http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews Global News: The Christian Science Monitor\'s global news blog Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:05:17 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en WALTHAM, MASS. – Justice Richard Goldstone, in his first public discussion with a high-level Israeli official regarding his controversial UN report on war crimes during Israel's invasion of Gaza last year, hardly came out reeling. He began the forum at Brandeis University by confessing a concern about anti-Israel bias in ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/06/at-brandeis-goldstone-defends-un-war-crimes-report/ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a large Iranian weapons shipment that Israel seized on Wednesday – and alleges was destined for Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon – constituted a "war crime." He said the United Nations Security Council should convene a special session to discuss the issue. "The ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/05/israel-says-weapons-shipment-a-war-crime-iran-and-syria-cry-foul/ • A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent. LONDON – They’re small, furry, and undeniably cute – and yet the explosion of Britain’s nonnative gray squirrel population has long been regarded as a conservation crisis. But now nature lovers are looking with hope toward the Isle of Anglesey, an island off ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/05/britain-no-more-american-gray-squirrels-%e2%80%93-we-want-our-reds-back/ KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – With more than $379 million spent, scores killed, and months of nation-building lost, the Afghan elections have proved a debacle in the eyes of seemingly everyone from fruit vendors in Kabul to world leaders. An exercise that was intended to build popular legitimacy for the central government in ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/05/un-afghanistan-drawdown-fraud-charges-leave-tough-task-for-karzai/ After two years of wrangling to head off a case that centered around the Bush administration's practice of abducting alleged terrorists abroad and sending them to friendly third states for interrogation, Italian prosecutors won a stunning victory on Wednesday, when 23 US intelligence agents were convicted in absentia by a ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/04/italian-court-sentences-23-cia-agents-in-attack-on-rendition/ • A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent. RAMALLAH, WEST BANK – For most Palestinians, roughly paved asphalt, smoggy downtowns, and ramshackle expansion are a part of city life. But entrepreneur Bashar Masri thinks otherwise. On what is now just a scrubby hilltop, a new 40,000-person metropolis five miles north ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/04/west-bank-palestinians-first-planned-city-will-offer-modern-space/ BEIJING – By the standards of some other presidential siblings, Mark Obama Ndesandjo – the US president’s half brother who lives in China – is a positive boon. Normally he keeps quietly to himself in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen where he lives with his Chinese wife, practicing calligraphy and ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/04/obama-brother-emerges-from-quiet-life-in-china-to-promote-book/ BEIJING – China is on track to be the first major economy to emerge from the global slump, a World Bank report released on Wednesday suggested. China’s growth rate this year is likely to hit 8.4 percent, the Washington-based bank predicted. Officials warned, though, that it would take more than Beijing’s ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/04/china-leading-world-in-economic-recovery/ BANGKOK, THAILAND – A senior US diplomat met with Burma’s (Myanmar’s) detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday during a visit to the military-ruled country. The US has tried for years to isolate it with economic and political sanctions, but now also seeks to engage. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/04/us-envoy-meets-suu-kyi-in-trip-to-engage-burma-myanmar/ • A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent. NEW DELHI – They don’t look anything like Indian trains: no jostling crowds, no littered floors, and most of all – in this male-dominated society – no men. Eight women-only trains, called the Ladies Specials, are now chugging their way around Delhi, ... http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/11/03/india-on-ladies-special-trains-theres-no-men-to-harass-women/