Politics

 Former President Trump expressed his fervent support for displaying the Ten Commandments in various educational settings, including public schools and beyond. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he emphasized its importance, viewing it as a crucial step towards revitalizing religion in the United States. Trump's statement coincided with his outreach to religious voters ahead of upcoming elections, underscoring the political significance of his stance on this issue. His remarks preceded a scheduled address to Christian conservative voters in Washington, DC. The new law in Louisiana, signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, mandates the placement of a poster-size display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom of state-funded schools, from kindergarten through university levels. This measure positions Louisiana as the first state to enforce such a requirement. Critics, including civil liberties groups like the ACLU, ACLU of Louisiana, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a...

  Maryland became the eighth U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage Thursday as Gov. Martin O'Malley signed legislation he said secures the "human dignity" of all residents, including gay and lesbian couples. A standing-room crowd in the Maryland State House cheered O'Malley as he emerged from his office to sign the legislation, flanked by state Senate President Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch. "The way forward is always found through greater respect for the equal rights of all," the governor said. Six states and the District of Columbia already issue same-sex marriage licenses -- Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. Five states -- Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island -- allow civil unions that provide rights similar to marriage. The Maryland House of Delegates approved the measure O'Malley signed Thursday less than two weeks after Washington state legislators voted to leg...

  To remain a plausible alternative to Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primaries, Rick Santorum needs a win next Tuesday in Ohio, where he is not only up in the polls but could benefit from small but potentially significant demographic advantages. Ohio and Michigan, where Mr. Santorum lost to Mr. Romney this Tuesday by three percentage points, are Rust Belt neighbors, but a look at the demographics of voters in the 2008 Republican primaries points to differences in the electorate in the two states. GOP voters who cast ballots in Ohio were less affluent, less educated and more likely to live in rural areas and to be evangelical Christians than GOP voters in Michigan, according to 2008 primary exit polls from CNN.com. Those are all demographic groups where former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum soundly beat former Massachusetts Gov. Romney in Michigan. While the differences were slight and some other factors weigh in Mr. Romney's favor in what's expec...

The proposal opened up the president to Republican criticism that the move will not do much to lower the price of gas at the pump. hid With his re-election fate increasingly tied to the price that Americans are paying at the gas pump, President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies and vowed to tackle the country's long-term energy issues while shunning "phony election-year promises about lower gas prices." Obama, in an appearance at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire, took a page out of his jobs strategy, calling on Americans to contact their representatives and demand a vote on the oil subsidies. But the president insisted that lawmakers should vote in the next few weeks to repeal the oil industry's $4 billion federal subsidies, a demand he has made several times over the past three years. Ending the "industry giv...

North Korea's decision to suspend its testing of nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles is being cautiously welcomed in Asia, where many residents remember a history of broken promises. U.S. and North Korean officials simultaneously announced the breakthrough Wednesday, saying Pyongyang will also halt other nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment. The United States, meanwhile, says it will push ahead on a plan to provide 240,000 metric tons of U.S. food assistance to the North. Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said Thursday in Tokyo that the deal also provides for the return to North Korea of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency. "They [North Korea] have said they agree to let the IAEA surveillance team return. They have also promised to take steps toward denuclearization and stopped the launch of short range missiles - these are significant accomplishments being made," he said. The Japanese foreign minister desc...

Pakistani authorities have sent a formal request to Interpol to issue a Red Corner Notice for former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, currently living outside the country in self-exile. The move was taken so that he can be arrested and brought back to the country to face trial in connection with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The Federal Investigation Agency yesterday sent the request to the Director of Interpol in Pakistan, official sources said today. FIA Special Prosecutor Mohammad Azhar Chaudhry confirmed to the media that the process to bring Musharraf back to Pakistan had begun. Interior Minister Rehman Malik last week announced that the government would bring Musharraf back to face trial for his alleged failure to provide security to former premier Benazir Bhutto at the time of her assassination in 2007 despite being aware of threats to her life. Musharraf has been declared a "proclaimed offender" or fugitive by an anti-terrorism court...

Miliband, 41, who confessed that he was often beaten up in the school playground, said he never indulged in under-age drinking, and that his only brush with the law was a speeding offence. "I was a bit square. I was too square," the Telegraph quoted him as telling Piers Morgan during an interview. He was asked what his chosen talent would be if he were to appear on 'Britain's Got Talent

Jan 31 (Reuters) - Unidentified people torched the Sri Lankan office of a British-based website that regularly criticises the Sri Lankan government, and President Mahinda Rajapaksa immediately ordered an investigation into the arson. The attack on the office of www.lankaenews.com, which has links to an opposition politician who fell out with Rajapaksa several years ago, is the latest in a series of assaults on media outlets or personnel. "It is well to note that under ... Rajapaksa regime, the free media had suffered most and sustained losses to persons and property on an unprecedented scale in the media history of Sri Lanka," the website said in its report on the attack. Since the start of the final phase of a 25-year civil war in 2006, at least 14 journalists have been killed and many more attacked or threatened in the Indian Ocean island nation. Sri Lanka has a long history of violence and intimidation against journalists, stretching back as far as 1971, when the fi...

Pakistani Law Minister Babar Awan has spoken out over the case of a US man who killed two men in Lahore last week. He said no foreign citizen was above the law. The US embassy has called for the immediate release of Raymond Davis, saying he has diplomatic status and is immune from prosecution. The authorities say he does not have diplomatic immunity and is not one of the foreign security personnel authorised to carry firearms. Dr Awan said that although foreign diplomats enjoyed diplomatic immunity, "Pakistan has its own judicial system and everyone must respect it". Magistrates have remanded Mr Davis in custody until next week while police investigate the shooting. He has been charged with the murder of the two men. The US embassy in Islamabad has claimed diplomatic immunity on his behalf. They argue that he is a consulate employee who acted in "self-defence when confronted by two armed men on motorcycles" on 27...

Burma's new parliament has convened for the first time, officially ending almost half a century of absolute military rule. But the two chambers in Naypyidaw are dominated by the military and its allies. Next Image | Previous Image | |

"Mohammed Abdulrahman, from Ahlia University, died last night in Omdurman hospital as a result of his ... wounds after he was beaten by police," an activist who took part in Sunday's protest told AFP. "This morning (Monday) both Ahlia University and the Islamic University of Omdurman have been closed by a government decision," added the activist, speaking on condition of anonymity. Sunday's demonstrations followed calls by the "30 January" Facebook group for Sudanese youth to take to the streets and stage peaceful anti-government rallies across Sudan. The Facebook group, which boasts around 17,000 members, confirmed Abdulrahman had died, referring to him as a "martyr" who followed in the footsteps of another student killed in the October 1964 popular uprising that toppled the military regime then in power. "Al-Gorashy was a martyr for us. And you are our martyr now, Mohammed Abdulrahman," it said in large red lettering. Proteste...

Ramallah, Jan 31 (DPA) Israeli soldiers arrested Hamas lawmaker Muhammad Natsheh early Monday at his home in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, Hamas officials said. They said the soldiers searched Natsheh's home before taking him away. Natsheh is the sixth Hamas lawmaker to be rearrested by Israel since December. Israel arrested several members of Hamas' senior leadership in the summer of 2006, in retaliation for the abduction of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, who is still being held captive in Gaza. Israel gradually released most, but this winter detained several of them again. Natsheh was released from prison in September after serving almost nine years, six of them in solitary confinement, said Hamas sources.

The ticklish question has been hovering in the background since the "Jasmine Revolution" street uprising toppled the president of Tunisia two weeks ago. It has only gained in urgency as the demonstrations spread to Yemen, Jordan and then Egypt - threatening President Hosni Mubarak's near-30-year-grip on power. A Chinese blogger first posed the query to President Obama's chief Asia expert during a videoconference from the White House Situation Room with eight Mainland bloggers. "In my view, many Chinese netizens and intellectuals believe that China's future is Tunisia-ization," noted the Beijing-based blogger, 2Keqi, in the web chat with Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for Asian affairs. "Does the American government make this same assessment and does it have a policy plan" in the event that China takes such a turbulent path? Bader and another official, Ben Rhodes, deputy NSC adviser for strategic commun...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Southern Sudan's leader says he hopes Sudan's contested area of Abyei soon holds an independence referendum or is transferred to Sudan's south by presidential decree. Southern Sudan announced Sunday that 99 percent of voters in the south voted for independence during a referendum earlier in January. But Kiir said Monday that the contested region of Abyei needs to also hold a referendum or be given to the south. The status of region is being decided by north-south negotiations. Kiir spoke during an African Union summit in Ethiopia's capital. Southern Sudan is slated to become the world's newest country in July. The independence referendum was guaranteed in a 2005 peace accord that ended a more than two decade north-south civil war.

Two chartered flights out of Egypt carrying over 400 Israeli citizens landed in Ben-Gurion International Airport on Monday, Channel 10 reported, with returning Israelis claiming that the week-long anti-governmental protests that have been sweeping Egypt were not as bad as they seemed. El Al Boeing 757. Photo by: Moti Milrod Protesters have been rocking Egypt, a key U.S. ally in the Arab world, complaining about surging prices and the gap between rich and poor, calling for a new political system.

In the wake of the current unrest in Egypt, the United States is reportedly preparing for an Egypt without President Hosni Mubarak, pushing the 82-year-old leader to meet the demand for greater political freedom. The Obama administration is not yet ready to abandon Mubarak, fearing that openly supporting calls for Mubarak's removal would alarm other US allies in the region. The Los Angeles Times quoted current and former US government officials as saying that the days of autocratic government in Egypt are over with or without Mubarak. "They don't want to push Mubarak over the cliff, but they understand that the Mubarak era is over and that the only way Mubarak could be saved now is by a ruthless suppression of the population, which would probably set the stage for a much more radical revolution down the road," said a former senior US advisor. "They recognized that change was coming...

A fire in an arms depot of the Anonymous Venezuelan Campaign of Military Industries (CAVIM) in Maracy city of Aragua state killed at least one person and forced authorities to evacuate about 10,000 people from the area on Sunday. Aragua's Governor Rafael Isea said that the fatal victim was a woman. "Apparently she was exposed to the explosions. She was hospitalized in the Hospital Central and died later," Isea said. Isea also said that more than 10,000 people living near the fire zone were evacuated to guarantee their security. "It is a preventive measure, because the munitions exploded and they have certain impact power, so of course we are trying to avoid any bad situation," he explained. The governor earlier said that some 40 people were injured, but later said the figure was much lower. The fire started at about 4:30 a.m. local time (0900 GMT) and caused powerful explosions in three of the four munitions storage areas. The authorities set up a securit...

The authoritarian Belarusian government has released some political prisoners, as the European Union foreign ministers gather to discuss the reimposition of sanctions against the regime following flawed presidential elections in December and a crackdown on the opposition. Vladimir Neklyayev, 64, a poet and a candidate in the elections, had been released from prison at the weekend and was now being held under house arrest, his family said. Mr Neklyayev was attacked and beaten up on the evening of the presidential poll, then bundled from hospital and taken to prison.

MUSCAT (Reuters) - Oman said it had uncovered a UAE spy network in the Gulf Arab state that targeted its government and military, the state news agency of the U.S. ally in the Arabian Peninsula reported on Sunday. "Security services uncovered a spying network belonging to the state security apparatus of the United Arab Emirates, targeting the ruling regime in Oman and the way its government and military work," the agency said, quoting a security source. The news agency gave few details. An Omani government source, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said a number of Omani nationals had been arrested, including some who worked for the government. There was no immediate comment from officials in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates, a regional financial and tourism hub that has typically had friendly relations with Oman. The Omani official said the arrests dated back about two months, but gave no other details. Oman's news agency sai...

Trial ... Nazril "Ariel" Irham and his girlfriend, Luna Maya, yesterday. Photo: AFP JAKARTA: Indonesia's biggest rock star, Nazril ''Ariel'' Irham, has been sentenced to 3½ years in prison after personal sex videos were stolen from his laptop and went viral on the internet. The two videos were not deliberately distributed, but the presiding judge, Singgih Budi Prakoso, said Nazril had shown no remorse and given ''an opportunity for others to spread, produce and prepare a pornographic video''. It is the first time that someone has been sentenced under the anti-pornography laws introduced in 2008 at the instigation of the Islamist coalition partners of the President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Advertisement: Story continues below The saga has captivated Indonesia and sparked hand...