Afghan polling 'marked by fraud'

Election observers in Afghanistan have said there was widespread voting fraud and intimidation during the presidential election on Thursday.LINK...

Gaddafi seen meeting bomber on TV

Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi has defied strong criticism from the UK and the US by meeting Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on Libyan TV.LINK...

Pakistani Taliban quiz Mehsud kin over "spying"

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban have detained four relatives of their leader Baitullah Mehsud, believed to have been killed this month in a US missile strike, on suspicion of tipping off authorities about his ...LINK....

Iran's enduring turmoil It is far from over

THE incumbent president claims to have won a walloping 65% of the vote in the disputed presidential election of June 12th. He is still backed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic republic's powerful supreme leader, its security forces, its state-run ...

Drone strike on militant's family

Two missiles, suspected to have been fired by a US drone, have killed one of the wives of a leading Pakistani militant, relatives have told the BBC.

US strike kills two militants in Pakistan: officials

Jackson’s mom gets custody, seeks say in estate

Michael Jackson’s 79-year-old mother was awarded custody of the singer’s three children and given more time to spell out objections to having two music executives administer his multi-million dollar estate. Judge Mitchell Beckloff officially admitted the pop singer’s 2002 will into probate court and extended until October 2 the temporary control of the ‘Thriller’ singer’s estate granted to executors John Branca and John McClain. Jackson’s mother, Katherine, has asked for more say in guiding the matters of his estate, valued at more than $500 million in an attachment to his will, and Superior Court Judge Beckloff gave her until October 2 to come up with reasons why she should have greater input. Lawyers for concert promoters AEG, which was behind the planned comeback tour of the King of Pop before his death in June, also filed papers asking to be named a party to estate hearings and to be kept informed of business decisions. reuters

Esperanto is easy to learn, fans say

Fans of Esperanto, the artificial language devised in the late 19th century Poland by Ludwik Zamenhof, say it’s relatively fast and easy to learn, pronounce and use. Some 75 percent of Esperanto’s vocabulary comes from Latin and Romance languages, notably French, and around 20 percent from Germanic tongues like German and English. The remainder is drawn from the Slavic languages Russian and Polish, while most of its scientific terms come from Greek. And, to ease learning, the language is phonetic. Esperanto uses a modified Latin alphabet, every word is pronounced exactly as spelled, and there are no “silent” letters or exceptions. What makes Esperanto exceptionally easy, however, are its logical rules. afp