China's pig population has become infected with a deadly bird flu virus.

Saudi Arabia buys military tanks from Pakistan. Pakistan buys naval patrol boats from Turkey and helicopters from the US.

On Thursday, the Taliban threatened to kill Rumsfeld.

Pakistani intellectuals have described as "insanity" recent Iranian threats of nuclear attack on the US.

The stand-down from the Imam Ali mosque was scripted, staged for effect.

Iran is feelling left out in Iraq and is trying to figure out what to do next. On Thursday, they decided to inform the world that the Philippines' hasty departure from Iraq was "correct, courageous and timely."

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has adopted a strategy of kidnapping Israeli soldiers in order to swap them for Palestinian detainees.

The Iraqi media recently circulated rumors that Israeli soldiers were fighting in Najaf. The Allawi government has formally denied it.

Iraqi media report that most Baathist former government employees, dismissed by the US, soon will be reinstated.

An Iraqi newspaper quotes an Al-Mahdi Army fighter in Najaf as saying: "There is confusion. We do not know with whom we are fighting!"

"21 Yemeni nationals have been killed in US raids on Al-Fallujah and Samarra recently."

The attacks in Iraq may become a fixture of life in the country, much as with the IRA in Ireland previously. Najaf may become another Falluja.

Journalists, including those at AFP, refer to part of Thailand as the "troubled Muslim south." Thai officials call it a 'major transit' point for illegal weapons.

The government of India has a 'broadband' policy, which is now being amended to include deregulated Wi-Fi. They seek to have 20 million broadband subscribers by the year 2010.

At a science and technology expo of young North Koreans, which runs through September 5, two items of special note: a new species of potato, which promises to "bring about a turn in potato farming" and a new, more valuable species of hemp. Separately, researchers at the Pyongyang-based Hygiene Institute of the Academy of Medical Sciences are hard at work on ways to "efficiently use potato leftovers, which are produced after making starch," and on a search for a "more effective and efficient water sterilizing method."

Russia is having trouble recruiting young people to the engineering profession, especially in aerospace.