A new law has been passed by the Iranian parliament extending use of the death penalty to online crimes. Previously, only people charged with insulting Islam or drug trafficking had been sentenced to death.

In accordance with the new law, bloggers and website editors can be sentenced to death for crimes such as promoting corruption, prostitution and apostasy, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) reported.

Blogging about subjects such as minority rights and freedom of speech and religion has already carried a risk. In 2005, blogger Mojtaba Saminejad was tried before a local court in Teheran charged with insulting the prophets, which carries the death penalty. He was eventually acquitted. Last year, two Kurdish bloggers were sentenced to death on charges of subversive activities against national security, spying and separatist propaganda.

Swedish police said they have found a human foot inside a shoe, which washed up on a beach near one of the country's most popular tourist resorts.

In Canada, several running shoes containing human feet have been found on island shorelines along the Strait of Georgia. Canadian authorities say they haven't reached any conclusions about the origin of the feet.

In his speech on national service Wednesday at the University of Colorado, Obama promised that as president he would "set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year."

He would see that these goals are met by, among other things, attaching strings to federal education dollars. If you don't make the kids report for duty, he's essentially telling schools and college kids, you'll lose money you can't afford to lose. In short, he'll make service compulsory by merely compelling schools to make it compulsory.

"General, would you rather command an army of slaves?"

General Westmoreland retorted, "I don't like to hear our draftee soldiers referred to as slaves."

Friedman shot back, "I don't like to hear our patriotic volunteers referred to as mercenaries. If they are mercenaries, then I, sir, am a mercenary professor, and you, sir, are a mercenary general; we are served by mercenary physicians, we use a mercenary lawyer, and we get our meat from a mercenary butcher."

No, national service isn't slavery. But it contributes to a slave mentality, at odds with American tradition. It assumes that work not done for the government isn't really for the "common good."

Abdullah Badawi, the Malaysian prime minister, said the use of arable land for biofuels "should be stopped because such action will deepen the global food scarcity and further drive up food prices".

"We must not allow the zeal for energy security to come into direct conflict with the basic need for food production."

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Indonesian president, blamed "some developed countries" for exacerbating the food crisis by allowing biofuel development on arable land.

"The idea is to reduce greenhouse gases and to wean themselves away from dependence on fossil fuels," he said in his speech. "It is not a good idea: it has only worsened the global food crisis."

The speaker blames what she labels the Bush-Cheney big oil agenda, using graphics to point out gasoline prices have more than doubled in the Bush administration.

"This is a scam of the greatest magnitude," says Speaker Pelosi.

"You know full well if you could drill in the Arctic Refuge it would save two cents 20 years from now," says Speaker Pelosi.

"Mr. President, do not fill the strategic petroleum reserve with oil at record highs. Instead, take out the oil that we brought at a lower price to bring down the price of oil, to reduce the price at the pump," says Speaker Pelosi.

Building on last month's bipartisan legislation passed overwhelmingly by the House requiring the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to use its emergency powers to curb excessive speculation distorting the energy markets, the House Agriculture Committee this week will hold three days of hearings on oil market speculation. The goal is to present the House with strong legislation this month to bring transparency to the markets and to end speculators' ability to artificially inflate the price at the pump.

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

Warning that failing to pick children up on their racist attitudes could instil prejudice, the NCB adds that if children "reveal negative attitudes, the lack of censure may indicate to the child that there is nothing unacceptable about such attitudes".

"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

"One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time."

The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.

According to Plantation police, two armed men barged into the Subway at 1949 Pine Island Road shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, demanding money from the employee behind the counter. When they tried to force John Lovell into the bathroom, he pulled out a gun and shot both men, police said.

Donicio Arrindell, 22, was shot in the head and later died at the hospital. Fredrick Gadson, 21, was shot in the chest and ran from the Subway, but police found him in hiding in some bushes on the property of a nearby BankAtlantic.

The family of one of the men who was shot by a retired United States Marine while they attempted to rob a Subway sandwich shop said the customer shouldn't have pulled the trigger.

[...]

"He should not have taken the law in his hands," said Rosa Jones, Gadson's grandmother.

"Big changes don't happen without big Senate majorities."

How rich you are depends on two things: how much money you have and how much the goods you buy cost. If your income doubles but the prices of the goods you consume also double, then you are no better off. Unfortunately, the conventional wisdom on US inequality is based on official measures that only look at the first half, the income differential. National statistics ignore the fact that inflation affects people in different income groups unevenly because the rich and poor consume different baskets of goods.

Poor families in America spend a larger share of their income on goods whose prices are directly affected by trade - like clothing and food - relative to wealthier families. By contrast, the higher your income, the more you spend on services, which are less subject to competition from abroad. Since 1994 the price of goods in the U.S. has risen much less than the price of services - and, yes, this includes the recent surge in food prices. Paradoxically, focusing only in the last few quarters of high relative food prices misses the fact that the main trend we have observed for decades is exactly the opposite.

Inflation differentials between the rich and poor dramatically change our view of the evolution of inequality in America. Inflation of the richest 10 percent of American households has been 6 percentage points higher than that of the poorest 10 percent over the period 1994 - 2005. This means that real inequality in America, if you measure it correctly, has been roughly unchanged.

This trend can partly be explained by China. In U.S. stores, prices of consumer goods have fallen the most in sectors where Chinese presence has increased the most. Take canned seafood or cotton shirts, for instance. Exports of China to the rest of the world in these categories have increased dramatically over this decade. Inflation in these sectors has been negative over the last decade, while in other sectors with no Chinese presence inflation has been over 20 percent. Moreover, as China produces goods of relatively low quality, sectors with strong Chinese presence are disproportionately consumed by the poor.

The expansion of superstores - like Wal-Mart and Target - has also played an important role in accounting for the inflation differentials between rich and poor. Superstores sell the same products as traditional shops at much lower prices. Today the poor do roughly twice as much of their buying of non-durable goods in these stores than the rich. So poor consumers have been the biggest beneficiaries of Wal-Mart coming to town.

President Bush said Sunday he does not feel the need to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics to state his opposition to China's human rights record. Skipping the event would be an "affront" to the Chinese people, he said.

At the summit, presidents and prime ministers hope for a deal that would set targets for reducing the pollution that causes global warming. But few analysts expect major headway or concessions from Bush. He insists on holding China and India, fast-growing economies and among the world's biggest polluters, to the same emission-reduction standards as older, developed economies.

Bush said that he hopes to get China and India to agree to a long-term goal to cut emissions.

American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda's dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant "last stand" in the northern city of Mosul.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

The number of foreign fighters coming over the border from Syria to bolster Al-Qaeda's numbers is thought to have declined to as few as 20 a month, compared with 120 a month at its peak.

Brigadier General Abdullah Abdul, a senior Iraqi commander, said: "We've limited their movements with check-points. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they're mostly not succeeding."

Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: "I think we're at the irreversible point."

Barack Obama's planned European tour might make a major whistlestop in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The candidate's schedule isn't set, but a Berlin appearance before the end of July looks likely.

Plans for a visit by Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic candidate for President of the United States, have moved forward — slowly — in Berlin, where he may give a speech before the Brandenburg Gate this summer.

Coronado residents interviewed yesterday about the settlement said they want to know how their tax dollars are being spent. Last month, Coronado approved a general-fund budget of $36.7 million for fiscal 2008-09, which began Tuesday. The city has general-fund reserves of $38.9 million.

If insurance doesn't cover the entire settlement, the city could have to pay out of the general fund or reserves.

"I'd like to know what (the settlement) is, because we're probably going to have to pay for it," said Ted Braaten, 86, an 18-year resident of Coronado.

Braaten said he would prefer that "police just patrol Coronado and not get involved in other cases like that."

Others said Foley deserved the settlement and that Mansker, who remains employed with the Coronado Police Department, had overstepped his authority.

"I feel that Foley has the right to every dime he gets," said John Bonnett, 34, a 30-year Coronado resident.

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

The Arctic holds 100 billion barrels of oil in unexplored fields, a government geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey said Monday at an international oil industry gathering in Spain.

"The Arctic is almost completely unexplored," said Donald Gautier at the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid. "There are 100 billion barrels of oil to be found in the Arctic."

Gautier said that throughout the world "our best guess is still that there is a 50-50 chance that there is an excess of 500 billion barrels of conventional recoverable oil in undisclosed fields as of now."

"By 2010, the production of the fuel that has driven the world's economy will start to rapidly decline. This will conflict with the steadily increasing demand for oil. The collision of these two trends will lead to shortages and increased prices, providing a strong incentive to shift to alternative fuel resources...Due to unequal distribution through the world of oil and gas supply and consumption, [the upcoming] transition will result in significant shifts in global power and wealth."

It's not the size of the tank but the size of the tap." World peak oil describes the level of world oil production. The level of production is not dependent on the level of reserves in much of the world, only on the portion which operates under free market conditions, which is becoming a smaller and smaller portion of the world market.

[...]

OPEC: The limitation on production from the Arabian Gulf is mostly due to politics, lack of motivation, investment level, and type of crude, not shortages of reserves. A rapid increase in production is not physically possible at this time. However, an additional five million barrels/day of production is possible within a decade. (In his further responses, Leonard seemed to indicate that 5 million additional barrels was more "technically possible" than likely.)

[...]

FSU [Former Soviet Union] production increased from 7.5 million b/day in 1999 to 13 million b/day last year, providing 60% of world oil production growth during that period. Russian reserves were sufficient to continue growing Russian production (alone) to 14 million b/day by 2010 (117 billion barrels from the author's study vs. 79.8 billion from BP); however, politics and tax regimes initiated during 2003 have halted growth. Russia has simply decided that they will control production growth at 10 million b/day; they may well both be able to and decide to produce close to that level for a decade.

[...]

In Rest of World (excluding tar sands), the decline rate in existing fields is estimated at 7%/year. With the exception of Brazil (ultradeep water), major producing countries are at or past peak. Rapid declines in recent years from the North Sea, Mexico and USA have been temporarily halted by additions from the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. Overall ROW production peaked in 2003; an intensive effort is needed to minimize decline rates. New production from ultradeep development has masked decline of ROW, but within the next decade, this welcome new addition will pass and the subsequent decline will accelerate.

In the USA, the intensive drilling needed is unlikely to receive environmental permits on the scale needed to have significant impact on domestic production. Probably maximum US production from unconventional oil would be less than 1 million b/day.

Unconventional oil production: in-place resources of bitumen, tar sands and oil shale are roughly 10 trillion barrels or equivalent. However, having the oil in place is very different from getting the oil out in the near term. Compared to an average recovery factor of 35% for conventional, the recovery of the unconventional resources averages 10% or less. The costs-monetary, manpower and environmental-to develop these resources are considerably higher. The three largest resources are at least in the western hemisphere: USA, Canada and USA.

The IEA said that annual non-Opec growth would slow to 0.5 per cent between 2008 and 2013, against demand growth of 1.6 per cent per year. The mismatch means the world economy would be more reliant on Opec, the oil cartel, and oil prices are likely to remain at record levels, analysts said.

"Structural demand growth in developing countries and ongoing supply constraints continue to paint a tight market picture over the medium-term," the IEA said in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report, released on Tuesday in Madrid.

"Poor supply-side performance since 2004, in the face of strong demand pressures from developing countries, has forced oil prices up sharply to curb demand," the watchdog added.

One week after Sen. Hillary Clinton made a public show of unity with Sen. Barack Obama, a new survey suggests supporters of the New York senator are increasingly less likely to follow her lead.

A growing number of Clinton supporters polled say they may stay home in November instead of casting their ballot for Obama, an indication the party has yet to coalesce around the Illinois senator four weeks after the most prolonged and at times divisive primary race in modern American history came to a close.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Friday, the number of Clinton supporters who plan to defect to Republican Sen. John McCain's camp is down from one month ago, but — in what could be an ominous sign for Obama as he seeks to unify the party — the number of them who say they plan to vote for Obama is also down, and a growing number say they may not vote at all.

In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey completed in early June before the New York senator ended her White House bid, 60 percent of Clinton backers polled said they planned on voting for Obama. In the latest poll, that number has dropped to 54 percent.

In early June, 22 percent of Clinton supporters polled said they would not vote at all if Obama were the party's nominee, now close to a third say they will stay home.

In another sign the wounds of the heated primary race have yet to heal, 43 percent of registered Democrats polled still say they would prefer Clinton to be the party's presidential nominee.

That number is significantly higher than it was in early June, when 35 percent of Democrats polled said they preferred Clinton to lead the party's presidential ticket.

"Terrorism" by definition is an effort to use a few attacks to induce unwarranted and irrational fear across an entire population. The aim is get the terrorist's target to alter its policies, waste its resources, and change its way of life in an irrational response to an enemy without the resources for a more traditional war.

• When — not if — fear of terrorism becomes rational and warranted, will it still be terrorism to perform the next attack? I would submit that it is. Terror is the goal, whether rational or irrational.
• Does terrorism require "a few" attacks? History shows that it does not, although that does amplify the signal. Tim McVeigh was a terrorist after one spectacular attack. And I would suggest that the credible threat of violence can substitute for an actual attack.
• Is terrorism defined by attempts to change government policy? I would submit that it is not; al Qaeda, in addition to its attempts to change state policies, has also used terror as an instrument of its own governance, to change personal behavior and to destroy Western values. Other, more established states have instituted programs of terror against their own people — terror as policy, rather than as an attempt to change policy.
• Is terrorism defined by attempts to get its target to waste resources? I would say not. The Madrid train bombings were not designed to draw Spain further into the war, but to dissuade them from continuing their support of the war. The same goes for the London tube train bombings. Many of the responses to terrorism thus far have been wasteful, and because it is strategically convenient in the current context it was part of the intent of al Qaeda, but this fact does not define terrorism. Does anyone doubt that if al Qaeda had the capability to inflict another attack on the U