PAKISTAN

Even as food prices shoot up in China, food production remains slow while demand is rising multifold.

Militants who orchestrated the 26/11 attacks on India might have been trying to prevent the Pakistan Government from moving its army away from the Indian border, U.S. diplomatic cables suggest. Officials in London feared that the Indians would retaliate with an increase in covert activities in Balochistan or even by bombarding militant camps in Occupied Kashmir.

Authorities in Saudi Arabia backed Pervez Musharraf's rule in Pakistan, leaked US diplomatic cables suggest. The kingdom also reportedly worked with the former army general to have Nawaz Sharif arrested if he returned from exile.

Pakistan army wanted to bring down President Zardari, but at the same time avoid elections to avoid Nawaz Sharif taking charge, US diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks stated. The cable dated 12 March 2009 reported U.S. diplomat Anne W. Patterson meeting General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of Army staff. The UK also expressed concerns over Zardari's leadership.

The Obama administration has been left red-faced by disclosures made by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks pertaining to French president Nicholas Sarkozy that describes him as an “emperor without clothes”, Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as ‘Hitler’ and Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin as an “Alpha Dog”.

Wikileaks' latest spill, dubbed the 'Cablegate', shows that the world, especially the MIddle East fears Iran. But there are very strong strategic factors that help the country survive.

India had been deliberately kept out of the Turkey-sponsored meet on Afghanistan earlier this year to address the sensitivities of Pakistan, according to documents released by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.

The year 2010 was not good for Google in China and the hacking was, indeed, part of a sabotage attempt carried out with help from the government quarters, reveal the classified U.S. documents released by Wikileaks on Sunday. China to Germany, US diplomacy generally smacks of quid-pro-quo dealings, as ever.

The documents leaked by WikiLeaks late on Sunday showed the state department ordered a surveillance of the activities of the United Nations personnel including the secretary general and asked its agencies to collect exhaustive information on the U.N staff, including personal details.

FBI sleuths detained a 19-year-old allegedly plotting to detonate a vehicle bomb at an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. The arrest was announced late on Friday evening by the Justice Department who stated that Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia and a student at Oregon State University, was arrested after he attempted to detonate what he believed to be an explosives-laden van.

The U.S. Department of State is working overtime sending messages to ally capitals warning the impending release of classified documents by WikiLeaks could harm relations in what is seen as a pre-emptive move of unprecedented scale to neutralize the impact of the unveiling of embarrassing and compromising details about the inner workings of the government apparatus.

Government policies all over the world are distorting the market for agricultural products and discouraging their production at a time when there is a global shortage of them.

In what looks like a setback for the Obama administration in matter of trial of terrorism suspects in civil court, the first suspect transferred from Guantanamo military prison to face a U.S. civilian trial was found not guilty by a Manhattan federal court jury on all but one charge in the 1998 African embassy bombings.

The Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan has promised to supply natural gas for the proposed Nabucco pipeline -- a project that could allow European Union (EU) countries to rely less on Russian energy in the future.

New Zealand tied their second test with India helped by a Brendon McCullum double-hundred while Younis Khan's ton secured a draw against South Africa, and Chris Gayle's triple-ton handed Sri Lanka a formidable task.

Moody's Investor Service published a report assessing Pakistan's B3 foreign and local-currency issuer rating

The Obama administration is to present a transition plan for Afghanistan at the upcoming NATO summit in Lisbon. A gradual reduction of troops is to begin in July next year and all combat operations will end in 2014 as scheduled. The plan is also expected to suggest stepping up the efforts to build up the Afghan security forces.

President Barack Obama's 10-day Asian tour has been dubbed a failure by media owing to key failures in binding together the much-awaited free trade pact with South Korea and the inability to persuade a majority of the G-20 nations to support the U.S. position on current account imbalances.

Pakistani authorities on Friday accused the Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents for the Thursday's attack on the CID building in Karachi which killed 17 people. More than 140 have been injured in the blast and police believe that more than 1,000kg of explosives were used in the attack, making it the biggest blast ever to hit the country's financial capital.

The suicide concoction of fiat currency, debt, military empire, and delusion has been painless for those in power, but painful for the working middle class of this country.

A persistent outbreak of polio in Angola is now a matter of international concern and health authorities there must step up their efforts to stamp it out, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday.