The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) was established in 1969 and began operations in 1971 to promote and assist U.S. business investment in developing nations. OPIC is a U.S. government agency that provides project financing, investment insurance, and other services for U.S. businesses in 154 developing nations and emerging economies.
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OPIC political risk insurance is available to U.S. citizens, U.S. firms, or to the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms[.] This insurance covers three broad areas of political risk: currency inconvertibility, expropriation, and political violence.

Structured like a private corporation, OPIC operates on a self-sustaining basis and has recorded a positive net income for every year of operation, with reserves now totaling more than $3 billion.

Much of the rationale for OPIC relates to U.S. foreign policy goals, a premise that is being questioned by Members of Congress in a number of ways.

Economists generally oppose the use of subsidized credits to promote trade or investment abroad. They believe such subsidies tend to distort the flow of capital and resources away from the most efficient uses. They also believe that by promoting investment abroad, OPIC may be crowding out, and thereby reducing, some domestic investment. As long as OPIC's non-federal collections -- or the fees it charges the public for its services -- are sufficient to cover all of its credit and non-credit activities (as indicated by some estimates), it may not have a negative impact on the federal government's budget. OPIC's impact on U.S. capital and resource markets, however, may well be negative due to the distortionary effects of subsidized credits.

An unsuspecting mother was accused by hospital staff taking part in a security exercise of stealing a baby from a ward as she left the building with her new daughter.

Clare Bowker, 37, was confronted by staff as she got into her car outside Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands [U.K.]. She was asked to accompany them to the maternity unit with Hannah, her seven-week-old baby, and her other daughter Holly, then four, where she was told a baby had been snatched. Mrs Bowker was questioned by police and her bag searched to verify her identity.
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A distressed Mrs Bowker was allowed to leave the hospital after 40 minutes, still believing the situation was real.
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The Good Hope Hospital Trust has agreed to pay her undisclosed compensation, believed to be a five-figure sum, to cover her suffering and loss of earnings.

To claim that Guantanamo, with all its military accoutrements -- its guns, cells, guns, barbed-wire fences, guns, guard dogs, guns, etc. -- is not "United States territory" is such a joke as to bring into doubt the competence of the judges concluding as much. It boggles the mind.

The United States has maintained complete and uninterrupted control of the bay for over 100 years. ... Yet the Government's view is that the Constitution had no effect there, at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed sovereignty in the formal sense of the term. The necessary implication of the argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint. Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this.

If you are a textualist (like me), then the [MCA's] revocation of habeas corpus is patently unconstitutional[.] No amount of sophistry can change the fact that we do not currently face "rebellion or invasion." Even 9/11 was not an "invasion." The Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not "invasions." This is not a difficult concept.

Historically, Congress has taken care to avoid suspensions of the writ. ... In contrast, Congress intended the DTA and the MCA to circumscribe habeas review, as is evident from the unequivocal nature of MCA §7's jurisdiction-stripping language, from the DTA's text limiting the Court of Appeals' jurisdiction to assessing whether the CSRT complied with the "standards and procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense," ... and from the absence of a saving clause in either Act.

It immunizes government officials for past war crimes; it cuts the United States off from its obligations under the Geneva Conventions; and it all but eliminates access to civilian courts for non-citizens -- including permanent residents whose children are citizens -- that the government, in its nearly unreviewable discretion, determines to be unlawful enemy combatants.

Eleven Danes have been summoned to appear before the Jordanian public prosecutor to answer charges of blasphemy and threatening the national peace. They include the cartoonist who drew one of the Mohammed cartoons and editors from 10 of the 17 newspapers that reprinted them.

The group behind the announcement is called The Prophet Unites Us, a union of Jordanian media organisations, organisations and private individuals.
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Osama al-Bettar, the group's lawyer, said that if the Danes do not appear, the next step will be to inform Interpol and seek their arrest.
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The case is being brought under changes made to the Jordanian Justice Act in 2006.

A top Zimbabwe Army general called on the nation's soldiers to vote for President Robert Mugabe in a runoff or resign from the military, the official state newspaper reported Saturday.

The leader of a rebel faction of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change became the most senior opposition politician to be arrested Sunday when he was held over a written attack on Robert Mugabe.

Arthur Mutambara, who recently pledged to work again with main MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to defeat President Mugabe at a run-off election this month, was picked up at his home in Harare, his party and lawyer said.
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The editor of the country's only independent Sunday paper The Standard was arrested last month over the piece written by Mutambara which accused Mugabe of running down the Zimbabwean economy and his security forces of abuses.

Zimbabwe's government has banned at least one international aid group from operating in the country for allegedly campaigning for the opposition.

All operations of Care International are now suspended, pending an inquiry into the claims. Care denies that it "has encouraged or tolerated any political activity".
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Addressing the UN food summit in Rome, Mr Mugabe said the West, led by the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, Britain, was plotting to effect "illegal regime change" against him.

The mayor of a Greek island has defied the threat of prosecution to carry out the country's first gay "marriages".

Two men and two women were "married" by Tassos Alfieris in the ceremonies on the eastern Aegean island of Tilos.
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Although homosexual practices were widely tolerated in ancient Greece, the modern nation is exceedingly hostile towards gays, he adds. The conservative Greek Orthodox Church has expressed strong objections, and the country's Justice Minister, Sotiris Hatzigakis, said he believed gay marriages were illegal.

Two Spanish men have been arrested in The Gambia accused of making homosexual advances to taxi drivers, police say.

Last month, President Yahya Jammeh[] threatened to behead gay people at a political rally and said they had 24 hours to leave the country.

Mr Jammeh's statements have been condemned by gay rights activists but the AP news agency says it was backed by the country's Supreme Islamic Council, which said the president had taken a "principled stand".

French tour operators fear a "catastrophic" plunge in business after an order was apparently given to Chinese travel agents to stop selling trips to the country.

"The advice to discourage Chinese tourists from visiting France hasn't been officially confirmed, but it is being applied now by the travel agencies," said Pierre Shi, director of the China Travel Service agency.

China will name and shame companies which promise donations for earthquake relief efforts but then fail to live up to their pledges, a government official said on Friday.
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"The Ministry of Civil Affairs came out with clear rules on April 28 concerning companies which offer aid and then delay paying up," deputy head of the ministry's disaster relief office, Pang Chenmin, told a news conference.

"The aid ought to be given to the recipient as promised and in a timely manner. If it needs to be delayed for a day or two, they can coordinate with the relevant department," he added.

"But if it is not given, the recipient has the right to go after payment, and inform the public in an appropriate way," Pang said, without elaborating.

Gay rights activists have condemned Gambian President Yahya Jammeh's threat to behead homosexuals.

Last week he told a political rally that gay people had 24 hours to leave the country.

He promised "stricter laws than Iran" on homosexuality and said he would "cut off the head" of any gay person found in The Gambia.

Correspondents say a number of homosexual men have fled to The Gambia from neighbouring Senegal after a crackdown there following arrests at a "gay wedding" in February.

Both countries are predominantly Muslim and President Jammeh cultivates an image of being a devout Muslim.

John Jessop earned a cult following among his colleagues after his withering comments were leaked in an e-mail which has been sent all round the country.

After being asked to fill in a "design access statement" for a storage shed on a small farm, he wrote: "The density is like on a farm, the social context is a farm in the country, the economic context is farming in the United Kingdom in 2008 (which is not very economic), the opportunities are to store equipment inside rather than the outside, the constraint is the planning system."

And under a section headed Context Analysis, he said: "The use is compatible with a farm because it is a farm building."

"It is located where it is because it is in the most convenient place, being on the farm and near the farmhouse."
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"It can not be lower because nothing could be stored in it. It is not made any higher because that would be silly."

The death toll from Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest in Asia since 1991, rose to nearly 22,500 with an additional 41,000 missing, even as Myanmar's leaders continued to refuse entry to U.S. disaster response teams.
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The disaster's scale has drawn a rare acceptance of outside help from Myanmar's generals, who spurned such approaches in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Nobody in Washington loses sleep over Burma policy. Burma isn't a vital oil supplier like Saudi Arabia, we don't do much trade with Burma as we do with China, and there are no al-Qaida operatives to kill and capture as in Pakistan. Our hard interests in curbing Burma's massive opium production, preventing Burma from becoming a full-fledged Chinese satellite state, and tapping its modest oil and gas reserves are low priorities. Washington is happy to apply economic sanctions on Burma in the name of high-minded principles because those interests are small in comparison to the magnitude of human rights abuses in the country. And, oh yeah, we have other regional headaches, like figuring out what to do with North Korea.

Refusing all international aid, Burma's authorities have not let any international monitors enter its borders, even to assess the damage.
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The [Burmese junta] SPCD has [a] reputation for downplaying disaster, and for keeping stringent control over outbound media.

Condemned by critics for outlawing fax machines, censoring television broadcasts and taking prisoners of conscience, Burma has been called the most information-starved country on earth. One example involved an attack on the convoy of Nobel Peace Laureate and democratic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during her brief release from house arrest in 2003. Eyewitnesses estimated some 60 dead in the ensuing clash, while the SPDC reported only four.
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On August 8, 1988, at the height of three-weeks of carnage, junta soldiers opened fire on thousands of unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Yangon. Reporting some 500 dead ... the massacre of 8-8-88 is believed by ambassadorial staffs that witnessed it to have claimed over 10,000 lives — more, that is, than Tiananmen Square.

The Bishop of Nottingham Malcolm McMahon says his diocese will cut its ties with an adoption agency because it cannot accept the government's new laws on homosexual rights.

Bishop Malcolm McMahon said he and the trustees of the Catholic Children's Society adoption agency felt that they had been forced into the decision by the Sexual Orientation Regulations which bans discrimination against gays in the provision of goods and services. The law would compel the diocese in certain circumstances to place children in the care of same-sex couples.

"We have been coerced into this, I am not happy about it at all," Bishop McMahon said. "The regulations have coerced the children's society into going against the Church's teaching, and we don't wish to do that."

A Vatican directive issued in 2003 said it was morally wrong to place children in the care of same-sex couples.

A top Iranian judiciary official has warned against the "destructive" cultural and social consequences of importing Barbie dolls and other Western toys.

Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi said in an official letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi that the Western toys was a "danger" that needed to be stopped.

Iranian markets have been inundated with smuggled Western toys in recent years partly due to a dramatic rise in purchasing power as a result of huge increase in oil revenues.

In Monday's letter, Najafabadi called for a crackdown on the smuggling of these toys which threatened Iranian culture.

Just over 1 billion people live on $1 a day, the benchmark of absolute poverty; 1.5 billion live on $1 to $2 a day. Bob Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, reckons that food inflation could push at least 100m people into poverty, wiping out all the gains the poorest billion have made during almost a decade of economic growth.

At around 2 p.m. yesterday, a Zimbabwean police unit raided the York Lodge, a Harare hotel being used by several foreign reporters covering the elections. Five journalists were arrested. Three of them were later released, but two are still being held at Harare police headquarters. One of them is New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak.

Their lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said they would be charged ... with working without accreditation in violation of a 2002 press law known as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, under which journalists can be sentenced to up to two years in prison for working without a permit from Media and Information Commission (MIC).

The inner circle of President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe met Friday to decide how to handle the outcome of elections that the opposition contends the president lost.

The options that confront the senior leadership of the ruling party include having the president step down, holding a runoff vote later this month or prolonging their control over the country, regardless of the outcome national elections last Saturday.
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Before the election, Mr. Mugabe repeatedly said he would not allow the opposition to take power, and since then his aides have said that he "is going to fight to the last."

The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle.

Mr. President, I want our fellow citizens to know how much you did to carry on this tradition. By your gracious cooperation in the transition process, you have shown a watching world that we are a united people pledged to maintaining a political system which guarantees individual liberty to a greater degree than any other, and I thank you and your people for all your help in maintaining the continuity which is the bulwark of our Republic.

Chinese activist Hu Jia was jailed Thursday for three-and-a-half years for subversion, his lawyer said as rights groups said the charge is a campaign by China to silence dissent before the Olympics.

The United States and the European Union immediately spoke out in defence of Hu, who became the second Chinese dissident in less than two weeks to be jailed after using the Beijing Olympics to highlight human rights problems in China.

Hu, for many years one of China's highest-profile human rights campaigners, was found guilty at a Beijing court of "incitement to subvert state power" following a one-day trial last month, lawyer Li Fangping said.

Li said the subversion charge had related to the 34-year-old Hu posting articles on the Internet about human rights issues and speaking with foreign reporters.

In wartime, it is for the president alone to decide what methods to use to best prevail against the enemy. (Page 5)

It is easy to learn the average income of a resident of El Salvador or Albania. But there is no systematic source of information on the average income of a Salvadoran or Albanian. In this new working paper, research fellow Michael Clemens and non-resident fellow Lant Pritchett create a new statistic: income per natural — the mean annual income of persons born in a given country, regardless of where that person now resides.

If income per capita has any interpretation as a welfare measure, exclusive focus on the nationally resident population can lead to substantial errors of the income of the natural population for countries where emigration is an important path to greater welfare.
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The bottom line: migration is one of the most important sources of poverty reduction for a large portion of the developing world.

"We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so." Lest anyone think he was talking about prolonged war-fighting rather than maintaining a presence in postwar Iraq, he explained: "That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed." And lest anyone persist in thinking he was talking about war-fighting, he told his questioner: "It's fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world."

The Dalai Lama on Tuesday invited international observers, including Chinese officials, to scour his offices here and investigate whether he had any role in inciting the latest anti-Chinese violence in Tibet. He also threatened to resign as leader of Tibet's government-in-exile in the event of spiraling bloodshed in his homeland.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the recent days of demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. Mr Wen said the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's claim of "cultural genocide" was "nothing but lies".
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"There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," he said.

Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site.

The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.
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Beijing tightened controls on online video with rules that took effect Jan. 30 and limited video-sharing to state-owned companies.