BBC News - Iraq bombings hit cities including Kerbala and Kirkuk

At least 45 people have been killed in a series of co-ordinated attacks across Iraq, officials say.

Two car bombs in the predominantly Shia city of Kerbala killed at least 13 people.

Another car bomb near police headquarters in the northern city of Kirkuk killed another 13 people, most of them officers, police said.

The attacks come ahead of next week's Arab League summit to be held in the capital, Baghdad.

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

BBC News - Syria's leadership making mistakes, says Russia

Syria's leadership is making "a lot of mistakes", Russia's foreign minister has said, in a further sign Moscow may be hardening its stance on Damascus.

Sergei Lavrov said President Bashar al-Assad's regime had "responded incorrectly" from the start, when the protests were peaceful.

He also said Moscow was prepared to support a UN resolution backing its envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan.

It comes a day after Russia called for a daily humanitarian ceasefire.

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

Mauritania 'to extradite former Gaddafi spy chief to Libya' | World news | The Guardian

Mauritania has agreed to extradite Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi to Libya, according to Libya's deputy prime minister.

"I have met the president of Mauritania and he agreed to the extradition of Senussi to Libya," Mustafa Abu Shagour wrote on Twitter.

The unconfirmed reports came as Libya, France and the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague had appeared to be locked in a three-way tussle for custody of Gaddafi's brother-in-law, who was arrested in Mauritania on Saturday.

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

Trayvon Martin: new evidence contradicts killer's self-defence claim, family says | World news | guardian.co.uk

Florida police are under mounting pressure to arrest a neighbourhood watch captain who shot dead an unarmed teenager following dramatic new evidence from the victim's girlfriend.

The family of Trayvon Martin, 17, say the account from his girlfriend completely contradicts his killer's self-defence claim.

In a dramatic press conference on Tuesday, the Martin family's lawyer Benjamin Crump detailed how the unnamed girl - a minor who was so traumatised by Martin's death she was taken to hospital at his wake - was talking to him on his cell phone in the minutes leading up to his death, and heard the altercation with his killer.

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

Pope Shenouda III funeral: Egypt's Coptics mourn - video | World news | guardian.co.uk

Tens of thousands of Egyptian Coptic Christians join a funeral mass for their patriarch, Pope Shenouda III. The service was led by senior clerics at St Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. Deacons chanted sombre hymns and bearded, black-clad priests and monks recited prayers and dispensed incense smoke

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

Zimbabwe 'Egypt video' sentencing delayed - Africa - Al Jazeera English

A Harare court has adjourned sentencing on a former opposition legislator and five other civic activists convicted for "conspiring to commit public violence".

The sentence, due to be handed down on Wednesday, comes after magistrate Kudawashe Jarabini ruled on Monday that former legislator Munyaradzi Gwisai and five others were guilty of conspiring to commit public violence during a meeting in which they watched video footage of mass uprisings in Egypt that toppled its longtime ruler.

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

Japan warns North Korea over rocket launch - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

Japan's defence minister has said Tokyo could shoot down a North Korean rocket if it enters Japanese airspace, according to media reports.

"I am considering giving an order to intercept it," Naoki Tanaka told parliament on Monday. Such an order would be subject to approval by the prime minister, he added.

Two Japanese newspapers, Asahi and Yomiuri, reported on Tuesday that Japan was considering deploying several Aegis-class warships and surface-to-air PAC-3 Patriot missiles to take down the rocket.

Nuclear-armed North Korea says April's long-range rocket launch is to carry a satellite into space, but the plan has prompted scepticism among regional governments.

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

Israel Supreme Court: Settlers can no longer gain possession of land by farming it - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

The Israeli Supreme Court set a precedent on Tuesday ruling that an Ottoman law, under which settlers could get custody of agricultural land by showing they had been farming it for a decade or longer, was not enough to grant ownership of the land.

The case in question involved a petition against Michael Lessens, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, who had been working a plot of land close to the settlement. The head of the Civil Administration issued an order stating he had illegally taken possession of the land and evicting him from it.

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

Acapulco Hit by Major Earthquake: The earthquake apparently happened 12:02 p.m. local time at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles),  some 200 km (120 mi) east of the resort city and was felt as far away as Mexico City. The closest major town to the epicenter is listed as Ometepec, roughly midway between Acapulco and Oaxaca City. The USGS originally recorded the earthquake as a 7.6, but has since downgraded the magnitude to 7.4.

More from the Guardian.

Colombia Reports: Extrajudicial killings continue to be common practice in Colombia, according to a new UN study, reported Colombian daily El Pais.

BBC Mundo: Thousands of miners blocked several stretches of the Panamerican highway in Peru, before the start of dialogue with the Government to address the demands of the miners in the jungle region of Madre de Dios.

(AP): PARAMARIBO, Suriname -- Lawmakers in Suriname have proposed an amnesty law that would end the long-running trial of President Desi Bouterse, who is accused along with former military associates of abducting and killing opponents of his dictatorship in 1982.

Colombia Reports: An investigation into an alleged FARC attack that killed 11 Colombian soldiers was launched by the country's Prosecutor General's office Tuesday.

Colombia Reports: The railway line linking a major Colombian coal mine to the rest of the country is blocked by indigenous people angry about the lack of local teachers in their schools, reported newspaper El Heraldo Tuesday.

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

Mitt Romney wins Illinois presidential primary   LA Times

Mitt Romney scored a decisive victory over Rick Santorum in the Illinois primary on Tuesday, tightening his grip on the Republican front-runner's slot and improving his chances of locking up the nomination by the end of the presidential primary season in June.

Santorum, meantime, suffered a serious setback in his effort to send the GOP battle spilling onto the floor of the nominating convention in late August.

Turnout in the Chicago metro area, where most of the state's voters live, was said to be light, despite clear skies and record-high temperatures in the mid-80s. But Romney carried the largely suburban collar counties around Chicago by 20 percentage points, according to exit poll data, building a lead that Santorum was unable to overcome in other parts of the state.

The Republican race has increasingly solidified into a divisive contest between the party's monied interests, which overwhelmingly back Romney, and the conservative grass-roots base, which has favored the more meagerly financed and loosely organized Santorum.

Looks tough for Romney in the fall. Better yet, if the conservative base is demoralized it may be a better year than otherwise expected for Democrats in the House and Senate. Retaking the house would be a real improvement, as it would cut off at the source all of the crazy legislation that either has to be stopped in the Senate, in the conference committee or be vetoed by the President. Even if the Dems again fail to do anything positive with control of the House, Senate and White House not having to worry about RW craziness in budgeting and legislation would be a relief. There is enough to worry about from Democrats all by themselves - like continuing to give away the farm to the corporates.

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

Pentagon predicts Israel will drag US into war with Iran | Independent

Secret US simulation assumes Tehran would retaliate against ships if nuclear sites bombed.

[...]

The results of the simulation, meant primarily to test co-ordination and communications between the various arms of the US military in the event of a flare-up with Iran, were reported by The New York Times.

So are the NY editors going to join Manning in jail? Or is this whole thing just a way of telling the Iranians to do their best to retaliate only against Israel and to try to keep the U.S. out of it?