Misery Hangs Over Gaza Despite Pledges of Help — NY Times

Misery Hangs Over Gaza Despite Pledges of Help — NY Times

South Korean elementary school students wearing gas masks while they participate in a lesson on how to use a gas mask in a nuclear attack in Seoul, South Korea. South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels. — AP

South Korean elementary school students wearing gas masks while they participate in a lesson on how to use a gas mask in a nuclear attack in Seoul, South Korea. South Korean and U.S. troops raised their alert Thursday to the highest level since 2006 after North Korea renounced its truce with the allied forces and threatened to strike any ships trying to intercept its vessels. — AP

Rescuers are searching the rubble of a police building in Lahore after a bomb attack killed at least 23 people and injured 200 in Pakistan’s second city. Gunmen reportedly opened fire on guards before detonating a car bomb which flattened the emergency response building at police HQ. Nearby offices of the ISI intelligence service were also damaged. The interior ministry chief linked the attack to Taliban insurgents whom troops are battling in the Swat valley. — BBC

Rescuers are searching the rubble of a police building in Lahore after a bomb attack killed at least 23 people and injured 200 in Pakistan’s second city.

Gunmen reportedly opened fire on guards before detonating a car bomb which flattened the emergency response building at police HQ.

Nearby offices of the ISI intelligence service were also damaged.

The interior ministry chief linked the attack to Taliban insurgents whom troops are battling in the Swat valley. — BBC

Robert Franco, left, and Shawn Higgins, who are engaged, held each other in front of City Hall after the decision was announced. — NY Times

Robert Franco, left, and Shawn Higgins, who are engaged, held each other in front of City Hall after the decision was announced. — NY Times

South Koreans protest nuclear test conducted by North Korea — NY Times

South Koreans protest nuclear test conducted by North Korea — NY Times

The strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attracted an unusually large and exuberant crowd of supporters on Monday during a campaign speech in this northwest city near the candidate’s birthplace, with only a few weeks before national elections that the incumbent stands a serious chance of losing. The crowd for the challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, was extraordinary not only for its size — an estimated 30,000 — but also because the supporters were not paid, given free food, bused in or ordered by their workplaces to attend, a tactic sometimes used by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s campaign. — NY Times

The strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attracted an unusually large and exuberant crowd of supporters on Monday during a campaign speech in this northwest city near the candidate’s birthplace, with only a few weeks before national elections that the incumbent stands a serious chance of losing.

The crowd for the challenger, Mir Hussein Moussavi, was extraordinary not only for its size — an estimated 30,000 — but also because the supporters were not paid, given free food, bused in or ordered by their workplaces to attend, a tactic sometimes used by Mr. Ahmadinejad’s campaign. — NY Times

Iraqi grain farmers have been told that water to their fields will be cut due to ongoing drought. — BBC

Iraqi grain farmers have been told that water to their fields will be cut due to ongoing drought. — BBC

Punjab Riots via BBC

Punjab Riots via BBC

when everybody's naked, nobody's nude

but some can be ugly.

Drugs Hollow Out Afghan Lives in Cultural Center …These days, the shell of the abandoned building serves as perhaps the world’s largest gathering spot for men looking to satisfy their lust for heroin and opium. Stooping in the darkened caverns of the place, amid the waste and exhalations of hundreds of others, the men partake of the drug that has begun to wreak its deathly magic in the very country where it is produced. — NY Times

Drugs Hollow Out Afghan Lives in Cultural Center

…These days, the shell of the abandoned building serves as perhaps the world’s largest gathering spot for men looking to satisfy their lust for heroin and opium. Stooping in the darkened caverns of the place, amid the waste and exhalations of hundreds of others, the men partake of the drug that has begun to wreak its deathly magic in the very country where it is produced. — NY Times