 7.1 magnitude quake - is closed, and likely to stay that way until the end of the week. It is the sole producer of the four popular labels.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has found an unlikely ally to help raise cash for his impoverished regime: The Dude, the pot-smoking underachiever played by Jeff Bridges in the movie "The Big Lebowski."

Programmers from North Korea's General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film, as well as "Men in Black: Alien Assault," according to two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, a spokeswoman for the unit said.

The threat posed by al-Qaida and the Taliban is exaggerated and the western-led counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan risks becoming a "long, drawn-out disaster", one of the world's leading security thinktanks warned today.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), the west's counter-insurgency strategy has "ballooned" out of proportion to the original aim of preventing al-Qaida from mounting terrorist attacks there, and must be replaced by a less ambitious but more sensible policy of "containment and deterrence".

The critique of the US- and British-backed military policy is contained in the latest strategic survey from the IISS, a respected but usually uncontroversial body. IISS officers made clear today they have departed from their normal practice because of the serious threat to the west's security interests in pursuing the current Afghan strategy.

CAIRO: Egypt's most popular opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei has called for a boycott of this November's parliamentary elections. He told a group of some 200 supporters that elections in Egypt are already decided and that patience is needed among opposition forces before change can be created.

Speaking at a Ramadan iftar meal - the meal to mark the end of the sunrise to sunset fast - ElBaradei said that a vote would go against "the national will" of transforming Egypt into a real democracy.

"If all people boycott elections totally, it will be in my view the end of the regime," he told reporters after the meal.

VIENNA - Austrian billionaire Martin Schlaff is behind the transfer of $4.5 million to the bank accounts of Gilad and Omri Sharon, an investigation conducted by Israel's national fraud squad has concluded.

The investigators are therefore recommending that Schlaff be indicted on bribery charges, and that Gilad and Omri, the sons of former prime minister Ariel Sharon, be charged with serving as conduits for a bribe.

Egyptian troops on Tuesday seized nine weapons consignments bound for the Gaza Strip that included anti-aircraft weapons, according to Israeli and Palestinian news reports.

In a series of raids across the Sinai Peninsula, which borders Hamas-controlled Gaza, troops recovered machine guns, ammunition, over 170 anti-aircraft shells, 90 artillery shells and anti-tank landmines, the reports said.

Bolivia, Sept. 7 2010, Emily Achtenberg for NACLA - Recent massive protests in Potosí, a traditional bastion of support for Bolivia's Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) government, have confronted President Evo Morales with perhaps the most significant challenge of his second term in office. Unlike past regional revolts led by conservative opposition forces in Santa Cruz, Potosí represents a new type of regional economic conflict led by coalitions of popular organizations demanding to be part of Bolivia's "process of change." These protests are taking place in the context of a new federalism that is raising expectations as well as demands for political accountability. (...) While the protesters gained important government promises  in recognition of their demands, the situation is far from resolved. Next steps, for the most part, will depend on the work of multi-party commissions set up to address each issue. In addition to questions of financing and implementation, significant legal obstacles remain. The resolution of the boundary dispute, for example, will require new legislation, and the metal processing plant can't open until the government completes arbitration to oust the existing transnational owner. Since the settlement, the rhetoric and charges have continued to escalate on both sides. The government has dismissed the conflict as "fabricated," and accused protest leaders of sacrificing the population of Potosí at great economic cost to their own department ($12 million in mining royalties plus foregone tourist revenues). The MAS deputies who joined the protests have been isolated by the party leadership and branded as "traitors."

Honduras, Reporters Without Borders: There has a new surge in cases of harassment and censorship of journalists working for radio stations that have been outspoken in their criticism of the government since the June 2009 coup d'état.

Colombia Reports: Colombia's Catholic church says there are more than 3.8 million displaced people in the country. (...) Most of Colombia's internal refugees were forced from their land by violence from guerrillas or paramilitary groups. The church's charity body Pastoral Social has registered 2.8 million hectares of land that were seized from Colombians, but warned that the actual figure could be closer to 5 million.

Foreign Policy in Focus: Peruvian President Fujimori's Right-Hand Man Was a Gun Runner and Drug Dealer -- and Employed by the U.S.  A Supreme Court verdict in Peru this week once again shows how the U.S. government has engaged in unholy alliances -- often with those involved in the very drug trade it claims to be combating -- in order to further its short-term drug policy objectives and to the detriment of broader U.S. foreign policy goals.

Guatemala, Prensa Libre: The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food (MAGA) reported yesterday Q25.7 million losses in various crops, mainly white maize, due to flooding and landslides in recent days. According to the preliminary report, from August 28 until September 5 last just five thousand 456.6 hectares were adversely affected of maize, bananas, beans, tomatoes and "pepitoria". The product most affected was corn, with four thousand 852.4 hectares ruined and Q21 million in losses.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- Guyana and Suriname have agreed on a new mechanism to advance co-operation and the bridging of the Corentyne River linking the two South American and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) neighbours. This was revealed at a join press conference on Monday following a meeting between Guyana's President Bharrat Jagdeo and his Surinamese counterpart president Desi Bouterse, who was on a one day state visit to Guyana.

Castro opened our initial meeting by telling me that he read the recent Atlantic article carefully, and that it confirmed his view that Israel and America were moving precipitously and gratuitously toward confrontation with Iran. This interpretation was not surprising, of course: Castro is the grandfather of global anti-Americanism, and he has been a severe critic of Israel. His message to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, he said, was simple: Israel will only have security if it gives up its nuclear arsenal, and the rest of the world's nuclear powers will only have security if they, too, give up their weapons. Global and simultaneous nuclear disarmament is, of course, a worthy goal, but it is not, in the short term, realistic.

Castro's message to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, was not so abstract, however. Over the course of this first, five-hour discussion, Castro repeatedly returned to his excoriation of anti-Semitism. He criticized Ahmadinejad for denying the Holocaust and explained why the Iranian government would better serve the cause of peace by acknowledging the "unique" history of anti-Semitism and trying to understand why Israelis fear for their existence.

[...]

He said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. "This went on for maybe two thousand years," he said. "I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." The Iranian government should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here's what happened to them: Reverse selection. What's reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation." He continued: "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. "I am saying this so you can communicate it," he answered.

Castro went on to analyze the conflict between Israel and Iran. He said he understood Iranian fears of Israeli-American aggression and he added that, in his view, American sanctions and Israeli threats will not dissuade the Iranian leadership from pursuing nuclear weapons. "This problem is not going to get resolved, because the Iranians are not going to back down in the face of threats. That's my opinion," he said. He then noted that, unlike Cuba, Iran is a "profoundly religious country," and he said that religious leaders are less apt to compromise. He noted that even secular Cuba has resisted various American demands over the past 50 years.

Baghdad - Two United States soldiers were killed and nine injured Tuesday in a firefight in northern Iraq, the military said.

The incident took place 'inside an Iraqi Army commando compound' near Tuz, about 150 kilometres north-west of the capital Baghdad, according to a statement released by the US military in Iraq.

A single assailant was apparently behind the assault and he was shot dead.

The two soldiers are the first US deaths in Iraq since President Barack Obama declared the end of military operations on August 31.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has announced his intention to retire at the end of his term (an office he's held since 1989!) and the talk is that Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will run to replace him.

It's good timing, because with the national election imminent, a major White House shakeup was due.

From AP:

VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico -- Weeks of torrential rains have unleashed flooding in huge swaths of southern Mexico, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

Tens of thousands more are sleeping on their roofs, refusing to abandon their possessions even as the rivers around them rise rapidly.

Authorities on Tuesday started releasing 2,000 cubic meters (71,000 cubic feet) of water per second from four damns in the region that have reached capacity. That caused several rivers to overflow.

The flooding has affected all four southernmost Mexican states: Tabasco, Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca. People in the region are accustomed to severe flooding every year, and the government often struggles to persuade residents to leave dangerous zones.

In Tabasco, the homes of more than 124,000 people have been severely flooded. More than 187,000 hectares of crops belonging to 20,000 people have been lost.