World News

ABC | A British radio presenter has been sacked after he pulled the plug on Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day speech, telling listeners it was "boring".

New York Times | He can be impulsive. She has a touch of bossiness. Next-door neighbors for nearly a year, they talk, watch television and explore the world together, wandering into each other’s homes without a second thought. She likes his mother’s eggplant dish. He likes her father’s rice and lamb.

Stop the Drug War & Harder Faster | The Czech Republic followed Portugal to become the second European country to formally decriminalise drug possession this week, announcing specific quantities beneath which users will not be prosecuted.

Mail.com | Russia's space agency chief said Wednesday a spacecraft may be dispatched to knock a large asteroid off course and reduce the chances of earth impact, even though U.S. scientists say such a scenario is unlikely.

Mondo Weiss | A year after Israel's war on Gaza, the territory is still struggling to rebuild.  In the weeks after the offensive, politicians from around the world visited the Strip and made promises to help.  But it appears many of those pledges have not been delivered.  Al Jazeera's Todd Baer caught up with two US Democratic congressmen whose efforts to lift the Israeli blockade on Gaza are being met with stiff resistance.

BBC | Britain despatched an undercover diplomat on a covert mission to the Bahamas to convince the deposed Shah of Iran not to seek to settle in the UK.

Press TV | The 15 septuagenarian defendants, standing trial before a three-judge panel, were officers and policemen who ran clandestine torture centers known as the Athletic Club, the Bank and Olimpo, the Washington Post said on Monday.
 

Guardian | Building will take place in three Jewish neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, all considered illegal settlements under international law, although Israel does not accept this definition.

Common Dreams | An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers who began a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest against Egypt's refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed.

New York Times | Joe Sacco’s gripping, important book about two long-forgotten mass killings of Palestinians in Gaza stands out as one of the few contemporary works on the Israeli-Palestinian struggle likely to outlive the era in which they were written.

Reuters | A Venezuelan man who had been declared dead woke up in the morgue in excruciating pain after medical examiners began their autopsy.

The Business Insider | While America was kvetching about new security restrictions, and what it would mean for holiday travel, Iran continued its descent into total public chaos for the second time this year.

Telegraph | 365 of Britain’s most eminent photographers have written to the Sunday Telegraph calling for anti-terrorist legislation to be amended. They say that is being misused by the police to stop and search photographers unnecessarily, which they find “humiliating”.

Foreign Policy | Sergei Magnitsky was our attorney, and friend, who died under excruciating circumstances in a Moscow pre-trial detention center on Nov. 16, 2009. His story is one of extraordinary bravery and heroism, and ultimately tragedy. It is also a story about how Stalinism and the gulags are alive and well in Russia today.

Alternet | One year after its devastating siege of Gaza, Israel's efforts to discredit peace groups have intensified, while settlement activity has expanded.

BBC | Outrage is growing in India over a six-month jail sentence handed out to a former senior police officer convicted for molesting a 14-year-old girl.

Press TV | British Lawmaker George Galloway has appealed to Cairo to allow the Viva Palestina humanitarian aid convoy he is accompanying to enter the blockaded Gaza Strip.

New York Times | Dominique Broueilh is an unlikely cyberdelinquent, much less a political dissident. But earlier this year, Ms. Broueilh, 50, a homemaker and mother of three, found herself the target of a police investigation and a lawsuit from a French cabinet official because of a comment she had posted online.

Times Online | Osama bin Laden’s closest relatives are living in a secret compound in Iran, members of the family said last night. They include a wife and children who disappeared from his Afghan camp at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

AFP | This year Santa had to ditch his sleigh in Egypt and crawl through a smuggling tunnel to bring a little Christmas joy to the Gaza Strip.

The Guardian | One of the disturbing features of the persistent use of torture by many countries in conflict situations around the world is the role some doctors play in condoning it. The World Medical Association (WMA), which "promot[es] the highest possible standards of medical ethics, [and] provides ethical guidance to physicians", is crystal clear on this practice. Its 1975 Tokyo declaration states unequivocally that "physicians shall not countenance, condone or participate in the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading procedures, and in all situations, including armed conflict and civil conflict"

BBC, Xinhaunet, AL Jazeera | After Israel's massive offensive against the Gaza Strip in January this year, Palestinian Samir al-Attar was interrogated by Israeli authorities as a terrorist.  In less than a year, the 38-year-old Gaza resident faced interrogation again, but this time as a victim. He was used by Israeli forces as a human shield during the war.

BBC | A crowd of people have helped two convicts escape a public execution in Iran, officials there say.

Haaretz | Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat has rejected the recommendation of municipal professionals and will not include the establishment of a well-baby clinic in the Silwan neighborhood in the coming year's budget. The proposed clinic would have served some 100,000 Arabic-speaking residents. On the other hand, the 7,000 residents of the Old City's Jewish Quarter will receive a well-baby clinic in 2010.

Telegraph | 'Global' thinking won't necessarily solve the world's problems, says Janet Daley.  There is scope for debate – and innumerable newspaper quizzes – about who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won the prize for most important adjective

Khaleej Times | Shock and dismay is a good way of describing Washington’s reaction to the slow-motion judicial ouster of its key ally, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan.

Guardian | Israel has admitted that pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others without the consent of their families – a practice that it said ended in the 1990s, it emerged at the weekend.

Haaretz | Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz will demand between 450 million to 1 billion euros in reparations from Germany on behalf of Jews forced into slave labor during the Holocaust, it emerged on Sunday.

Times Online | Laura Dekker’s boat, Guppy, is still moored at its usual berth but she appears to have left her father’s home on her own, said Bernhard Jens, a spokesman for Utrecht police. She has been gone since Friday.

Quixote Center | According to Bertha Oliva, Coordinator of COFADEH, statements by dictator Micheletti accusing the resistance movement of committing the murder of 16 year old Rodríguez Cabrera are a portent of more blood, persecution and violence for the people of Honduras.

Wall Street Journal | At the height of Iran's bloody civil unrest this year, a young doctor named Ramin Pourandarjani defied his superiors. He refused to sign death certificates at a Tehran prison that he said were falsified to cover up murder.

Telegraph | Pakistan's president, Asif Zardari, has been accused of suffering from a sense of humour failure after banning jokes ridiculing him.

Project Censored | Israel’s repeated firing of US-made white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a report released March 25, 2009.

Libcom | A wave of strikes culminating on Thursdays pan-worker mobilisation has been the response to the scaremongering of the government amidst the worsening economic crisis that threatens Greece with bankruptcy.

Current.com | Researchers have revealed the first images from the Caribbean sea floor of what they believe are the archaeological remains of an ancient civilization

Huffington Post | Angry settlers beat and seriously injured a female Israeli police officer Tuesday, police said, as she tried to enforce a government ban on new housing construction in Jewish West Bank settlements.

Reuters | The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation Tuesday to impose sanctions on foreign companies that help supply gasoline to Iran, a move lawmakers hope will deter Tehran from pursuing its nuclear program.

Amnesty.org | The Nepali government must ensure that an army major accused of torturing a 15-year-old Nepalese girl, to death, is arrested immediately and transferred to a civilian court for trial, Amnesty International said on Monday.

Rianovosti | Rashid Nurgaliyev was speaking at a meeting with students in the Moscow Region just days after police officers in both the capital and St. Petersburg were detained on suspicion of beating innocent people to death.

Haaretz | Aadel Suad first came to the planning and construction committee of the Misgav Local Council in 1997. Suad, an educator, was seeking a construction permit to build a home on a plot of land he owns in the community of Mitzpeh Kamon. The reply he got, from a senior official on the committee, was a memorable one.

MSNBC | Five foreigners were detained and their foreign-registered aircraft impounded after it landed in the Thai capital Saturday with tons of war weaponry on board that originated in North Korea, Thai officials said.

Guardian | Italian prime minister whisked away in a car after falling to the ground following attack

BBC | Chinese President Hu Jintao has unveiled the Kazakh section of a 7,000km (4,300 miles) natural gas pipeline joining Central Asia to China.

BBC | A total of 44 companies are bidding for 10 fields in the second such auction since the invasion in 2003.  Shell and Petronas beat a rival bid from France's Total and China's CNPC.

AFP | An Israeli minister has predicted there will be 10,000 new settlers in the occupied West Bank over the next 10 months and insisted that a moratorium did not freeze but only limited construction.

BBC | Attackers set fire to bookshelves and a large area of carpet in the mosque, and sprayed graffiti in Hebrew on a wall.

Haaretz | The storm over remarks made by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman is in many respects a tempest in a teapot, which has for a long time taken on holier aspects than it seems. Neeman wants Torah law, or in other words, he wants Israel to be a country governed by Jewish religious law, halakha.

New York Times | Following is the transcript of President Obama's speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo on Wednesday, as released by the White House

Consortium News | According to the judge’s indictment released Monday, Pinochet operatives administered mustard gas and thallium to Frei causing his death that was explained at the time as septic shock resulting from stomach hernia operation. Madrid charged three Pinochet associates with Frei's murder.

Associated Press | After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close.