All Blog Posts from World Watch

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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Hundreds of hardcore Arab fighters loyal to al Qaeda have fled the Afghanistan-Pakistan region this year, heading mainly to Yemen to bolster an Islamist insurgency targeting oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to Arab, Pakistani and Western officials who spoke to CBS News.

The implications of such a buildup in Yemen are profound not only for the stability of Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of Islam and home to the holiest of Islamic shrines — but for the world's dependence upon a continued flow of petroleum from the largest known oil reserves.

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"The past year has been a different year," said President Felipe Calderón during his third state of the nation address Wednesday.

Different must be a euphemism for horrible. This was bound to be a difficult year to summarize for Mexico’s beleaguered President. In the past year he has been battered with several challenges: the world economic recession, the influenza outbreak, diminishing oil resources, the worst drought the country has seen in years, escalating drug violence, topped by the world’s belief that Mexico is ungovernable.

Surrounded by heavy security, Calderon delivered the annual address at the Palacio Nacional, rather than risk the jeering of an aggressive opposition at Congress, where the address was traditionally held. Calderon´s past addresses became almost undeliverable because of the heckling from opposition lawmakers after the disputed 2006 election.

In contrast, Wednesday´s beautifully choreographed address was all smiles and applause, far away from the heckles of opposition congressmen. His "informe" as the annual round-up of government activities is called, marked the crucial midway point in the conservative, pro-U.S. president’s six-year term. Calderon was eager to point out that despite the year’s "historic challenges," Mexico has been able to step up to the plate.

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Protesters against the recent Iranian election are calling for marches tomorrow, the 10th anniversary of a bloody confrontation in which thousands of students, protesting the regime's shutdown of a popular reformist newspaper, were attacked, beaten and arrested.

The clashes began on 18 Tir (July 9) in 1999 when government security stormed a university dormitory. Several students were reportedly killed; scores more were beaten and hospitalized.

In the days following as many as 10,000 students marched in protest of the crackdown (left), with skirmishes between protestors and conservative factions erupting in Tehran and other cities. At least 1,000 students were reportedly arrested in what was up to then the largest demonstration of unrest since the 1979 Revolution.

To mark the 10th anniversary, the Web site yekiran.com lists rallies scheduled to be held on Thursday in 30 Iranian cities.

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Hoping to revive the cooperative spirit of the early 1990s, Americans are coming to Russia to end a decade of mistrust.

President Barack Obama is expected in Moscow next week to discuss a wide range of issues with his counterpart Dmitry Medvedev and personally press the "reset" button on U.S.-Russia relations.

Hopes for a breakthrough are running high. Both sides have been unhappy about how low relations sank during the Putin-Bush era. Now, the two young presidents need to prove that cooperation on global issues is more than just words.

"Russia could be a partner, a country that would collaborate and make for better prospects for Obama's policies in both places, in Afghanistan and Iran," Dmitry Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Center told CBS News. "Again, there is nothing more serious, nothing more important at this point for the administration than this."

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Jennifer is a Filipino domestic helper who experienced sexual harrassment and physical abuse while working in Hong Kong. Still, she hoped for more work outwide her country, and signed up at a Manila employment agency. Little did she know that she was to go through a similar ordeal, this time being forced to live as a prisoner in her own country.

A handful of fellow prospective overseas workers escaped a 6-story building in which they were held captive by Al-Alamia International Manpower Services, where police investigators discovered 500 other women trapped inside, living as slaves. Incredulously, many of the women refused to be rescued, afraid that leaving the facility would hurt their chances of acquiring work overseas.

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Numerous former detainees at the U.S. military facility at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, held without charge during the period of 2002-2008, claim that they were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs and firearms, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported Wednesday.

In its investigation, broadcast and also published on the BBC News Web site, 27 former inmates of Bagram were interviewed over a period of two months. The men had been accused of belonging to or helping either al Qaeda or the Taliban, but were never charged or tried, and all were eventually released — many with an apology.

"They did things that you would not do against animals, let alone to humans," said one former inmate known as Dr. Khandan.

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The Iranian government has done an effective job of putting a veil over what is happening on the streets of Tehran. Yet, tech-savvy Iranians are finding ways to bypass the shutdown of cell phones and the Internet, passing Tweets, photos and videos to the outside world.

Because of restrictions placed on the media by Iranian authorities, radio and television outlets and Web sites searching for the latest news are sifting through tens of thousands of fragments — text messages, photos, videos and phone calls — that show up on Twitter, FriendFeed, YouTube, Facebook and other sites, trying to piece together a picture of what is happening on the ground in Iran.

The few foreign correspondents left in Tehran are confined to their hotel rooms and watched over by Iranian government officials. Without eyewitness reporting from journalists, nearly every fragment of information carries the caveat, "We can't confirm the authenticity of anything we are showing."

It remains unclear just how many people were in the streets of Tehran and other cities, or how many protesters were killed or injured. But despite the fragmentary nature of the information, a basic picture emerges.

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For the fourth day in a row, a river of protestors streamed through the streets of Tehran.

"The only thing we want now is to have a new election," a protestor told CBS News by phone.

Tens of thousands of people marching silently, morning those killed at the start of the week.

State television is now saying eight people died in violent clashes, and unconfirmed reports say some of them were students at the University of Tehran.

Today, Mir Hossein Mousavi made a personal appearance, thrilling the vast crowd.

Organizers say they are inspired by the ideals and solidarity of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, a mass protest movement which overthrew the government. Now, 30 years later, no one wants to a return to chaos and bloodshed, but that hasn't stopped authorities from embarking on a wave of arrests.

Click below to watch all of CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer's report from Iran.