All Blog Posts from World Watch

Iran has experimented with a nuclear warhead design so advanced, it's still a secret in both the U.S. and Britain, according to a report in Friday's Guardian.

The British newspaper reports that intelligence suggesting the isolated Islamic regime tested components of a "two-point implosion" warhead has been handed over to Iran by the U.N. nuclear watchdog as part of a dossier of matters requiring explanation.

Parts of the International Atomic Energy Agency's dossier has been published in the past, but this is the first claim that Iran has sought such advanced weaponry — a claim nuclear experts called "breathtaking" when asked by the Guardian.

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Finbarr O'Reilly,a Reuters photographer based in Africa, created an audio slideshow for GlobalPost that captures some of challenges facing coalition troops in the worsening Afghan conflict.

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As millions of Muslims begin arriving in Mecca for this year's pilgrimage, Saudi officials face a unique challenge: how to prevent this sacred rite from becoming an inadvertent incubator and global transmitter of swine flu.

The conditions that will arise during the pilgrimage, or hajj, which officially begins in the last week of November, are the exact opposite of what health officials like to see.

An estimated 2.5 million people from up to 160 countries — including perhaps 15,000 from North America — will walk, pray and eat in close proximity to each other for several days. They will touch the same religious objects and sleep in crowded tent cities.

Some, inevitably, will arrive carrying the new virus strain, H1N1.

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The fourth typhoon to lash the Philippines in a month brought pounding rain and winds to the eastern coast early Saturday as it barreled toward Manila along the same path as an earlier storm that has left the capital still partially submerged.

Thousands were evacuated from their homes in the eastern province of Quezon, where Typhoon Mirinae made landfall after midnight, as rains threatened to unleash mudslides.

Reporting from Manila, CBS News' Barnaby Lo says the Philippine government isn't taking chances this time.

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Pakistani officials reacted angrily Thursday night to U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s remarks earlier in the day in which she said, she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Pakistan’s government, including the country’s "military security establishment," knew where al Qaeda leaders were hiding.

Left: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is escorted by Pakistani Rangers at the Iqbal Memorial in Lahore, Pakistan, Oct. 29, 2009. Clinton is on a three-day state visit to Pakistan.

The controversy could overshadow Clinton’s first visit to the country as Secretary of State, especially as her remarks will be seen questioning the sincerity of the influential military, Pakistani officials said.

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This story was filed by CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk at the United Nations.

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The leak of information about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother and his alleged connection to the CIA and tribal drug lords is curious. Leaks always are. But in this case, the release of this sensitive information is troublesome and potentially game-changing in a dangerous war.

Ahmed Wali Karzai admitted to giving the agency information, but has denied receiving any money from the CIA, or being part of the lucrative Afghanistan opium trade – making him, at least in Washington-talk, that much more guilty.

The report itself will change the political and military landscape in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The insurgents will use it as proof of the U.S. meddling at the highest level of the Afghan government. In Pakistan, where the use of drones is already being questioned by the U.N. envoy for extrajudicial killings — and the Pakistani Parliament questions the strings on the $7.5 billion U.S. aid package — the equation of the U.S. government to the CIA is devastating.

So, the obvious, unanswered question is: who leaked the information?

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Updated 2:28 p.m. EDT

The New York Times reported Wednesday that brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been on the CIA payroll for at least eight years, according to American officials.

Ahmed Wali Karzai (at left) is a powerful figure in the southern Kandahar province with reported ties to Afghanistan's opium trade, which is owned and operated largely by the Taliban.

According to the Times' sources, who were not named, Karzai has received "regular payments" from the American foreign spy agency in exchange for his organizing a paramilitary force in Kandahar which operates at the CIA's behest.

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Eight more troops were killed today in Afghanistan, bringing us to 53 dead this month –the highest toll so far in the eight-year-old war. It comes in advance of yet another meeting the president is holding to decide about his Afghan war strategy. He'll meet with the joint chiefs, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, on Friday.

But while many in the blogosphere and the 24-hour media universe – as well as former White House officials – denounce the meetings as dithering, a group of servicemen here in Florida indicated they believe otherwise.

Addressing servicemen and women at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, President Obama said, "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way. I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary." The remark prompted rancorous applause.

I sure didn't see it coming. But I should have. I've heard it enough from friends and contacts in the military and the diplomatic corps: "Let's not rush headlong into this like we did with Iraq. Not again."

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One hundred years ago Sir Ernest Shackleton attempted to reach the South Pole. He and his companions came within 114 miles of the pole, and he was knighted for his extraordinary achievement. A key element in exploring such a frigid climate at that time was a good supply of whisky. According to a GlobalPost story, a few years ago two cases of Charles Mackinlay & Co. whisky were found stashed under floorboards in a hut at Cape Royds on the Antarctic coast where Shackleton staying in 1909. Next year, conservationists expect to retrieve the cases from their icy tomb.

Read the full story at GlobalPost

Islamic militant movement Hamas, and seven other Damascus-based Palestinian factions, slammed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' decree on Saturday for holding Presidential elections next January as "illegal," accusing the United States of being behind the call which would deepen internal rift.

"The decision of holding elections is neither legal nor legislative and consolidates inter division … it is retraction of the deal reached in previous dialogues", a joint statement by the factions read.

"The U.S. and regional parties are behind this decision that serves neither people's interest nor national unity. Adopting individual decisions comes within the US-Zionist vision that aims to liquidate our people's rights," the statement, obtained by our office in Damascus, said.

Abbas, whose term expired earlier this year, has announced that presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on 24 January across the Palestinian territories, including the rival Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

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