BRASILIA - GLOBAL INVESTMENT FUNDS AND THE WEAK DOLLAR are largely to blame for high world food prices, a senior official of the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization said on Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS - Pope Benedict is unlikely to discuss specific world trouble spots but will assail the notion that "might is right" when he addresses the United Nations next week, a papal envoy said on Thursday.
MIDDLE EAST - Governments in the Middle East and North Africa need to invest now if they want to avoid severe water shortages in the future, the World Bank has warned.
TEXAS - To get to the Yearning for Zion compound, you have to turn off the main road in Eldorado. Until this week very little was known about what was going on inside the compound.
HARARE - Zimbabwe's opposition accused President Robert Mugabe on Thursday of carrying out a de facto coup to stay in power and said pro-democracy activists were in danger of their lives.
LONDON - UK interest rates have been cut to 5% from 5.25% by the Bank of England in an attempt to spur the economy in the face of the global credit crunch.
SOUTHHAMPTON, UK - The number of hyperactive children could be cut by a third by banning suspect food additives, it is claimed today.
JOHANNESBURG - South African police must shoot to kill and ignore regulations in the battle against one of the worst rates of violent crime in the world, a government minister said.
PAKISTAN - Notwithstanding his weakened position at home, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf this week flies to China, the "all weather friend" that has stood by the country through all its troubles.
JERUSALEM - Security forces have gone on alert for a possible terrorist attack in Jerusalem. Based on intelligence information, terrorists may already be in the city, seeking a target for an attack.
LONDON - Prime Minister Gordon Brown will not attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Downing Street says. However, he will be at the closing ceremony when the Olympic baton will be passed to London.
WASHINGTON - Members of the Federal Reserve's policy-setting committee worried at their most recent meeting that housing and financial market stress could trigger a nasty slide in the economy, even as inflation pushed higher, minutes of the meeting released on Tuesday show.
TOKYO - Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.
LONDON - A Christian group is suing Google over the internet giant's refusal to take its anti-abortion adverts.
MEXICO CITY - The distillers of Sweden's Absolut vodka have withdrawn an advertisement run in Mexico that angered many U.S. citizens by idealizing an early 19th century map showing chunks of the United States as Mexican.