By Rachel Donadio, New York Times, January 1, 2010
Francesca Esposito has a law degree and a master's and speaks five languages. She recently quit her unpaid job for Italy's social security administration.
As Tea Party politicians prepare to take their seats when the 112th Congress convenes this week, they are already taking issue with Republicans for failing to hold the line against the flurry of legislation enacted in the waning weeks of Democratic control of the House of Representatives and for not giving some candidates backed by Tea Party groups powerful leadership positions....
Clashes have flared in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, following a car bombing blamed outside a Coptic Christian church that killed at least 21 people.
Police and Christian men faced off late on Saturday afternoon, with reports of rubber-coated bullets and tear gas being fired at crowds of young men.
Enraged Christians emerging from the Qiddissine church fought with police and stormed a nearby mosque, prompting fights and volleys of stone throwing with Muslims....
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. called on President Obama and the Senate on Friday to solve what he called “the persistent problem of judicial vacancies.”....
A human rights project using satellite imagery that the general public can access is being launched tomorrow to help deter a resumption of war between north and south Sudan linked to a crucial referendum in January.
The United States has revoked the visa of the Venezuelan ambassador to Washington Bernardo Alvarez, in apparent retaliation for Caracas' rejection of Washington's nominee for U.S. ambassador.
By Floyd Abrams, Wall Street Journal guest op-ed, December 29, 2010
Everyone knows that Daniel Ellsberg leaked top-secret government documents about the Vietnam War. How many remember the ones he kept secret, or why?
Editorial note for the historically challenged: Mr. Abrams, a senior partner in the firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, represented the New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case.
By Nader Uskowi, Uskowi on Iran, December 28, 2010
....The tone and the substance of Ahmadinejad’s speech strengthen the possibility of a compromise in future talks between Iran and the West. Iran needed to declare a victory on uranium enrichment, what Ahmadinejad did today in Karaj. It now needs to go beyond this declaration and find an acceptable compromise with the West to put an end to the sanctions, something that Iran needs to do to successfully manage its subsidy removal program, a priority for Ahmadinejad administration
By Jasmina Nielsen, Agence France Presse, December 29, 2010
COPENHAGEN — Scandinavian intelligence agencies said they had foiled a plot Wednesday to kill staff at a Danish newspaper which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed and had arrested five suspects.
The head of Denmark's PET intelligence service said four men were arrested while a spokeswoman for Swedish intelligence agency Saepo said a fifth man had been arrested in Sweden in connection with the same plot against the Copenhagen-based Jyllands-Posten daily.....
By Edward Rothstein, New York Times Arts, December 28, 2010
....Me! Me! Me! That is the cry, now often heard, as history is retold. Tell my story, in my way! Give me the attention I deserve! Haven’t you neglected me, blinded by your own perspectives? Now let history be told not by the victors but by people over whom it has trampled....
By Geoffrey York, The Globe and Mail, December 28, 2010
It's been another lucrative week for the barefoot buccaneers of Somalia. First they collected a $5.5-million ransom payment for a German-owned chemical tanker. Then, a day later, they hijacked another European cargo vessel, adding its eight crew members to their growing hoard of hostages.....
.Many migrants from Central America board the train in the hope of a new life in the US, but hundreds of them never make it through the treacherous trek in Mexico. In the most recent case, a group of at least 40 passengers were tied up and they "disappeared"...
By Waleed Abdul Rahman, Asharq Al-Awsat, December 21, 2010
Cairo--A fatwa issued in Egypt calling for the death of Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] and Egyptian political opposition figure, has stirred religious and political controversy across Egypt....
By Alexei Barroneuvo, New York Times, December 26, 2010
...The clash, with its fiery street theater, has become a symbol of government inability to resolve one of the worst spates of social unrest in years, and a political test for President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner....
