A brief world news roundup for 26 January 2009.

United States & the Americas

• Washington Post – President Obama’s plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials, barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees, discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them. Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is “scattered throughout the executive branch,” a senior administration official said.
• Malaysia Star – Malaysia welcomes US President Barack Obama’s move to close the Guantanomo Bay prison and hopes it will gain access to two Malaysian detainees being held there. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he hoped Washington would give permission for Malaysian representatives to meet the detainees, Mohammed Farik Amin and Mohammed Nazir Lep. Malaysia could bring them back to be detained in the country, he said at a press conference on Friday.
• Jurist – The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday denied a petition for rehearing in the case of Wadih El-Hage who was convicted of the 1998 bombing of two US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. El-Hage’s petition for rehearing contended that the circuit court’s earlier decision on Fourth Amendment challenges omitted any consideration of whether challenged searches were supported by probable cause and that the court failed to consider whether the searches could be conducted at all.
• Treasury Dept – On July 29, 2008, the President signed into law the Tom Lantos Block Burmese JADE (Junta’s Anti-Democratic Efforts) Act of 2008. On January 15, 2009, the Director of OFAC identified as being described in Section 5(a)(1) of the JADE Act certain persons whose names have, as discussed above, been added to the list of Specially Designated Nationals and whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to IEEPA and the JADE Act
• Newsweek – The FBI says as many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 have left their Minneapolis homes in the past 18 months under suspicious circumstances. Officials fear they may have joined Islamic militants fighting for control of Somalia.
• canada.com – There is a growing consensus that Canada would have little chance of successfully prosecuting Omar Khadr if the Harper government brings him home, with several legal experts betting that he would face rehabilitation and supervision but avoid a trial or jail. While criminal charges are possible under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws, cracks have emerged in recent months in the U.S. case against the young Canadian, casting doubt on whether he lobbed a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in 2002.
• LA Times – A new constitution that voters are expected to approve Sunday would give more power to Bolivia’s indigenous communities, promote agrarian reform and allow President Evo Morales to seek reelection to another term. But analysts warn that passage of the new constitution also could worsen Bolivia’s polarization, throw its legal system into chaos, and discourage investment in the natural resources that are its main ticket to prosperity.
• Global Voices – As the polls close across Bolivia for the Constitutional Referendum vote, many of the country’s users of Twitter have been hard at work sending messages about their experiences from their cities. In order to centralize the information, they are using the #referendum tag.
• LC Sun – President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug trafficking has led to his own doorstep, with the arrest of a dozen high-ranking officials with alleged ties to Mexico’s most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa Cartel. The U.S. praises Calderon for rooting out corruption at the top. But critics say the arrests reveal nothing more than a timeworn government tactic of protecting one cartel and cracking down on others.
• LAHT – At least 11 people have been murdered so far this weekend in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas, Mexican prosecutors said. A police officer was killed and another wounded Friday night when gunmen opened fire on their patrol car.
• AP – The presidents of Venezuela and Argentina signed a dozen agreements to cooperate in energy, industry and agriculture — including a joint venture to develop oil fields in eastern Venezuela.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kremlin – Dmitry Medvedev and President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov discussed cooperation between Russia and Uzbekistan on ensuring security in the Central Asian region and overcoming the world economic crisis. The talks concluded with the signing of a Joint Communique on the results of the Russian President’s state visit to Uzbekistan, an intergovernmental agreement on conditions for the location and servicing of the two countries’ diplomatic missions, and a programme for cooperation between the two countries’ foreign ministries in 2009.
• Russia MFA – Other thrust areas of Russia’s multivector foreign policy were also boosted. I shall note interaction within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the development of relations with the partners in the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Multilateral diplomacy under G8 auspices and in the framework of BRIC, APEC and other forums also contributed to securing national interests.
• Russia Today – The vast Siberian lands have seen it all – from the great Mongol hordes of the Middle Ages to the Communists’ five-year plans of the 20th century. Scattered around the wildest regions are a few Tatar villages, trying to preserve their ancient culture.
• Civil Georgia – Gas supply to Tskhinvali, suspended as a result of pipeline damage during the August war, has been resumed, the breakaway region’s authorities said on January 25. The Russian Foreign Ministry welcomed resumption of gas supply and said in a statement posted on its website on January 25 it was “satisfied that a common sense has eventually prevailed in Tbilisi.”
• HRW – Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces committed numerous violations of the laws of war in the conflict in August 2008 over South Ossetia and its aftermath, causing many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction of civilian property, Human Rights Watch said in a comprehensive report.
• Kyiv Post – Kuwaiti state news says an investment firm in the Persian Gulf oil producer is forming a pair of joint venture companies with Russia’s Gazprom. Kuwait News Agency says Noor Financial Investment will join with the Russian oil and gas giant’s Gazprom Geofizika subsidiary to form one venture in Russia and another in Kuwait. Gazprom will own 51 percent of the Russian company, and Noor will hold the rest.
• Guardian – The number of unemployed Russians rose to 6 million in December compared to 5 million in November as an economic downturn hit home, the head of the federal employment service Yuri Gertsiy said on Saturday.
• Kavkaz Center – According to source inside the HQ of the command of Eastern Front of Armed Forces of the Caucasus Emirate (Commander Amir Aslambek), last Friday on Muharram 26, 1430 in the vicinity of the village of Shirdi-Mokhk (Nozhai-Yurt district), a mobile squad of the Mujahideen attacked a gang of Russian invidels. The details of the fighting are unknown. The source reported at least 5 infidel soldiers were killed and wounded in the course of the battle.
• Azer News – Russia has told the Azerbaijani government that it did not transfer arms and military machinery valued at $800 million to Armenia following recent media reports of such a transfer that have raised tensions between the two countries.
• Bruce Pannier – With the Kazakh president signing an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation with India, there are signs that uranium-rich Central Asia may be poised to take advantage of the globe’s anticipated move toward nuclear power. Under the agreement signed on January 24, Astana will supply nuclear fuel to Indian atomic plants.

Middle East

• RFERL – Iraq has no extradition agreement with Iran and any member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) opposition group will be handed over only through the International Committee of the Red Cross, Iraq’s ambassador in Tehran told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq.
• Al Jazeera – The Iraqi government will reopen the notorious Abu Ghraib prison next month under the name of Baghdad Central Prison, a senior justice official has said.
• Voices of Iraq – An Iranian on Sunday was arrested in Wassit province for not having official legal documents, according to a local police source.
• Al Sumaria – Gunmen killed a nine member family including a child in Diyala Province. A source from Baquba Operations room affirmed that unknown gunmen attacked a house in Al Maamel District near Baldroz and killed six women, two men and a child of the same family. The source added that martyrs are from Al Karawiya tribe.
• BBC – Thirteen people have been killed in a car bomb attack targeting a police patrol near the western Iraqi city of Falluja, police have said.
• ITIC – Hamas Invites Foreign Correspondents to the Egyptian Border to Prove Some Smuggling Tunnels Still Operating after Operation Cast Lead
• MEMRI – Ahmad Yousef, advisor to Hamas leader in Gaza Isma’il Haniya, discounted the efforts made by Israel, the U.S. and various Arab and European countries to prevent the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. He said that the resistance was legitimate and so were its weapons, and that it would obtain arms to continue its activities by any means.
• SANA – President Bashar al-Assad received on Saturday morning Chief of Hamas Movement Politburo Khaled Meshaal and the members of Bureau. President al-Assad, during the meeting, congratulated the Palestinian people for the victory achieved by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, stressing that Israel’s failure in achieving the goals of its aggression on Gaza, in spite of allowing itself to attack all the Strip with the deadliest weapons, is an evidence of the Palestinian people’s commitment to their inalienable rights to their land and homes, and of their deep faith in their ultimate victory over occupation and aggression.
• NOW Lebanon – Hezbollah official Nawaf Mousawi said that the Resistance and its weapons were the only mechanism for defense of the nation. Discussing his party’s position on the national defense strategy, which is set to be discussed in Monday’s national dialogue session, Mousawi said: “Today, we are committed more than ever to preserving these weapons, and we are working on gradual integration of political forces into the Resistance framework.”
• Hassan Nafaa – Whenever the public objected to an aspect of unity, the democratic institutions of Europe adapted their tone and pace in order to accommodate public opinion. This cannot happen in the Arab world, because we’re yet to embrace democracy. We don’t have what it takes for unity. Domestically, we lack democracy. And externally, we don’t have the supporting conditions. With Israel lodged in the heart of the region, divisions keep emerging on a scale that can wreck any political or economic endeavour.

Iran

• Press TV – Iran will host an international meeting to review the legal aspects of the Gaza war in preparation for the prosecution of war criminals. Iran’s Attorney General Ghorbanali Dorri Najaf Abadi told Press TV on Sunday that the meeting would be held in March.
• Tehran Times – Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani announced on Sunday that the Iranian Parliament will rebuild the Palestinian Parliament destroyed in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip.
• Fars – Ahmadinejad: Islamic Revolution Not Restricted to Iranian Borders; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Sunday termed Islamic Revolution “a phenomenon belonging to all mankind”. “Iran’s Islamic Revolution is a global phenomenon belonging to all mankind,” Ahmadinejad noted in an address to a national gathering on the advent of the 30th victory anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. The victory of Iran’s revolution in 1979 is annually celebrated by all Iranians during January 31-February 10.
• Mehr – Iran has completed the design phase of its stealth aircraft, the commander of the Iranian Air Force announced here on Sunday. Iranian military researchers are now working on building small prototypes of the aircraft, Brigadier General Hassan Shah-Safi told reporters in Tehran.
• Payvand – Iran says it opposes the construction of any underwater pipeline in the Caspian Sea that will carry oil from Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan. In June 2008, Iran announced plans to build a cross-country pipeline to transfer oil from the Caspian region to the Persian Gulf and world markets. Noqrekar-Shirazi said earlier that Iran had held several rounds of talks with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia on the construction of the Neka-Jask pipeline. An agreement, however, has yet to be reached on the issue.
• Fars – Iranian Commerce Minister Masoud Mir Kazemi and his Senegalese counterpart Mamadou Diop Dccroix stressed economic cooperation between the two countries. Referring to economic cooperation between two countries, the Iranian minister underlined that mutual cooperation would pave the way for delivering Iranian products to other African countries through Senegal.
• Mehr – First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said on Sunday that strengthening relations with Africa is atop Iran’s foreign policy agenda. In a meeting with Kenyan Finance Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, Davoudi expressed hope that bilateral relations between the two countries will increase to the advantage of both nations.
• IRNA – Iranian and Georgian officials held talks at Iran’s Embassy in Georgia on Friday on fostering Tehran-Tbilisi ties in different spheres.
• Rooz – A news website close to Tehran’s mayor Morteza Qalibaf, who was also current President Ahmadinejad’s rival in the 2005 presidential bid, revealed that IRNA state news agency sells its news and presents a positive image of the performance of government agencies that provide it with money.

Lance Cpl. Donald Wright remains vigilant during a security halt, Jan. 9, in Farah province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment (Reinforced) conducted Operation Gateway III to clear southern Afghanistan's Route 515, an important road for villagers who live and travel through the area. Wright is a rifleman with Company I, 3/8, the ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force Afghanistan (photo by Lance Cpl. Monty Burton)

South Asia

• AFPS – Coalition forces in Afghanistan killed 15 Taliban militants and detained one suspect during an operation in Laghman province Jan. 23, military officials reported. The operation targeted a wanted Taliban commander and took place in the province’s Mehtar Lam district, northeast of Kabul. As coalition forces approached the militant leader’s compound, several armed insurgents emerged, and a firefight ensued.
• NY Times – “They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.” International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating. After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.
• Daily Times – Eight Taliban, including their commander, were killed in Swat on Saturday, as security forces took control of schools in the violence-hit district, a private TV channel reported. The clashes, in which Taliban commander Noor Bakhtiar was also killed, took place in Nangolai area of Kabal tehsil. The forces also recovered a large cache of arms from the Taliban’s hideout after the operation.
• AFP – Six more bodies were recovered from the rubble of an Al-Qaeda den hit by a suspected US missile, pushing the death toll in two separate strikes to 21, security officials said Saturday. “Six bodies of local tribesmen were found in the rubble of the house which was destroyed in a US missile strike on Friday just outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan district,” the official said. On Friday officials said eight people including five foreigners (Pakistani officials use the term “foreigners” to describe Al-Qaeda militants) died in the missile strike at the house of a pro-Taliban tribesman near Mir Ali. Hours later another suspected US drone fired two missiles into a house in Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, killing seven people. The strikes were the first under new US President Barack Obama.
• Pakistan MFA – Pakistan has consistently lodged strong protest with the US Government against drone attacks, which constitute infringement of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Yesterday’s attack in the Waziristan area which caused civilian causalities is a matter of great concern.  These concerns have been conveyed to the US side.
• Pak Tribune – China has provided 500 million dollars to Pakistan to improve the level of its foreign exchange reserves while the U.S. has also released 105 million dollars in connection with meeting expenses of war on terror.
• Times of India – Pakistan government on Sunday took over the sprawling headquarters of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a front organisation of the LeT blamed for the Mumbai attacks, near Lahore amid tight security.
• Sri Lanka MoD – Sri Lanka Army announced that troops of 59 Division, lead by Brigadier Nandana Udawatta, entered into the LTTE’s main garrison town Mullaittivu, have gained total control over the Mullaittivu Township after completing the mop up operations conducted in the area by this evening, 25 January. Recapturing the Mullaittivu town which had been dominated by the LTTE terrorists for last 13 years marks the significant milestone of war against terrorism launched to free the entire country from LTTE.

Far East & Pacific

• AFP – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il said on Friday he wanted a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, declaring his willingness to work with China to push forward the six-party process, Chinese state media reported. Kim made the remark while meeting in Pyongyang with Wang Jiarui, a senior official with China’s Communist Party, Xinhua reported on its website. It was Kim’s first known meeting with a senior foreign visitor since his reported stroke in August.
• Jakarta Post – North Korea criticized South Korea’s president Sunday for nominating a conservative security expert to handle relations between the two sides, warning the move will further heighten tensions on the divided peninsula.
• Yonhap -  North Korea on Saturday strongly rebuked as a “cock-and-bull story” a recent U.S. intelligence report that said the North’s combat ability is waning due to the malnutrition-related mental problems of its youth.
• New Zealand Herald – Prime Minister John Key will meet his Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd, in Papua New Guinea this week to discuss each country’s response to the economic downturn and what to do about Fiji.
• Canberra Times – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will fly to Papua New Guinea to attend the special Pacific Islands Forum meeting to discuss Fiji’s route back to democracy. The meeting will discuss the fate of Fiji’s membership under the leadership of self-appointed interim prime minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
• The Australian – The Rudd Government has foreshadowed a possible boost to troop numbers in Afghanistan – a decision Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon says will depend on changes in the strategic and tactical situation in the country.
• Times Online – But prosperity is increasingly hard to come by. The Shanghai Exchange has seen its index decline by two thirds. The Chinese export sector, responsible for 40 per cent of Chinese growth over the past decade, is tanking. Some estimate that 20 per cent of factories in the Pearl River delta area have already closed down and half will be gone by the end of the year.
• Caijing – Southern China’s Yunnan Province plans to boost local refined metals producers by stockpiling 1 million tons of aluminum, copper and other base metals. But some analysts have questioned the strategic commodities initiative and a similar effort launched by the central government in recent months.
• Guardian – But the riot late last year at the Kai Da factory in Dongguan, amid the grim industrial sprawl of the Pearl River Delta, was not an isolated incident. It was one of tens of thousands of protests, many erupting from the same mixture of economic grievances, resentment of police and swirling rumour. The numbers have been climbing steadily for years.
• news.com.au – Muslims in Indonesia have been banned from doing yoga if they engage in Hindu religious rituals during the exercise, the chairman of the country’s top Islamic body said.
• Bangkok Post – New Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya travelled to Cambodia on Sunday for his first official visit, with both neighbours hoping to make progress on resolving a sporadically violent territorial dispute.
• Irrawaddy – The black market value of Burma’s currency, the kyat, hit a three-year high of nearly 1,000 to the US dollar on Friday, putting a brake on the unofficial cash transfers from abroad known as hundi.

Europe

• RP Online – Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will discuss the Iranian nuclear issue during a trip to Tehran scheduled in February. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Stein Meier has also extended support for the mission.
• NCRI – As the meeting of EU Council of Ministers and an announcement on the new EU list of terrorist organizations approaches, the ruling fascism in Iran resorts to various levers, especially blackmail through hostage-taking threats, in a bid to coerce European countries into violating the rulings of Europe’s highest judicial authorities by maintaining the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) on the blacklist. On January 22, the Iranian regime, through its commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, attempted to threaten the German government with a repeat of the U.S. embassy take-over in Tehran in 1979 in order to compel Germany to bow to its demands.
• Khaleej Times – Defence Secretary John Hutton on Sunday signalled he was considering boosting the number of British troops and equipment in Afghanistan.
• BBC – Steelmaker Corus is set to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide, including more than 2,500 in the UK, the BBC understands. Corus said it could not comment on rumour or speculation, but the company, like all steelmakers, is facing an unprecedented downturn in demand.

Africa

• Africa Press Agency – Ethiopia on Sunday declared the full withdrawal of its troops from Somalia after two years in that country. According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the troops are currently deployed at the Ethiopian border with Somalia, to closely follow the situation in that country.
• Garowe – At least 13 people were killed Saturday in Somalia’s war-wracked capital Mogadishu after a suspected suicide bombing triggered street fighting, Radio Garowe reports. A Somali police officer stopped a vehicle loaded with explosives at a checkpoint along Maka al Mukarrama Road, where the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) maintains a base, witnesses said.
• Sudan Tribune – Sudan military planes attacked a location in southern Darfur recently controlled by the rebel Justice and Equality Movement which took it from a group led by Minni Minawi. The aerial attack comes after statements by the governor of South Darfur earlier this week about military build-up by the Sudanese army around Muhageriya, 80 km from Nyala the capital of the state, in order to dislodge the rebel group.
• IHT – Rwandan and Congolese troops pushed deeper into zones held by Rwandan Hutu militiamen Sunday in a joint military operation designed to crush armed groups that have destabilized central Africa, a military spokesman said. Nine Rwandan militiamen were killed and one Congo army soldier was wounded in attacks a day earlier on militia positions in five villages in Lubero district, said Congolese military spokesman Capt. Olivier Hamuli.
• NY Times – Congo is now urging Rwanda to extradite him to stand trial for war crimes and treason charges. Many people here, in the green folds of eastern Congo where so much blood has been spilled, hope his capture could be the denouement of a conflict that has raged for years. But there is a growing fear that General Nkunda’s arrest may end in an unsatisfying way and that Rwanda may not hand him over, partly because he knows too much. On Sunday, the Rwandan military acknowledged for the first time that General Nkunda was not being kept in jail but at an undisclosed “safe” location in Rwanda.
• FT – The arrest of Laurent Nkunda, the Congolese rebel leader, by his erstwhile allies in Rwanda marks a dramatic turn in relations between Congo and its tiny but militarily powerful neighbour. Mr Nkunda was detained on Rwandan soil on Thursday night after putting up resistance to an unprecedented joint military operation by the Rwandan and Congolese armies designed to pacify eastern Congo, officials from both states said. The operation was the result of intense, secretive talks and appears to have taken United Nations peacekeepers by surprise. Talks in Nairobi between the Congolese government and Mr Nkunda’s rebels have been sidelined.
• Javno -  Security forces from Mali and Niger are scouring their shared border for four abducted Europeans but there is still no sign of the tourists, officials from both countries said. Mali initially blamed Tuareg rebels for Thursday’s kidnapping, but a Malian military officer said the attack bore none of the hallmarks of Ibrahima Bahanga, one of the most active Tuareg dissident leaders. “It’s not Bahanga’s style to kidnap tourists or to abandon vehicles,” he said. “The method resembles that of whoever kidnapped the Canadians in Niger,” he said.

(from the Poland Ministry of National Defence)

The Global War

• Asharq Al Awsat – The Egyptian Islamist movement Jamaat Islamiya has called for Al Qaeda to adopt a four-month truce and to cease any operations against the United States, the West and other countries, as they await “the fair, practical stances of the new American president.” Its request came shortly after Al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al Libi urged for attacks to be launched on Western states, especially the US and Britain, to avenge Israel’s attacks on Gaza and for Britain’s role in supporting the establishment of a homeland for the Jews in 1948.
• Sunday Times – An American naval taskforce in the Gulf of Aden has been ordered to hunt for suspicious Iranian arms ships heading for the Red Sea as Tehran seeks to re-equip Hamas, its Islamist ally in Gaza. According to US diplomatic sources, Combined Task Force 151, which is countering pirates in the Gulf of Aden, has been instructed to track Iranian arms shipments.
• The National – Two Saudis released from the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay have joined a terrorist organisation in Yemen, and two others are under suspicion because they are missing from their homes, a spokesman for the Saudi interior ministry said.
• ICC – The trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, which opens on Monday 26 January 2009 before Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court, will not only be the first in the history of the Court, but will also be the first one in the history of international law which will see victims participate fully in the proceedings.
• Stars and Stripes – Hundreds gathered Friday to honor three proud fathers and brave soldiers killed in the line of duty. It was standing room only at the Joint Multinational Training Command community activities center as Maj. Brian Michael Mescall, Sgt. Jason Ray Parsons and Cpl. Joseph Michael Hernandez were remembered. The men, members of 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, were killed Jan. 9 when a roadside bomb struck their Humvee while on a mission in Zabul province, Afghanistan. At the time of their deaths, the three were attached to a unit of the Romanian Land Forces.

Sights & Sounds

DW – War victims in Uganda trying to rebuild their lives have protested against the government’s decision to postpone reconstruction in their region. After 23 years of conflict, the border area with Congo is relatively calm

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NPR – U.S. Troops Kill Iraqi Couple, Injure Daugher In Raid; The military said it had information the slain man was a member of al-Qaida in Iraq, and that the operation was conducted with and approved by Iraq’s security forces. But an Iraqi government spokesman has called for an investigation.

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Newshour – President Barack Obama wasted no time putting his stamp on key policy areas during his first few days in office, including renewing a push for an economic stimulus plan. Mark Shields and David Brooks discuss the moves.

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NOVA – Can man-made diamond pave the way for the electronics of the future? It depends who you talk to.

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