Some 30,000 people were killed and thousands more were injured on 26 December 2003 when the 6.5 magnitude quake razed the ancient Silk Road city, making it Iran's worst recorded disaster ever, rendering some 200,000 people homeless and damaging or destroying some 42,000 housing units.

''Last year, the nations of the world spent over $1 trillion on armaments,'' ElBaradei said. He quoted the head of the World Food Programme, James Morris, who said that no one in the world would go to bed hungry if we spent just 1 percent of military expenditures on food aid.

Prepared at the direction of Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Iraq on the Record is a searchable collection of 237 specific misleading statements made by Bush Administration officials about the threat posed by Iraq. It contains statements that were misleading based on what was known to the Administration at the time the statements were made.

No matter if we all speak differently accented English, Spanish, or the heavy Glaswegian accent of my Scottish sister in sorrow, Rose Gentle, whose gentle-giant son, Gordon, was killed by Blair and Bush in Iraq in July of 2004, our hearts all speak the same idiom of pain and we sing the same lament of futile loss.

THE declaration adopted at the WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong makes it clear that the global trading system continues to be weighted in favour of the developed countries. The Doha round of negotiations initiated in 2001 has been used by the rich countries to protect their interests to the detriment of the vast mass of humanity belonging to the developing countries.

The Cuban economy grew by a stunning 11.8 percent in 2005, the greatest increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) since the triumph of the Revolution, said the Minister of Economy and Planning, Jose Luis Rodriguez on Thursday.

"This is racism and must be condemned and opposed", said ...the Communist Party in a statement strongly condemning the riots on several Sydney beaches over the past few days. Racism is a generations-old policy cynically used by the ruling circles in a number of countries to divert attention from their inability to look after the economic and social needs of the people and to blame "outside" groups for their failures.

By now, most parents of school-age children have heard of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, adopted in January 2002 to provide guidance and money to America's schools.What many are still not aware of is a provision buried deep in the body of the law that allows military recruiters to obtain student information, including names, addresses and telephone listings.

The disputed frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea remains militarily "tense and potentially volatile" despite a pull back of some troops, the United Nations said...His comments come at the end of a 30-day deadline for compliance with a UN Security Council order aimed at easing tensions along their disputed 1,000 km frontier.

On December 20, 2005, I issued a 273-page report outlining the Bush Administration's panoply of misconduct...In brief, I have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice President and other high-ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq...

Kolahun, once a thriving agricultural town with some 10,000 residents in Lofa County, emptied during the latter years of the war when it suffered heavy shelling. Bullet-riddled stumps of walls peep out from the carpet of forest that crept over the battered ghost-town.

On December 10, [Michael]Parmly invited several "dissidents" on the US payroll to his residence in Havana, delivering a speech full of lies and offenses against the Cuban Revolution...The diplomat launched into a series of insults, among them some aimed at university and other students and questioned the access of all Cubans to free health care services.

The support of the staff of the U.S. Interest Section in Havana became habitual and ever growing as successive White House administrations, [over]the last 45 years, have designed plans with one single goal: defeating the Cuban Revolution by whatever means.

A student of mine from a working class background came and asked me about the media coverage of the Transit strike and Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki’s attacks on labor. Basically he was shocked that they were trying to set the "poor against the workers" (his words) and thought that they, the politicians and the media, "must be living on another planet."

In November 2005, the first significant legal challenge involving the so-called "Intelligent Design" [ID] theory of creationism wrapped up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Court arguments in Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District lasted 22 days, and involved a challenge by 11 parents who oppose the teaching of "intelligent design" (ID), a "lite" variation of the same old creationism theory that has been constitutionally excluded from the public schools since 1987.

This March's "World Series of Baseball" was supposed to celebrate the explosion of diversity that has forever altered the Major Leagues. Teams from the Dominican Republic, Japan, Puerto Rico, and the little seen but highly regarded Cuban national team were going to play the United States in an unprecedented contest to redefine the slogan "America's Pastime."

The European Union (EU) should be ashamed of itself. It has thrown aside the principals of democracy for partisan politics and hypocrisy. In the run up to the Palestinian parliamentary elections, the EU has addressed Palestinian politics and made threats in the process.

In a major victory for parents who want their children to learn science in science classes and religion doctrine in their homes, churches, mosques, or synagogues, a federal court ruled this past Tuesday that Dover, Pennsylvania schools could not teach the concept of "intelligent design."

George W. Bush must have scowled when Cuba's Fidel Castro referred recently to his brother, the Florida governor, as the president's "fat little brother." But he got over it. There were other, more important fish to fry, among them hiding that he had another, skinnier brother halfway across the world whose antics were becoming a nuisance.

With 52% of the 13,134 votes cast, Wal-Mart won the 5th annual online "Grinch of the Year" election sponsored by National Jobs with Justice. Nominated by Wake Up Wal-Mart, the company is criticized for leading the global race to the bottom; boosting profits for their executives on the backs of their employees through low wages, insufficient healthcare, and discrimination.