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Afghanistan’s internal insecurity, border tensions, and the potentially Pakistani-backed US military factor are combining to create yet another storm in the New Cold War that threatens to destabilize the region. Russia’s ongoing special military operation in Ukraine and the US-led West’s unprecedented response to it have distracted the international community from Afghanistan, which is once again becoming an issue of regional concern. The foreign occupiers’ chaotic evacuation from that country last August and the Taliban’s return to power in the aftermath haven’t stabilized the situation all that much. The group is still designated as terrorists by most of the world...

LA CROSSE, Wis (Reuters) - A day after Wisconsin held the largest round of recall elections in U.S. history, analysts parsing the bruising, expensive and inconclusive battles have a gloomy prediction for the rest of the country. Get used to it, the 2012 national election will be nasty. Politics, said Mordecai Lee, a governmental affairs professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, is now "a battle of inches, it is a battle that never ends, it is a battle to the death." Wisconsin's recalls, and the fight earlier this year over the union rights of public-sector workers that triggered them, have...

It has been determined that Hillary Clintons name will be placed in nomination at the democrat convention in Denver in just 2 weeks. Bill will give a speech Monday and Hillary will speak on Tuesday. A roll-call of delegates will take place along with the glorious speeches putting into nomination the great Senator from New Yort, the senator who fought the good fight, and the senator who promises to continue to fight the good fight. The senator fought the DNC to recognize the voters of Florida and Michigan, and though Mr.Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan he recieved...

Cure for killer bug - but there's a catch KATE FOSTER IN THE annals of medical history, this could go down as one of the most effective but stomach-churning treatments ever devised. Scientists seeking a cure for a deadly superbug have successfully treated patients using human faeces. Trials in a Scottish hospital have shown patients suffering from the Clostridium difficile bug can be cured using 'donor stool' administered via a tube through the nose into their stomach. Clostridium difficile was last week at the heart of a damning report into cleaning failures at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust...

Are you a slob? Forgive the question, but if the results of a new survey are any indication, your job could suffer if you answered 'yes'. Research conducted by giant business chain Office Depot indicates many of us lose time at our jobs searching for important work related items like papers, files or appointments. The poll suggests as many 34 percent of all employees have such messy desks and drawers that they waste up to 15 minutes a day or two hours a week hunting for that vital item that got buried in the clutter. And the majority who live...

Robert George Schulze showed up in Dakota County District Court on Tuesday to explain why, two years after he was cited by the city of South St. Paul, piles of wood still litter his back yard. Instead, Schulze, 88, was booked and placed in the county jail, where he is being held without bail for 30 days — or until he cleans up the clutter. "He's never been in prison before," said his wife, Mary, 84, standing in the offending back yard. "It will either kill him, or he's going to make a big story out of it later. I...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

If someone was performing a top-to-bottom "performance review" of state government with the declared goal of making it more efficient, effective and accountable, a critical examination of its system of levying and collecting taxes would be, one would think, a cornerstone task. What is, after all, more fundamental to the relationship of government to the governed than taxation? And California's system of state and local taxation, which collects roughly $100 billion a year, is particularly worrisome. It has evolved over decades and has become a monument to arbitrary, often nonsensical, policy-making - the disparate sales-tax treatment of hot and cold...