NAIROBI, Kenya — China’s investment prowess and construction know-how is widely on display in this long-congested African capital. A $200 million ring road is being built and partly financed by Beijing. The international airport is undergoing a $208 million expansion supported by the Chinese, whose loans also paid for a working-class housing complex that residents […]

A US assassination drone attack has claimed the lives of at least 25 people in eastern Somalia, Press TV reports.
The attack took place in Somalia’s Garas Balley district near the capital Mogadishu, leaving at least another 40 injured.
The unmanned aircraft also destroyed two al-Shabab bases in the area.
The US has recently stepped up its drone operations in […]

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project.
At the heart of the surveillance operations are […]

LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands— Judges at an international war crimes court sentenced former Liberian President Charles
Taylor to 50 years in prison Wednesday, saying he was responsible for “some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history.”
The 64-year-old warlord-turned-president is the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World […]

The United States said Sri Lanka had on Friday put forward “a very serious” reconciliation …
The United States said Sri Lanka had put forward “a very serious” plan Friday for reconciliation after its 27-year war, and urged the island to move forward on protecting human rights.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris met with Secretary […]

BEIJING — Chen Guangcheng, the blind, self-taught lawyer known for his outspoken opposition to China’s forced abortion and sterilization policies, has escaped from house arrest and posted a dramatic YouTube video
calling on Premier Wen Jiabao to investigate his case and protect his family.
Hu Jia, another prominent activist and friend of the Chen family, said Chen […]

Some Secret Service employees accused of misconduct in the Colombian prostitution scandal are privately contending that their conduct didn’t warrant dismissal because senior managers tolerated similar behavior during
official trips, according to people familiar with the employees’ thinking.
Reversing decisions to resign
Several of the men who agreed to resign under pressure last week are also considering reversing […]

The Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] are prepared and ready to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, Chief of Staff Benny Gantz told the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in an interview published Sunday.
“In principle, we are ready to act,” the army chief said just ahead of Israel’s Independence Day, reports Ynet.com.
Gantz emphasized that 2012 was going to be “a […]

Executive Order
President Obama will issue an executive order Monday that will allow U.S. officials for the first time to impose sanctions against foreign nationals found to have used new technologies, from cellphone tracking to Internet
monitoring, to help carry out grave human rights abuses.
Social media and cellphone technology have been widely credited with helping democracy advocates […]

Let’s learn the right lessons from the Geneva outcome, not the wrong ones. It is not the case that a small country
such as Sri Lanka cannot fight a diplomatic battle with the mighty USA and win. Minutes after the Sri Lanka vote at the HRC this time, the Cubans moved a resolution on the composition […]