(July 30) — Five years after Syrian troops were forced out of Lebanon in the wake of the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad returned to Beirut today as the country’s potential savior, accompanied by his erstwhile rival, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
Sandra Bullock’s spokeswoman says the actress wants out of a video asking Congress to deliver funding to restore the Gulf Coast until she learns whether the campaign was influenced by oil companies. The move came after the website DeSmogBlog called the campaign an industry ploy to get support for drilling and taxpayer money to repair wetland damage caused by the BP oil spill. Read the rest of this entry »
BERLIN (July 29) — A suspected former Nazi death camp guard has been charged in a German youth court because he was a minor at the time — meaning a 88-year-old suspect could be brought to trial as an adolescent and face a more lenient sentence, a judicial official said Thursday.
Samuel Kunz, the world’s third most wanted Nazi suspect, is charged with participating in the murder of 430,000 Jews at Belzec death camp in occupied Poland. He was 20 years old when he allegedly started working there as a guard in January 1942.
SEOUL, South Korea (July 28) — For four days, U.S. and South Korean troops fired artillery into the skies and dropped anti-submarine bombs on underwater targets - dramatic exercises meant to warn North Korea not to strike again.
The South Korean military said the show of force, which ended Wednesday, succeeded in sending a pointed warning to North Korea four months after the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship. Read the rest of this entry »