ISLAMABAD — Afghan President Hamid Karzai is set to pay an official visit to neighboring Pakistan next week, perhaps as early as Monday, where he will seek help of the newly-elected leadership to arrange talks between his peace negotiators and Taliban representatives. Kabul’s top diplomat in Islamabad says he expects the upcoming talks between the two countries will yield “positive results.”

Afghan leaders have long alleged that neighboring Pakistan is sheltering top Taliban commanders and the country’s spy agency, the ISI, has been helping them plan cross-border attacks on local and U.S.-led coalition forces.

President Karzai wants Pakistani authorities to eliminate the militant sanctuaries in their country to prevent attacks in Afghanistan. He also has been demanding Islamabad use its influence with the Taliban and bring them to the table for talks with members of an Afghan High Peace Council, to try to promote political reconciliation. 

Improving cooperation

While bilateral economic, trade, education, cultural and sports relations have strengthened in recent years, Afghan officials insist that without improving cooperation on issues related to peace and security, progress in other areas will remain fragile.                            

“There is one particular area where we are yet to make progress. That is in the security area. In the whole security department we still have problems," said Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Kabul’s ambassador in Islamabad. "There are allegations from Afghanistan or rather complaints from Afghanistan and Afghanistan obviously has proofs to put those allegations forward that the Taliban and the extremists responsible for criminal actions against the people of Afghanistan have their sanctuaries in Pakistan have their leaderships sheltered in Pakistan.”

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry says that President Karzai’s visit is a symbol of how the leadership of both countries want to further improve relations.

“The emphasis will be on [Afghan] peace and reconciliation process in which Pakistan has already offered that we would like to extend all possible support and assistance in advancing that peace process,” he said.

Ambassador Daudzai, however, said they have been hearing similar positive Pakistani statements for more than a year but that has not led to actual cooperation on the peace initiative.

Hope for change

The Afghan ambassador said he hopes to see a change in that policy under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government and his country is expecting President Karzai talks with Pakistani interlocutors to “yield good results.”

“Yes, we do hope because there is a new government in Pakistan, it is a government that has a stronger mandate and it is a government that even before coming to power they were preaching that they will do something about peace and stability in Afghanistan. And now that government is in place and they still talk of the same issues in the same manner. It is a test when the President comes and meets his counterpart to see if that gap between statements and action could be closed,” he said.

Afghan Taliban detainees

Officials in Kabul say that in his talks with Pakistani leaders, President Karzai will also repeat his demand that Islamabad release all Afghan prisoners from its jails, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a former deputy commander of the Taliban.

The insurgent leader was believed to be independently attempting to engage in peace talks with Afghan authorities, but his actions apparently upset Pakistani officials and he was detained while traveling through Pakistan in 2010.

Ambassador Daudzai also insists that it is unclear whether the release of 26 Afghan Taliban detainees from Pakistani jails late last year has really benefited the peace efforts. He said Pakistani officials did not share enough information with Afghan authorities before and after releasing these men, and their whereabouts remain unknown.

The Afghan diplomat said Pakistan has now assured his country it will share information when remaining prisoners are released.

Pakistan said it helped more than two dozen Taliban representatives travel to Qatar to open a political office in June as part of a U.S. peace plan to give the insurgency an address where they can engaged in talks.

But the fanfare surrounding the opening ceremony and a proposed direct meeting between the Taliban and American officials both upset President Karzai and provoked him to boycott the peace process.

Afghan authorities are now demanding Pakistan use the same influence to facilitate a direct meeting between Taliban representatives and members of the Afghan Peace Council, saying the venue of the talks is immaterial for them. 

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A Chinese court trying former Communist Party politician Bo Xilai has released video testimony of his wife in an attempt to bolster the claim that he knowingly accepted bribes.

In the pre-recorded, 11-minute video, Gu Kailai said her husband was aware that a wealthy businessman had given the family gifts, including airline tickets, expensive seafood and cash.

Bo, who is also charged with embezzlement and abuse of power, has vigorously denied the bribery allegations. On Thursday, the first day of the trial, he dismissed his wife's testimony as "laughable."

The official Xinhua news agency says Bo on Friday denied his wife's testimony by doubting her mental condition. It says he claimed "she is mad and always tells lies."

It is the first time Gu has been seen since she was convicted last year of killing a British businessman over a failed financial dispute, in a scandal that eventually led to Bo's dramatic downfall.

VOA Mandarin Service's Fred Wang, who is watching the trial from a media center near the court in the eastern city of Jinan, says the prosecution is trying to use Gu's testimony to weaken Bo's case that he was not aware of her dealings.

"Can you just by these facts make a conclusion that Bo Xilai took a bribe? I don't know. It's kind of yes and no. But Bo Xilai's wife's testimony testimony will damage her husband's reputation."

Government-run microblogs on Thursday gave a real-time account of the proceedings and posted court transcripts, providing an unexpected level of transparency for a sensitive trial that is one of the country's most closely watched in decades.

Wang says that information largely dried up as the second day of the hearing began, possibly because Chinese authorities were concerned about the level of public attention given to Bo's defiance of authorities.

"This (trial) is very popular. Three hundred million people are probably watching on Weibo. I think there might be a disagreement among the top leaders, so that is why there was nothing the whole morning."

The trial is not televised and foreign journalists have been barred, though 19 members of state media have been allowed inside. Foreign media have been relegated to watching official microblogs and selectively released videos on large-screen television from a nearby hotel.

Analysts say China's top political leaders almost certainly decided beforehand that Bo will be found guilty and receive a lengthy prison sentence, as in other sensitive political trials in China.

Steve Tsang with Britain's University of Nottignham tells VOA that this will not likely change, even if Bo manages to present a convincing case.

"A trial of a former Politburo member is of such importance to the Communist Party, that it is above the pay grade of any judge in China to be put in charge of. The verdict will have to be agreed on beforehand by the Politburo or the Standing Committee. Bo Xilai knows that." 

Bo's downfall began last February when his police chief, Wang Lijun, fled to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. There, he told American diplomats about Bo's alleged role in covering up his wife's murder of British businessman Neil Heywood.

A former Politburo member, Bo was stripped of his political posts and kicked out of the Communist Party shortly after the scandal erupted. His wife was later given a suspended death sentence. 

Thursday's hearing saw Bo firmly reject charges that he accepted millions of dollars in bribes over the course of several years from a real estate developer in the eastern city of Dalian. 

Bo retracted an earlier confession about the bribery, saying his "mind was a blank" and he did not fully understand the charges against him. He also attacked the testimony of the developer, calling him a "crazy dog" and saying the developer was trying to frame him for the crime.

Thursday's trial was the first time the 64-year-old Bo had been seen in public since his arrest in March, 2012. A picture released by the court showed him standing somberly, his hands folded, next to two policemen in the dock. 

State broadcaster CCTV originally reported that the trial will only last two days and that a verdict is expected in early September.

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NEW DELHI — In India, the government will import onions to ease spiraling prices of a crop that is an essential ingredient in Indian cooking. Seen as a symbol of high food inflation, the price of the "humble" onion has turned into a political headache for the government.

Krishna Chopra has been coping with rising food prices for many months, but her anger has intensified since she began shelling out $1.25 for a kilogram of onions - about four times their usual price.

“I am upset at the price of onions," she admitted."For a normal person it is almost impossible to buy. And personally, even if I can afford it, I have reduced my consumption of onions."

Used to make the famous Indian curry, onions are an indispensable item in virtually all Indian dishes. It is regarded as the most affordable item on the table - a vegetable within the reach of even the poorest person.

Little wonder then that the runaway onion prices have made headlines and become the subject of animated television talk shows. The expensive onion even prompted a highway robbery last weekend, when a truck carrying 9,000 kilograms of onions was hijacked by two men. It was later intercepted by police. The loot: worth an estimated $10,000.

Hoarders 

The government said there is no shortage. It blames rising prices on traders, accusing them of hoarding stocks to push up prices. It said it will import onions from Pakistan, China, Iran and Egypt to ease pressure.

That is not placating the public, who see the expensive onion as a symbol of persistent high food inflation in recent years. An independent political commentator in New Delhi, B.G. Verghese, blames the problem on poor food management.

“Food prices have gone up, everyone feels that, basic sugar, rice, wheat, milk, vegetables, the whole works. It is a chain reaction, part of general inflation, partly because of shortages, partly because of artificial shortages created by hoarding as in the case of some vegetables and so on,” Verghese said.

Cashing in 

India's main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to cash in on voter disgruntlement over high onion prices as it gears up for state elections due in Delhi later this year. Onions have become the centerpiece of their campaign to slam the government for mismanaging the economy and failing to protect the interests of poor people. To woo voters, it has set up stalls to sell onions at rates significantly lesser than the market price in New Delhi.

Political commentator Verghese admits onions are a “political heavyweight." But he said as prices reduce following imports, they may fade from public memory during local elections this year and national elections next year.

“There are so many issues that I don’t know whether onions will be leading the charge. People will be talking about more enduring issues, corruption, misgovernance, lack of governance, so many other things that are worrying,” said
Verghese.

But the government has reason to worry about the humble commodity.  High onion prices helped former prime minister Indira Gandhi wrest back power in 1980, and they were largely responsible for the defeat of the Delhi state government 15 years ago. 

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STATE DEPARTMENT — The United States says it can not yet "conclusively determine" that chemical weapons were used in an attack in Syria Wednesday that Syrian opposition leaders say killed more than 1,000 people. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the attack on Thursday with counterparts from the European Union, France, Turkey, Jordan, and Qatar.

U.S. officials say they are gathering information about Wednesday's alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria as President Obama considers how to respond.

"If these reports are true, it would be an outrageous and flagrant escalation of use of chemical weapons by the regime. So our focus is on nailing down the facts. The president, of course, has a range of options," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

With French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius suggesting using force if chemical weapons claims prove true, U.S. officials say they have been increasing assistance to Syrian rebels since concluding that Syrian government forces launched  earlier chemical weapons attacks. But that's not enough, said former U.S. ambassador Adam Ereli.

"We say we are going to support the opposition. We say we have red lines," he said. "We say they're being crossed. And we say we are going to do something. But we don't really do enough to have it be meaningful in any substantive way."

Ereli said U.S. inaction emboldens Syria's allies Iran and Hezbollah.

"We're going to provide arms. What arms? Don't know," he said. "We're going to provide assistance. What assistance? Well, humanitarian assistance. Does that help? It helps the people of Syria, which is great. Does it help get rid of Bashar al-Assad? No."

Syrian rebel spokesman Louay Meqdad said Arab Gulf states are stepping up to arm the rebellion, not the West.

"We are receiving some shipments from some countries, and exactly from some Arabic countries," he said. "Till now the Europe countries, especially France and Britain, and the United States governments, they didn't get any serious step in this field to give us the proper weapons that we need."

Russia's support for President Bashar al-Assad complicates Washington's response as Moscow suggests rebels could have staged the chemical attack to provoke international action against Damascus.

"We expect that experts will clarify this issue and will help to disperse numerous speculations about the use of Syrian chemical weapons," said Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich.

If Syrian forces have nothing to do with chemical weapons, U.S. officials say Damascus should allow U.N. weapons inspectors who are already in the country to gather information about the attack. 

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JAKARTA — Indonesia’s government has announced new policies to mitigate the rapidly depreciating rupiah, which has faced its worst week since 2008. Analysts say the measures are unlikely to be effective in the short term, because of broader trends affecting currencies across Asia.

A darling of investors at a time when advanced economies were flailing, Indonesia’s economic boom is being rapidly undermined by its plummeting rupiah.

Following reports of a record high current account deficit, the country has faced sell-offs in the rupiah, stocks and bonds. This week more than $500 million in global funds have been pulled from the local stock exchange.

Already among Asia’s worst performing currencies this year, the rupiah has now suffered its worst week in four years, sliding 4.2 percent. On Friday the government announced plans designed to boost investment and reduce imports.

The measures include increasing import taxes on luxury cars, reducing oil imports and providing tax incentives for investments in agriculture and the metal industries.

HSBC senior economist Fauzi Ichsan said the plan would not prevent the rupiah from depreciating further in the short term.

“Certainly the policy package will help boost exports, boost foreign direct investment but that’s for the long run. The impact of the policy once it is in implemented will only be felt in three to six months, earliest, so it does not really address the immediate problem of the lack of dollar liquidity in the foreign exchange market,” said Ichsan.

The Indonesian government has also revised its GDP growth estimate from 6.3 to 5.9 percent this year.

Ichsan said the rupiah was likely to remain ‘fragile’ and would not rebound until after the general election in the second half of 2014.

Speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve will begin winding down its stimulus program, along with slowdowns in China and India have also hit Indonesia, which relies heavily on commodity exports.

Currencies across South and Southeast Asia have fallen hard this week, with Indonesia and India suffering the steepest losses. The currencies of Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines also fell, but by less than one percent.

But analyst Andrew Colquhoun, from Fitch Rating in Hong Kong said concerns the region could be headed for a repeat of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 are unwarranted.

“We think Indonesia is in a rather stronger position today from a sovereign credit perspective certainly than it was in 1996 or 1997 and that is true across a range of areas. But one factor is the self insurance that Indonesia and a number of other Asian sovereigns have built up in the form of foreign currency reserves,” he said.

Colquhoun also suggested there was a ‘global reorientation’ of economic growth drivers away from investment and construction within China and toward growing demand in the advanced economies. He said that was also contributing to currency declines in the region.

Fitch Ratings said policy management would be an important factor in whether economic and financial stability was maintained in India and Indonesia. 

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Militants have targeted and killed at least 24 policemen in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which has seen an increase in violence since the Egyptian military ousted Islamist Mohamed Morsi from the presidency last month.

The attackers ambushed buses carrying the policemen early Monday near the city of Rafah, along the border with the Gaza Strip.

Also Monday, a lawyer for former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said his client will soon be released.

Fareed el-Deeb said an Egyptian court had cleared Mr. Mubarak of corruption charges, stemming from allegations he and his sons embezzled money for presidential palaces.

The claims could not be immediately confirmed by judicial officials. But the French news agency (AFP), quoting judicial sources, reported that Mr. Mubarak will remain in custody on charges in an additional case. 

The 85-year-old Mubarak still faces a retrial on charges he failed to stop the killing of protesters during the popular revolt that swept him from power in 2011.

Word of the killing of the police officers and the possible release of Mr. Mubarak come one day after the interior ministry reported 36 members of the pro-Morsi Muslim Brotherhood were suffocated by tear gas during an attempted prison break in northern Cairo.



European Union diplomats are set to meet in Geneva Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Egypt, which last week erupted in violence in the capital, Cairo, and other cities around the country.

The EU is reviewing the $6.7 billion in aid it provides to Egypt, as diplomats press Egyptian leaders to find a peaceful, inclusive resolution.

Signs of normalcy returned to Cairo Sunday as the country's army chief warned that any new violence would not be tolerated.

General Abdel Fattah el-Sissi threatened to use force against attacks on government buildings by protesters, but said the army has no intention of seizing power.

He also called on Islamic supporters of ousted president Morsi to join the political process, saying "there is room for everyone." 

Morsi supporters marched toward the Supreme Constitutional Court in Cairo Sunday, but they canceled two other scheduled protest marches. They claim snipers were planted along the streets.

Protesters gathered for weeks at two protest camps in Cairo to rally against the military's July 3 ouster of the country's first democratically elected president and the installation of an interim government. Many of the protesters called for Mr. Morsi to be reinstated.

Those camps were dispersed with deadly action by security forces last Wednesday. The official death toll from the raids and resulting violence is more than 800, while the Brotherhood says the number is in the thousands.

The interim government held an emergency Cabinet meeting Sunday to discuss whether to ban the Brotherhood, a long-outlawed organization that swept to power in the country's first democratic elections last year.

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The U.S. and South Korea have launched an annual joint military exercise, with a muted response from North Korea.

The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drill, which began Monday, is largely conducted on computers. But it involves more than 80,000 South Korean and U.S. troops.

In previous years, North Korea reacted angrily to the exercises, calling them a rehearsal for war. But so far, the official media in North Korea has been silent on the event this year. 

The drills follow several North-South agreements and come at a time of decreasing tensions on the peninsula. 

A spokesman for the South Korean defense ministry, Kim Min-seok, says the exercises are necessary for stability on the peninsula. 


"Ulchi Freedom Guardian ... is a joint military exercise by South Korea and the United States to be prepared for possible provocation from North Korea. The Korean peninsula is under constant threat from the North and the joint exercise is indispensable to maintaining stability." 


Last week, North and South Korea agreed to work toward reopening a jointly-run factory park in Kaesong. On Sunday, the two sides agreed to participate in talks on reuniting families separated during the Korean War.

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LONDON — British authorities came under pressure on Monday to explain why anti-terrorism powers were used to detain for nine hours the partner of a journalist who has written articles about U.S. and British espionage programs based on leaks from Edward Snowden.

Brazilian David Miranda, the partner of American journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained on Sunday at London's Heathrow Airport where he was in transit on his way from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro. He was released without charge.

Miranda was detained under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows police to stop and question people traveling through ports and airports to determine whether they are involved in planning terrorist acts.

The opposition Labor Party urged the authorities to explain how they could justify using Schedule 7 to detain Miranda, arguing any suggestion that anti-terrorism powers had been misused could undermine public support for those powers.

“This has caused considerable consternation and swift answers are needed,” said Labor lawmaker Yvette Cooper, the party's spokeswoman on interior affairs, in a statement.

The Home Office, or interior ministry, said the detention was an operational police matter. The police declined to provide any details beyond confirming the detention.

“Schedule 7 forms an essential part of the UK's security arrangements. It is for the police to decide when it is necessary and proportionate to use these powers,” a Home Office spokesman said.

Miranda was detained for the maximum nine hours allowed by the legislation, which is extremely rare.

According to Home Office statistics, fewer than three out of every 10,000 people passing through British borders are stopped under Schedule 7. Of those, more than 97 percent are examined for less than one hour, while 0.06 percent are held for six hours or more.

Brazil has said Miranda's treatment “has no justification”.

Charges of intimidation

Greenwald, who is based in Brazil and writes for Britain's Guardian newspaper, said the detention of his partner was a “despotic” attempt to intimidate him and others involved in reporting on British and U.S. espionage programs.

“They completely abused their own terrorism law for reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” he wrote in a column in the Guardian.

“If the UK and U.S. governments believe that tactics like this are going to deter or intimidate us in any way from continuing to report aggressively ... they are beyond deluded.”

He has published a series of articles based on documents leaked by Snowden, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor who faces criminal charges in the United States but has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.

Greenwald said it was “obvious” the British police had no terrorism suspicions about Miranda and that they had spent the nine hours of his detention asking him about Greenwald's reporting and the contents of the electronic devices he was carrying.

Lawyer David Anderson, the independent reviewer of anti-terrorism legislation who can make recommendations to ministers and parliament, told the BBC he had asked the police and the Home Office for a detailed explanation of Miranda's detention.

“My concern is to see that these powers are appropriate, that the right safeguards are in place, and that they are being properly used by the police,” he said.

Keith Vaz, a Labor lawmaker who chairs parliament's powerful Home Affairs committee, also told the BBC he had written to the head of London's Metropolitan Police to ask for clarification of what he labeled an “extraordinary” case.

Schedule 7 has been under official review, with a public consultation published in July showing that 71 percent of respondents thought the detention time-limit of nine hours was excessive. The government plans to reduce it to six hours. 

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Riding around in a car topped with a giant half-vegetable, half-fish, is bound to attract attention.

As Nikolas Schiller drives past the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., pedestrians gawk, kids point, and tourists snap pictures.

An oncoming driver pulls up in a stretch of slow traffic and asks, “What is it?”

Schiller explains it’s a Fishy Food Car and hands the man a card bearing a cartoon that asks, “Are we eating fishy food?”

It’s a visual pun. For opponents of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), there’s something fishy - suspicious - about putting genes from other species into food crops, and they want foods containing GMO ingredients to say so on the label.

Labeling laws

There are no fish genes in the GMOs on the market today, but nearly all of the corn, soybeans, cotton and sugar beets growing in the U.S. contain bacterial genes that help farmers control weeds and insects.

Schiller’s day job is with a D.C.-based public relations firm. But this summer his fishy apple car will join the fishy corn, soybean, sugar beet and tomato cars driving cross-country to Washington State, where a GMO labeling law is on the ballot this fall.

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BALCOMBE, ENGLAND — Anti-fracking protesters scuffled with police outside an oil exploration site in rural England on Monday and broke into the headquarters of the energy company which is pioneering shale gas exploration in Britain.

In what could be the biggest public challenge yet for Britain's shale gas prospectors, opponents of the drilling process known as 'fracking' have already forced privately owned Cuadrilla Resources to suspend oil drilling at the site.

After several days of largely peaceful protests against Cuadrilla, campaigners scuffled with police on Monday at the entrance of its oil exploration site in the village of Balcombe, a village in West Sussex about 35 miles (55 km) south of London.
 
Others broke into the headquarters of Cuadrilla in Staffordshire and several demonstrators managed to enter the public relations firm in London that is representing the group.
 
Prime Minister David Cameron has said that Britain needs fracking as it could reduce energy bills, create jobs and help meet Britain's energy needs. 

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Supporters of deposed Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi are continuing their rallies to call for his reinstatement, despite warnings that the government may soon move to break up their protest camps.

The two camps in Cairo have for weeks been a gathering place to speak out against the military's July 3 ouster of Mr. Morsi.

Western and Arab mediators and some senior members of the Egyptian government have been trying to persuade the army to avoid using force to disperse the protesters, fearing a new wave of bloodshed.

Officials had signaled action against the camps could begin as early as Monday, but at daybreak there was no sign of activity by security forces.  

Egypt's interim leaders had warned several times they would dismantle the sit-ins after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which ran through Sunday.

The protesters say they will not leave the sites until Mr. Morsi is reinstated.

Many protesters, expecting an imminent security push to clear them out, have begun fortifying their positions.
 
Vendors at Rabaa al-Adawiya have sold hundreds of gas masks, goggles and gloves to protesters readying themselves for police tear gas. Cement and wooden barriers have been constructed by protesters to keep armored vehicles from crushing the sit-in. 

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Norway's prime minister says the best place to find out what people are thinking is in a taxi. So Jens Stoltenberg disguised himself as a taxi driver one day and transported passengers around Oslo. 

Footage from the prime-minister-as-taxi-driver scheme in June was posted Sunday on a daily newspaper's web site and the prime minister's Facebook page. 

The stunt, planned by an advertising agency as part of Mr. Stoltenberg's re-election campaign, was taped with hidden cameras to catch Norwegians' views on politics and their reactions when they realized their driver was their prime minister. 

The hidden cameras also caught a confession from the prime minister - he has not driven a car in eight years. One passenger was not impressed with Mr. Stoltenberg's driving skills, saying "this driving is not exactly the best I have seen."

Mr. Stoltenberg's Labour party is trailing in the polls against the opposition Conservatives for the September election.

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U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is due to announce a set of reforms reducing the implementation of harsh sentences against low-level, non-violent drug offenders.

In a speech Monday, Holder will address the nation's set of mandatory minimum sentences that grew out of anti-drug legislation in the 1980s. 

Those laws impose five-year prison terms for first-time offenders caught with certain amounts of drugs, such as 100 grams of heroin, 500 grams of cocaine powder or 100 kilograms of marijuana. Higher amounts bring 10-year mandatory sentences.

Holder's prepared remarks say offenders will instead be charged with offenses carrying sentences "better suited to their individual conduct" and not that of drug kingpins. He says the current system traps too many Americans in a cycle of poverty and incarceration.

Federal prisons hold more than 219,000 inmates, of which 47 percent are serving time for drug offenses.


Holder will ask federal prosecutors to develop guidelines for determining which cases are lower-level crimes that can be handled with state and local charges, and which are the more serious crimes that should be classified as federal crimes.

He will also endorse efforts in the U.S. Congress to give judges more discretion in sentencing defendants convicted of drug offenses.

The mandatory minimum sentences have drawn criticism for their lack of flexibility, which critics say puts too many people in prison for too long. They also said the original laws had unfair disparities in the amounts of certain drugs that triggered those sentences.

Before a 2010 amendment, five grams of crack cocaine brought the same five-year sentence for first-time offenders as 500 grams of cocaine powder. The new guidelines close that gap to 28 grams of crack cocaine for the same sentence.

The United States Sentencing Commission reported in June that inmates who appealed their sentences to get those new standards applied to their cases have had their terms reduced by an average of 20 percent.

The attorney general says the reforms he is announcing Monday would save the United States billions of dollars.

In addition to altering the guidelines for sentences leading to prison, he wants to encourage the use of alternatives for offenders, including drug treatment and community service. Holder will also announce a policy to reduce sentences for elderly, non-violent inmates.

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Indonesian emergency officials say they have evacuated more than 500 residents from a tiny island where a volcano has erupted, killing at least five people, including two children. 

Authorities said Monday the 500 evacuees from Palue have been moved to the neighboring island of Flores after Saturday's deadly eruption of Mount Rokatenda. Thousands more are awaiting evacuation.

Rokatenda has been showing signs of increased activity since October. 

Thousands of Palue residents had already evacuated to Flores before the latest eruption. 

Indonesia has dozens of active volcanoes and straddles major tectonic fault lines known as the "Ring of Fire" between the Pacific and Indian oceans.

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Cambodia's opposition has rejected the election commission's results confirming a victory for Prime Minister Hun Sen's long-ruling party. 

The Cambodia National Rescue Party said Monday it would not accept the latest results because the government has refused to address its allegations of widespread fraud. 

The CNRP, which claims it won a majority of seats in the July 28 election, has threatened a mass protest against the government if an independent investigation into the election with the involvement of the United Nations is not held. 

The National Election Committee said Monday Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party had won a narrow majority of the votes. That tally was in keeping with preliminary results that gave the CPP 68 seats in parliament to the 55 seats won by CNRP, a hefty loss of 22 seats for the ruling party.

If the count is confirmed, it would be the ruling party's worst election result since 1998.

The government has deployed armored personnel carriers and soldiers into Phnom Penh as a precaution ahead of possible protests.

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Dolphins, not elephants, may have the best memories of any non-human species.
In a new study, scientists say dolphins in captivity have shown an ability to recognize former tank mates’ whistles even after being apart from them for more than 20 years.

The study, done by researchers at the University of Chicago, shows that dolphins have the longest social memory ever recorded for non-humans. According to the study, dolphins’ skills in recognizing the whistle sounds may be better than humans' facial recognition skills because human faces change over time.

“This shows us an animal operating cognitively at a level that’s very consistent with human social memory,” said Jason Bruck, a specialist in comparative human development, who conducted the study.

His study is published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

Bruck collected data from 53 bottlenose dolphins at six facilities that were part of a breeding consortium that kept decades of records on which dolphins had lived together.

Bruck compared the dolphins’ reactions to whistles of former tank mates with those of dolphins that were not familiar with each other. His initial studies showed that “dolphins get bored quickly listening to signature whistles from dolphins they don’t know.”

“When they hear a dolphin they know, they often quickly approach the speaker playing the recording,” Bruck said. “At times they will hover around, whistle at it, try to get it to whistle back.”

Bruck said dolphins even responded to calls they had not heard in decades.

In one notable example, Bruck played a recording of a female dolphin named Allie, who currently lives at the Brookfield Zoo, for Bailey, a female now in Bermuda.

The pair had last lived together at Dolphin Connection in the Florida Keys when Allie was two years old and Bailey was four. But 20 years and six months after their last contact, Bailey still recognized the recording of Allie’s signature whistle.

“Why do they need this kind of memory? I’m not sure they do,” Bruck said. “The cognitive abilities of dolphins are really well-developed, and sometimes things like this are carry-along traits. But to test whether this kind of social memory capacity is adaptive, we would need more demographic data from multiple populations in the wild to see if they experience 20-year separations.”



Here's a video about the experiment:

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DAKAR — A new education program in Liberia is teaching women in their 30s, 40s and 50s how to read and write - something that only a quarter of the country’s women can do. The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said that more such second-chance programs are needed to educate the world’s estimated 516 million women who remain illiterate.

More than two-thirds of all illiterate adults are women. The majority of the women live in West Africa, where many girls never get the chance to go to school.

Pauline Rose, head of UNESCO’s global monitoring report on Education for All, said that being illiterate poses a huge problem for women in day-to-day life.

"Some of the things people say is: that I can’t read the number on buses; I can’t pick up a medicine bottle and read the label and understand how many spoons of the medicine to take, for example. So there are real practical concerns about when women are illiterate," she explained. "It affects not only themselves but also their families. They are often the main caregivers for children. And when women are illiterate they are less like to make use of health services.”

Rose noted that illiterate women are also more likely to die in childbirth and that their children are more likely to be malnourished.

Some countries, such as Senegal, have improved women’s literacy rates through government efforts to enroll more girls in primary school and community awareness programs on the importance of female education.  But there are still many countries, such as Guinea, Niger, Benin, Mali and Burkina Faso, where less than one in four women can read and write.

Rose said literacy programs that target women are needed in these countries.

“In terms of this huge number of young women and adults who are already illiterate, there is obviously a need to have second-chance programs to ensure that they are able to become literate. That we can’t neglect them, just because they are no longer of primary school age,” stated Rose.

In Liberia, where just 27 percent of women are literate, the government has launched a massive second-chance literacy campaign to teach women.  The women either never got to go to school or were forced to drop out due to the country’s more than 10 years of civil war.

 Lonee Smith, 35,  a student at the Firestone Liberia Natural Rubber Company’s adult literacy school in Margibi County, said having a second chance at education has changed her life.

“Today, I am a happy woman. I’m very proud. I’m in the first grade. I can read and write," she said. "In the past, I couldn’t do that. My parents never sent me to school. But today I am happy that I can read and write. I’m a market woman. Now, I can sell my goods and count my profit with no one helping me. I am grateful."

Liberia’s Ministry of Education said there are approximately 5,000 women, such as Smith, currently enrolled in adult literacy programs across the country.

UNESCO’s Rose said that while this is a good step forward, such programs need to be expanded in order to reach the millions of other women. 

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Not getting enough sleep can lead you to eat more and gain weight, and a new study suggests the connection is caused by what happens in the sleep-deprived brain.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley found that after just one sleepless night, the brain's frontal lobe, which governs rational decision-making, was impaired. In contrast, there was increased activity in the more primitive brain region that controls desire and responds to rewards. As a result, study participants - 23 healthy young adults - craved unhealthy snacks and junk food when they were sleep deprived, and had less ability to rein in that impulse. 

Senior author Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, says that combination may help explain why people who sleep less tend to be overweight or obese. On the other hand, he points out, the findings indicate that getting enough sleep could help promote weight control "by priming the brain mechanisms governing appropriate food choices." 

The study is published in the journal Nature Communications.

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A wrecking crew in the U.S. has demolished the house where a man held three young women captive for a decade while chaining and repeatedly raping them.

Workers quickly reduced the rundown house in Cleveland, Ohio to rubble on Wednesday as neighbors cheered the demolition.

A one-time school bus driver, 53-year-old Ariel Castro, pleaded guilty to more than 900 charges in the case and was sentenced last week to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors say he cried as he signed over the deed to his house.

One of his victims, Michelle Knight, watched the destruction of the house, and released yellow balloons into the sky. She said it was a symbol of hope for other missing children.



''I go from here as being a motivational speaker and let everybody know that they are heard that they are loved ... and there is hope for everyone.''

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NEW DELHI — Indian government officials are being pressured to take a tough stand with Pakistan after the killing of five soldiers in a cross-border clash in Kashmir, which Defense Minister A.K. Antony has attributed to men dressed in Pakistani army uniforms.

Pointing out that the Indian army officials have also put responsibility for Monday's ambush on Pakistani forces, Sushma Swaraj, leader of the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), slammed Antony for taking a soft line with Islamabad, accusing the minister of giving its neighbor "clean chit" and insisting that Indian authorities should officially state that Pakistan's army is responsible for the attack.

The issue rocked parliament for a second day as tensions were exacerbated by Tuesday reports of two Pakistani soldiers being wounded in a firefight with Indian troops along the disputed border. BJP legislator Arun Jaitley is now leading calls to abandon proposed peace talks with its neighbor.

"For those who say that the dialogue with Pakistan must be uninterrupted and uninterruptible, I just want to suggest to them [that in] the interest of India’s sovereignty, it is our interest against terrorism which must be uninterruptible," he said. "The dialogue process must depend on what Pakistan’s attitude is."

Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told a local television channel an appropriate decision will be taken, but said talks are a continuous process.

In recent days both Indian and Pakistani officials were firming up dates for two rounds of talks to be held in the coming weeks. Islamabad’s new government had taken the initiative in proposing that the two countries restart a dialogue which was stalled in January.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry denies a cross-border clash took place and says it looks forward to an early resumption of the dialogue process.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said he wants to work with India to improve ties.

Security analyst for New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research, Bharat Karnad, said the government, which faces elections next year, may have to postpone talks indefinitely due to pressure from both public and political opposition.

“[The government's] hand may be forced by the opposition in parliament and everybody making the noises," he said. "The election year is coming and the Manmohan Singh government is particularly vulnerable to the charge of being weak on national security ... the stance New Delhi has taken has not really succeeded in stopping the terrorist violence."

The flare up in tensions along the Kashmir border comes days after three suicide bombers targeted India’s consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. 

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