Need to know: A day after the Afghan president's half brother was murdered at point blank range, a funeral was held near his Kandahar home. Numerous attacks were staged against those who were making their way there, including one against the governor of Helmand Province. The assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai and the subsequent attacks are making it harder for the United States to spin it's line that things are improving in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch accused rebels fighting Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi of looting towns they seize and in some cases burning down the houses of families they believe to be aligned with Gaddafi. The accusations come as the rebels expand their area of control and slowly begin inching toward Tripoli. |
| Want to know: As London's phone hacking scandal spreads - it has already taken down the News of the World and is now threatening several other papers owned by media mogul Robert Murdoch - Prime Minister David Cameron, normally a nimble politician, has fallen behind the curve. Cameron has long enjoyed the support of Murdoch and has been slow in responding to the scandal, making him more politically vulnerable as the controversy plays out. Meanwhile, the scandal has reached the shores of the United States as Senator Jay Rockefeller called on authorities to investigate Murdoch journalists in the United States, adding that there would be serious consequences if it was discovered that they had spied on U.S. citizens. Check out live updates of the trial for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, who is fighting extradition to Sweden where he stands accused of sexual assault. Assange, who won the ire of the United States and several other powerful countries by leaking their secrets to the public, says the charges were fabricated and intended to sully his image. Before the trial began on Tuesday, Assange had been held under house arrest for more than six months without bail or trial. |
| Dull but important: Where is Silvio Berlusconi? While the spread between the yields of Italy's bonds and German "bunds" rocketed up on Monday - threatening to make Italy the next target in Europe's ongoing sovereign debt crisis - the country's prime minister remained unusually quiet, leaving many Italians wondering. Angela Merkel must have wondered too. In fact, the German chancellor gave Berlusconi a call Monday afternoon, her office said, to urge him to approve emergency austerity measures proposed by the government's economic czar, Giulio Tremonti. Despite Merkel's call, Berlusconi did not appear in public to reassure international investors that Italy would avoid a Greek-style crisis. |
| Just because: Grain elevators, rusting rail tracks and endless tracts of flat prairie landscape are hardly the stuff of science fiction. Yet Vulcan, Alberta (pop. 1,900) has become something of a mecca for diehard Star Trek fans. Facing the prospect of being sucked into an economic black hole in the early 1990s, the one-horse town in Canada's Wild West decided to cash in on its otherworldly name - with surreal results. About 400 years ago, a bright spark came up with the idea to sheath his sword in a piece of sheep's intestine. And the condom was born. Since then, male birth control has mostly been tinkering with this initial design. Until now. After a more than 30-year struggle, an unassuming Indian engineer named Sujoy K. Guha is on the brink of what could well be the most revolutionary contraceptive technology since the pill - and this time it's for men. |
| Wacky: Facebook really is taking over. One in ten pets in the United Kingdom now have profiles on the social networking site. "Friends" of U.K. pets will now be able to see that the dog has been for a walk, the cat has napped, and the goldfish has been swimming. Ordinary pets, in fact, have been turned into celebrities through Facebook and other social networking sites. These famous pets include Maru the cat, described by his owner as "a little bumbling and a little awkward." Yet this awkward animal is bigger than many human celebrities - having amassed more than 6 million views on YouTube, from the nearly 200 videos his owners have posted. |
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