After spending $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since 2003, the U.S. is concerned that Iraqis won’t be able to maintain the facilities once the Americans have left. [Links]

Officials from six countries and the European Union expressed disappointment that Iran had not accepted a deal to export most of its enriched uranium. [Links]

History has proven there are two subjects that will move Egyptians into the streets in riotous numbers, crashing windows, battling each other and defying an army of club-wielding riot police. [Links]

In Rome, the archbishop of Canterbury called for clarity on the future of Catholic-Anglican dialogue. [Links]

With the European Union’s new top jobs going to two low-key bridge-builders, the bloc appears to have set its sights on repairing internal divisions before trying to construct a bigger global role. [Links]

The area of the attack is believed to hold many insurgents who fled from an army offensive elsewhere in the Afghan border region. [Links]

The recent unpopularity of President Asif Ali Zardari and resentment of America follow a familiar script. [Links]

Several children and a police officer were among the victims of the blast on a crowded market. [Links]

In his inaugural address, President Hamid Karzai said that the Afghan Army should assume full control of the country’s security within five years. [Links]

President Obama sent Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Afghanistan to press President Hamid Karzai to deliver “measurable results”in return for civilian aid. [Links]

The military deployed intense rescue efforts to conduct house-to-house searches for people trapped in their homes. [Links]

The Chinese government has held an American oil geologist on suspicion of stealing state secrets for nearly two years, prompting President Obama to raise the issue during his visit to Beijing. [Links]

Authorities appeared to carefully monitor how President Obama’s words were transmitted to China’s public, even in a newspaper known for its press-the-envelope approach. [Links]

Secret scholarships to study in China that were awarded to the offspring of top officials in Namibia have angered the public there. [Links]

The de facto leader, Roberto Micheletti, and the ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, continued their political jockeying ahead of presidential elections on Nov. 29. [Links]

Prior to a climate change meeting scheduled for Copenhagen, industrialized countries, except the United States, are offering targets to curb greenhouse gases. [Links]

A Moscow Patriarchate official called the Rev. Daniil Sysoyev a “talented missionary”whose work among Muslims, including Tatars, might have been the motive for the shooting. [Links]

An aide to the Russian president called Ukraine’s warnings of a possible gas crisis “political blackmail”on Thursday. [Links]

The sentence of a leader of the Sunni Awakening Council set off charges that the Shiite-dominated government was trying to weaken the Sunni movement. [Links]

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) -- A gunman went on a rampage on the Pacific resort island of Saipan on Friday, killing four people and wounding six others before fatally shooting himself, officials said. [Links]

The commander of military forces protecting North America has ordered a review of the costly air defenses intended to prevent another Sept. 11-style terrorism attack. [Links]

Germany has adopted degree programs that will get students out of school and into the job market faster, prompting many to join street protests over the changes. [Links]

The European Union, the United States and other allies have extended their mission as the attacks have increased and spread out. [Links]

A gang in the remote Peruvian jungle has been killing people for their fat, the police said Thursday. [Links]

Militants killed 17 outside a courthouse in Peshawar, the seventh attack in two weeks in the city. [Links]

The clinician showed that three antibiotics could be safely combined to provide a cure, providing the template for later combination therapies for cancer and AIDS. [Links]

Russia’s Constitutional Court extended the country’s moratorium on the death penalty on Thursday, though it stopped short of fully abolishing capital punishment. [Links]

A court in Toulouse acquitted a subsidiary of the French oil giant Total and a former factory manager on Thursday in a 2001 explosion at a chemical plant that killed 31 people and injured more than 2,000. [Links]

The five men were convicted of killing the country’s independence leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in an army revolt 34 years ago. [Links]

A treasure of the Vatican’s collection of religious art, a sixth-century reliquary containing what are revered as fragments of the cross on which Christ was crucified, has been restored. [Links]

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia took a more conciliatory stance toward Ukraine on Thursday in negotiations over the transit of Russian gas through Ukrainian territory. [Links]

The Moldovan Army is issuing garlic and onions to help its soldiers ward off a growing epidemic of swine flu in Eastern Europe. [Links]

A leading British politician faces motor vehicle charges including using a cellphone while driving, prosecutors said Thursday. [Links]

A southeast Texas industrial disposal facility has suspended its plan to import and incinerate up to 20,000 tons of hazardous waste from Mexico, a company official said. [Links]

The Department of Defense has identified 4,354 American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war. [Links]

Emma Sky, a Briton, initially opposed the war but now has a place in Gen. Ray Odierno’s inner circle. [Links]

The country is modernizing rapidly, sometimes too fast, but this spectacular old region endures, evoking rulers with giant mustaches and spectacular forts and palaces. [Links]

The role thrusts Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton into the thick of a critical international problem. [Links]

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has given a university $10 billion, hoping it will draw ideas and students. [Links]

Stephen Crowley of The Times has found that just one frame is not enough to convey the cascading incongruities and harmonies of a presidential tour.  [Links]

Welcome to the Age of Metrics - or to the End of Instinct. [Links]