Syria nears Arab League deadline for end to crackdown
Violence is continuing in Syria, as deadline set by the Arab League approaches for the government to end its crackdown on protesters.
A Syrian diplomatic source said Damascus would accept observers to monitor implementation of a peace deal, but with conditions.
The Arab League formally suspended Syria on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the British Foreign Secretary announced that he would meet Syrian opposition members.
William Hague will meet members of the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Co-ordination Committee for Democratic Change in London on Monday, his office said
Pakistan's ambassador called to Islamabad
Hussain Haqqani denies claims he asked for US help on behalf of President Zardari to stop possible coup by army.
Last Modified: 19 Nov 2011
Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, is flying into Islamabad to answer allegations that he wrote a memo that asked for US help against the Pakistani army on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Haqqani, a close aide of Zardari, has played an important role in helping Pakistan's civilian government navigate turbulent relations with the US, which nose-dived after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May.
Local media reports in Pakistan on Thursday implicated Haqqani in a memo allegedly sent from Zardari to Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top military officer in the US, that sought to curtail Pakistan's military after it was humiliated by the bin Laden killing.
Zardari reportedly feared that the military might seize power as one way to limit the hugely damaging fallout in Pakistan after US special forces killed bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2.
Raids on Occupy camps carry powerful echoes of US history
The Irish Times - Saturday, November 19, 2011
LARA MARLOWE
In 1932, first World War veterans and their families camping out in Washington were branded criminals and communists
WHEN POLICE cleared out encampments of the Occupy movement around the country this week, the late-night raids, demonstrations, arrests and skirmishes carried powerful echoes of US history.
In 1932, three years after the start of the Great Depression, tens of thousands of first World War veterans and their families camped out in the mudflats along the Anacostia river in southeast Washington, within view of the Capitol.
They scavenged wrecked cars, chicken coops and scraps of wood from a nearby dump to build their shanty town. Like the tents pitched in Zuccotti Park, the camp lasted two months.
Burma: welcome to Naypyidaw - the home of kings - and the world's weirdest capital city
Naypyidaw is a city of gilded palaces erected out of the jungle and linked by the widest of highways, swept clean by a broom-wielding army.
The Uppatasaniti Pagoda in Naypyidaw Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
At its heart is a golden temple to appease and honour the Gods. In case that is not enough to defray fate, an enclosure nearby is home to a pair of well-fed Albino elephants, beasts which are believed to be auspicious harbingers of national good fortune.
Naypyidaw, Burma’s capital, should be a city fit for a thriving population happy to wander around its extravagance. Instead – as The Daily Telegraph witnessed this week in a rarely sanctioned visit – it is an empty city, with barely a car on the road, and not a crowd to be seen.
Indeed Naypyidaw, or the home of kings, has emerged from virgin forests to stake a claim to be the world’s weirdest citadel in just a handful of years
COLUMN ONE
South Korea's 'Weasel' ferrets out the funny
Wildly popular podcast host Kim Ou-joon takes on any and all politicians, but his favorite target is President Lee Myung-bak. It's a daring move in a country with little tradition of political humor.
By John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Every week, Kim Ou-joon does what was once unthinkable in South Korea: He gleefully lampoons the president.
At the start of a recent installment of Kim's wildly popular political podcast, "Naneun Ggomsuda," or "I'm a Weasel," the narrator intoned with mock-solemnity: "Wall Street is occupied by protesters while Korea is peaceful and quiet. That's natural because Korea is heaven on earth!
"Our president can cross the river on a bridge of fallen autumn leaves."
At the start of a recent installment of Kim's wildly popular political podcast, "Naneun Ggomsuda," or "I'm a Weasel," the narrator intoned with mock-solemnity: "Wall Street is occupied by protesters while Korea is peaceful and quiet. That's natural because Korea is heaven on earth!
"Our president can cross the river on a bridge of fallen autumn leaves."
One researcher has identified 11 new species of sweat bees, including a bug named in honor of Gotham City — but in a sense, these bees aren't new at all. They've probably been right under our noses all this time.
The new identifications were made by Cornell entomologist Jason Gibbs by checking dead-bee collections and conducting DNA tests. Species names and descriptions were published last month in the journal Zootaxa as part of a reshuffling of the family tree for 97 species of sweat bees. Gibbs said there may be thousands of bee species yet to be identified.
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