WASHINGTON, USA - The government scrambled Tuesday to prevent future spills of US secrets like the embarrassing WikiLeaks' disclosures, while officials pondered possible criminal prosecutions and Interpol in Europe sent out a "red notice" for nations to be on the lookout for the website's founder.
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, USA - Unemployment benefits for more than 100,000 people in both Kentucky and Indiana could run out in a matter of days if Congress doesn't act. Many people are filing for benefits, others are looking for jobs, but with the threat of benefits running out, tempers are flaring. Right now, benefits are scheduled to run out Wednesday for people who have been jobless for more than six months.
UK - Christians who believe their faith is "under attack" in Britain are launching a campaign to defend it. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey will launch "Not Ashamed Day" outside the House of Lords. Campaigners say a mounting number of cases of workers being disciplined over their beliefs show Christianity is being "air brushed" from UK society.
NEW YORK, USA - The WikiLeaks website said it came under a forceful Internet-based attack on Tuesday morning, making some of the content, including the controversial "Cablegate" documents, inaccessible for hours to users in the US and Europe. The site appears to have responded by switching its main hosting base from Sweden to the US, making it available again.
EUROPE - The euro zone's debt crisis deepened on Tuesday as investors pushed the risk premiums on SPANISH AND ITALIAN bonds to euro lifetime highs and Portugal warned of the risks facing its banks. The euro dipped to its lowest level against the dollar in over two months, immune to new attempts by European policymakers to calm markets hell-bent on testing the EU's determination to shield its financially weak members.
EUROPE - Spreads on Italian and Belgian bonds jumped to a post-EMU high as the sell-off moved beyond the battered trio of Ireland, Portugal, and Spain, raising concerns that the crisis could start to turn systemic. It was the worst single day in Mediterranean markets since the launch of monetary union.
EUROPE - Unlike true love, the euro really is forever. That may seem a reckless notion to advance just as Ireland becomes the second highly indebted member of the 16-nation single currency area to require a bailout, following Greece, and as bond markets close in on Portugal and Spain.
EUROPE - Germany and France said on Monday that Europe had acted decisively to save the euro by rescuing Ireland and agreeing the basis of a permanent debt resolution system, but financial markets were unconvinced.
WASHINGTON, USA - The Supreme Court has again cast aside an appeal that raised doubts about President Barack Obama's US citizenship, a grass-roots legal issue that has gained little legal or political footing, but continues to persist in the courts.
WASHINGTON, USA - The founder of whistle-blower website WikiLeaks plans to release tens of thousands of internal documents from a major US bank early next year, Forbes Magazine reported on Monday. Julian Assange declined in an interview with Forbes to identify the bank, but he said that he expected that the disclosures, which follow his group's release of US military and diplomatic documents, would lead to investigations.
AUSTRALIA - The chief Wikileaker who the US promised today to prosecute said his Internet site was just beginning to unload its diplomatic secrets and said the documents will skewer "lying, corrupt and murderous leadership from Bahrain to Brazil."
CHINA - China has signalled its readiness to accept Korean reunification and is privately distancing itself from the North Korean regime, according to leaked US embassy cables that reveal senior Beijing figures regard their official ally as a "spoiled child".
USA - US Representative Peter King, a Republican from New York and the incoming chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, has requested the administration of US President Barack Obama to "determine whether WikiLeaks could be designated a foreign terrorist organization," according to the website CNET News.
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - North Korea has deployed SA-2 surface-to-air missiles to its west coast near the Yellow Sea border with South Korea as US-led naval drills got underway in a show of force against the North's deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island earlier last week, government sources said Sunday.
USA - The XM25, designed by Minnesota's Alliant Techsystems, has been in development for about seven years and the first prototypes have been doled out to combat units in Afghanistan earlier this month. The 12-pound, 29-inch system, which costs up to $35,000 per unit, is so sophisticated that soldiers are proficient users literally within minutes.