Yemen's interim Pres, Vice Pres Abdu Rabu Mansoor Hadi, gives CNN hour long interview, his first w/a western TV network goo.gl/3RQ1H

(1) Nic Robertson (NicRobertsonCNN) on Twitter

Hadi says security deteriorating throughout Yemen & government has lost control over 5 provnces in the south

A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia ... to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".

He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.

The fiercest street fighting seen in central Cairo since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has left more than 1,000 people injured, as popular dissatisfaction with the military-led transitional government boiled over into violence.

In what analysts have labelled a "critical turning point" in Egypt's ongoing revolution, several thousand people clashed with heavily armed riot police in and around Tahrir Square on Tuesday night, leading to dozens of arrests.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces blamed "sedition" for the unrest and vowed to hunt down those responsible. Throughout Tuesday night and yesterday morning protesters chanted demands for the resignation of Egypt's de facto leader, Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, as security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowds.

Two French television journalists held hostage in Afghanistan since December 2009 have been freed, the Elysée Palace has confirmed.

Hervé Ghesquière and Stéphane Taponier of the state TV channel France 3 were kidnapped with three Afghan associates in the mountains of Kapisa, east of Kabul, while working on a documentary about the protection and reconstruction of a road near the Pakistan border.

Held for 18 months by the Taliban, their detention was the longest hostage saga involving French journalists since the 1980s Lebanon hostage crisis. Ghesquière, 47, and Taponier, 46, a cameraman, are experienced war journalists whose work had ranged from the Balkans conflict and Western Sahara to Afghanistan.

The United States Senate has passed a resolution threatening to suspend financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority if its leaders "persist in efforts to circumvent direct negotiations by turning to the United Nations or other international bodies," and called on U.S. President Barack Obama to veto a UN vote on unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.

"Palestinian efforts to gain recognition of a state outside direct negotiations demonstrates absence of a good faith commitment to peace negotiations, and will have implications for continued United States aid," the resolution declares.

One ship participating in the flotilla to Gaza has already set sail toward the flotilla's scheduled meeting place in international waters.

The French ship "Dignity" does not intend on anchoring before reaching the meeting point at sea, but it is still unclear how long it will be waiting for the rest of the ships, some of which were said to be sabotaged.

The French military confirmed Wednesday that it had air dropped "light weapons" earlier this month to Libyan rebels fighting Moamer Kadhafi's forces in the highlands south of Tripoli.

Earlier, the Le Figaro newspaper and a well-placed non-government source had said that France had dropped several tonnes of arms including Milan anti-tank rockets and light armoured vehicles to the revolt.

But Colonel Thierry Burkhard, spokesman for the French general staff, told AFP that the shipments were essentially light arms such as assault rifles to help civilian communities protect themselves from regime troops.

Burkhard said France had become aware in early June that rebel-held Berber villages in the Djebel Nafusa highland region south of the capital had come under pressure from the Libyan strongman's loyalist forces.

The Pan-American Post: Nearly three years after the controversial "Operation Jaque," in which the Colombian military posed as humanitarian workers in order to rescue French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American hostages (potentially violating the Geneva conventions in the process), new reports have emerged that question the official narrative of events. In a new documentary which has sparked a firestorm in the country, journalist Gonzalo Guillen claims the Colombian government actually paid the FARC millions of dollars for the prisoners' release.

MercoPress: Argentina's organized labour, picket organizations and social groups that have played a crucial role in support of the two Kirchner presidencies (2003/2011) are discontent, and growingly vocal, about their disappointment with President Cristina Fernandez lists of candidates to legislative and provincial posts in the coming October general election.

Guatemala: During the debate, both Perez Molina and Torres agreed that they would be open to allowing US troops to operate in the country in order to reduce drug trafficking and organized crime. Torres went so far as to say locating US military bases in Guatemala. She also said that now would be a good opportunity because the US is in the process of removing its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Perez Molina, while open to additional US troops, reiterated that Guatemala shouldn't expect other countries to fight its battles.

Bolivia: According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Bolivia holds 5.4 million tons of lithium, more than half of the world's reserves.  It is these reserves, valued at USD 1.1 trillion that hold the potential to transform South America's poorest nation into the next Saudi Arabia.

Learning to Live Without Hugo: Venezuelans are trying to learn to survive without the presence of President Hugo Chavez. Everyone misses him; the Bolivarians [government supporters] and the opposition, equally. Because politics in Venezuela has revolved around him for the last thirteen years. While Chavez is still in Cuba after undergoing surgery for a pelvic abscess and without a publicly known precise diagnosis.

VERACRUZ, Mexico (AP) -- The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season gained force as it headed for Mexico's central Gulf coast Wednesday, bringing a threat of floods and mudslides.

Weekly round-up by Americas Society.

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

France said it did not break a U.N. arms embargo by airlifting weapons to Libya's rebels because the arms were needed to defend civilians under threat.

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Citing unnamed sources, Le Figaro newspaper said France had parachuted rocket launchers, assault rifles, machineguns and anti-tank missiles into the Western Mountains in early June.

A French military spokesman confirmed delivery of arms, prompting some U.N. diplomats to argue that such transfers without the consent of the Security Council's Libya sanctions committee could violate the embargo.

GOOD news from Iran is rare, and the IMF is seldom a font of happy tidings about anything. So when a mission from the Fund cheered the Islamic Republic's economy earlier this month, heaping praise on the policies of its ruthless government, eyebrows spiked upwards as in a comic scene in a Persian miniature. The shock was even sharper given that the IMF, whose biggest shareholder happens to be the Great Satan, America, is a pillar of global capitalism, a system that Iran's maverick president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, gleefully lambasts as evil.

Yet the IMF's upbeat pronouncement, in a brief press release (a fuller report is forthcoming) following annual consultations in Tehran, has some justification. This is not because Iran's economy is performing brilliantly. Whereas other big oil exporters have boomed on the back of high prices, Iran has grown sluggishly, nudging upwards only last year to 3.5%. That is not enough to dent a rising unemployment rate, which is now close to 15%.

The reason for the praise is Iran's exemplary execution of a task dear to the IMF's heart: structural reform. The Islamic Republic describes things differently. Speaking on the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian new year in March, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared this to be the "year of economic jihad". Whatever its name, the sweeping reform of a ruinous, three-decade-old system of state subsidies that Iran began last December seems to be radically reshaping the country's economy for the better.

The Federal Election Commission gets it -- Stephen Colbert is punking them. But the FEC treated the Comedy Central host's request for an advisory opinion like anyone else, and on Thursday granted him the ability to form a "super PAC."

Their ruling allows his parent company Viacom to pay for most of their "coverage" of Colbert Super PAC's activities under a press exemption without having to disclose such expenditures as in-kind donations.

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Campaign finance reform groups opposed Colbert's motion because they said it would allow other media companies and politicians who have their own programs to promote their political action committees under the guise of a media exemption.

Colbert said he didn't know what he'd be doing with his unrestricted "super PAC" money, but said people should give him cash so they could find out.

"I don't know about you, but I do not accept limits on my free speech," Colbert said. "I don't know about you, but I do not accept the status quo. But I do accept Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. $50 or less please, because then I don't have to keep a record of who gave it to me."