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WASHINGTON - For the first time, a federal advisory board has approved criteria that clear the way for farmed fish to be labeled "organic," a move that pleased aquaculture producers even as it angered environmentalists and consumer advocates.
A man cradles his son as he stares intensely at the camera; the baby, secure in the strong arms of his father, playfully touches the man's mouth with an outstretched finger. Only the rough bandages swaddling the legs of the chubby infant tell a bigger story, the story of a war without end, and of those men, women, ordinary families, caught up in the fighting in eastern Congo.
XIENG KHOUANG, Laos - Laotian children chase each other through their school playing field, unaware of the 248 unexploded bombs buried a few steps away -- the lethal legacy of a war that ended three decades ago.
Remnants of the Vietnam War which ended in 1975 litter this tiny Southeast Asian nation, which became the most bombed country in the world after US forces dropped planeloads of ordnance to cut off Northern Vietnamese supply routes.
WASHINGTON - Women are being disproportionately affected by the U.S. mortgage crisis and economic plunge, said a panel of women leaders Wednesday, urging a strong woman-focused response from the federal government.
AMMAN - Gaza faces a humanitarian "catastrophe" if Israel continues to prevent aid reaching the territory by blocking crossing points, the head of the main U.N. aid agency for the Palestinians said on Friday.
Karen AbuZayd, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), said the human toll of this month's sealing of Gaza's goods crossings was the gravest since the early days of a Palestinian uprising eight years ago.
</td></tr></table>On the evening of Tuesday 18 November Khalid al-Habeel sat surrounded by his wife, family, and other concerned fishermen. Until the early hours of the following day, they had no idea what charges were being laid against 15 fishermen, including two of al-Habeel's sons, Adham (21) and Mohammed (20), after they were nabbed from Gaza's territorial waters earlier that morning and taken to an Israeli interrogation center at Ashdod port. Nor did they know when or if their boats -- their livelihoods -- would be returned. Eva Bartlett reports.
</td></tr></table>Over the past two weeks, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have faced a sharply deteriorating humanitarian situation as Israel further tightened its closure of the border crossings. Virtually no food, medicine or other vital supplies have been allowed in to the territory that is home to 1.5 million people. Despite desperately needed medication, equipment, supplies, and spare parts, doctors continue to try to save lives and look after their patients at the European Gaza Hospital. Rami Almeghari reports from Gaza.
</td></tr></table>Text messages came from student protestors who had managed to get inside the lecture hall. They let the their fellow demonstrators outside know that their chanting could be heard inside over the voice of Israeli President Shimon Peres. There was clapping and stamping of feet and placards banged on the railings to make as much noise as possible, along with the constant "Free, free Palestine" which did not stop for a moment of the hour-long lecture. Abigail Humphries reports from Oxford.
</td></tr></table>The middle-of-the-night eviction last week of an elderly Palestinian couple from their home in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers is a demonstration of Israeli intent towards a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd are now on the street, living in a tent, after Israeli police enforced a court order issued in July to expel them. Jonathan Cook analyzes.
</td></tr></table>Canada's Museum of Civilization is part of Canadians' acknowledgement and atonement for the colonial ethnic cleansing of First Peoples. By providing space for the Jewish National Funds's Negev Dinner, however, the museum is aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing in Palestine and facilitating the celebration of these actions next to the exhibit of aboriginal culture in the Museum's Great Hall. This discredits our nation's understanding of its own egregious colonial past and raises questions about the sincerity of our apologies to aboriginal peoples in Canada.
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United States forces are believed to have carried out about 20 missile attacks since August in north-west Pakistan, a sharp rise that reflects Washington's frustration at Islamabad's efforts to tackle militants on its own soil.
Though the attacks have killed a number of high-profile militant leaders, civilian casualties and wounded national pride has led to outrage in Pakistan. The Pakistani government has been forced to repeatedly deny reports that a secret pact has been agreed with the US to allow the missile attacks from Afghanistan territory to go ahead.
Pakistani government officials and military officers last week denied the existence of a "secret list" of 20 individuals against whom missile strikes had been sanctioned by Islamabad without prior consultation. They repeatedly told the Observer that the strikes were causing problems by angering local people. "One strike and you have a whole village radicalised," said Shafir Ullah Nasir, the political agent in the Bajaur tribal agency where fighting has raged for months.
Pakistan's new civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, has urged Washington to share intelligence and equip Pakistani forces so they can pursue militants on their own side of the border.
Intelligence officials in Islamabad have told the Observer that the strikes have demoralised militants, forcing many to sleep in different locations every night or even sleep under trees for cover rather than risk staying in a house. The heightened rate of attrition among the militants has sparked a hunt for a suspected spy within their ranks, diverting attention and resources from offensive actions, the officials said.
Pakistan has played a key role in the evolution of the terrorist threat in the UK. Many major bomb plots in Britain have involved British or dual-nationality citizens who have travelled to Pakistan for training or strategic advice from the hardcore al-Qaida leadership who have regrouped in the lawless tribal zones along the Afghan frontier in recent years.
Several dozen British citizens who are known to the UK government make their way to the frontier region each year, with Pakistani militant groups often acting as intermediaries. Intelligence officials suspect there are others who they have been unable to identify.
Some go on to fight in Afghanistan, others return to the UK. Britain's MI6 overseas intelligence agents work closely with their American counterparts to track individuals who they believe pose a "material" threat to the UK. Rashid Rauf would have fallen squarely into this category.
As MI6 has neither the capability nor the legal right to undertake lethal operations in Pakistan, intelligence is passed to the Americans who run a fleet of drones fitted with Hellfire missiles powerful enough to destroy a mud-walled home and burn everyone inside. Rauf may well have fallen into the latter category too.
Rashid Rauf has always been something of an enigmatic figure, so it is not surprising that confusion surrounds reports of his death today. The British Islamist has already disappeared twice before.
He is reported to have been killed in a United States airstrike in north-west Pakistan, but officials cautioned that this could not be confirmed because his body had not yet been recovered.
The 27-year-old was suspected of being the ringleader of the 2006 plot to blow up transatlantic airliners using liquid explosive; acting as the go-between for al-Qaida and plotters in Britain.
He was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006 based on information from the British authorities, but controversially escaped Pakistani police custody in December last year. Rauf vanished outside an extradition hearing at an Islamabad court after police allowed him to say afternoon prayers at a mosque, en route to the high-security Adiala prison.
His lawyer and family questioned the official version of events. They remain convinced that he was abducted and returned to the custody of the notorious Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which had held him for several months after he was first detained.
Rauf's lawyer, Hashmat Ali Habib, told the Guardian last year: "It wasn't an escape from custody. You could call it a 'mysterious disappearance' if you like, but not an escape."
Ali Habib is likely to be sceptical of today's announcement. He predicted that Rauf's death might be announced at some point in the future. "Perhaps it will be announced that Rashid was caught in crossfire during a police operation."
Rauf's family in Birmingham say that he told an uncle during an adjournment in the Pakistani court proceedings that for around four months he had been held in a cell that was so small his knees touched the ceiling when he lay on his back and raised his legs.
From time to time, his family said, he would be taken, hooded, from his cell and tortured with beatings and electric shocks. They say Rauf told them he was questioned by men with British and American accents while being tortured.
Rauf's brother Tayib said: "He had a hood over his head but he knows what an English accent sounds like."
Rauf's first disappearance occurred in Birmingham in April 2002. The son of a successful baker, Rauf was brought up in the Ward End area of the city. He fled Britain for Pakistan after his uncle, Mohammed Saeed, was stabbed to death. West Midlands police have wanted to question Rauf ever since.
Once in Pakistan, he headed for Bahawalpur, a small town 450 miles (725km) south of Islamabad where he knew a local imam, a man who had stayed at his family home while preaching in the UK. Despite speaking very little Urdu, Rauf was soon engaged to marry the imam's daughter. It was a union that brought him close to an organisation once described as the deadliest terrorist group on the sub-continent.
Rauf's wife is closely related by marriage to Maulana Masood Azhar, the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammad, or Army of Mohammad, a group that enjoyed close links with the ISI during the 1990s, when it was helping the Pakistani government wage a proxy war against India over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
In December 2006, a Pakistani judge dropped terrorism charges against Rauf, declaring them unfounded. But he remained in custody, until his escape, charged with forgery and carrying explosives.
The former Pakistani interior minister claimed Rauf was "an al-Qaida operative with linkages in Afghanistan". The Pakistani government had agreed to hand over Rauf only if Britain agreed to extradite two Pakistani men living in London.
The 2006 bomb plot caused major travel disruption. Hundreds of flights were delayed amid fears that militants were planning to disguise lethal explosive in everyday bottles. Three men were convicted of conspiracy to murder in September.
The 5-year-old teetered on broomstick legs he weighed less than 20 pounds, even after days of drinking enriched milk.
Over 10,000 indigenous people from hundreds of Ecuadors Northern Sierra (highlands) communities gathered to present the native movements proposed Water Law.
An internal investigation by the Central Intelligence Agency has found that the agency withheld crucial information from federal investigators who spent years trying to determine whether C.I.A.
Now that the election is over, the talk in Washington has shifted to a possible lame-duck session of Congress and the urgent need to revitalize our economy.
To update one of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's great phrases, "The hands that picked the cotton, and the hands that picked the lettuce, just picked the new president."
IPS Inter Press Service
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