Iran's President ordered his nuclear chief Sunday to start producing higher-grade fuel, raising the stakes in a dispute with the West days after claiming to have accepted a UN-drafted deal. Mr Ahmadinejad appeared to accept the deal last Tuesday. However, a draft of the agreement seen by British MPs showed Iran still refusing to accept UN conditions, and yesterday Mr Ahmadinejad told Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation to start producing higher-grade reactor fuel.

Read More in: Weapons Proliferation

Three-in-one-month legal developments in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee add fuel to the fiery rhetoric from all sides about when the Bible should come through the schoolhouse door. To get beyond the fight, schools need to protect the right of students to bring their Scriptures to school and share their faith with others (as long as they aren't disruptive) while making sure that educators teach about the Bible in literature and history in ways that are academically and constitutionally sound.

Read More in: The Decline of the U.S.

There is hope in Israel that talks with the Palestinians may resume "within the coming weeks." "I have a basis to hope that in the coming weeks we will renew the peace process with the Palestinians without preconditions," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a conference in Herzliya on Wednesday.

Read More in: The Struggle for Jerusalem

Iran announced Wednesday it has successfully launched a research rocket carrying a mouse, two turtles and worms into space - a feat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said showed Iran could defeat the West in the battle of technology. Ahmadinejad also unveiled the model of a light booster rocket that is being built and three new, Iranian-built satellites, touted as the latest in the country's ambitious space program.

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"Russia's president has taken the initiative to permanently assign orthodox priest army units, and they're also wanting to introduce religious education classes at state schools." The more power the Orthodox Church gains, the more risk there will be to the religious freedoms of all minority religions, no less evangelical Christianity. A sizeable evangelical movement would well be viewed as an encroachment on Orthodox territory, and would consequently not be taken lightly.

Read More in: Global Religion

China has arrested three more people for dealing in milk and milk powder tainted with melamine, a compound used in plastics and fertiliser that caused a massive food safety scandal last year, the Xinhua news agency said. The tainted milk powder dates to mid-2008 but was sold to dairy firms and food companies in late 2009, indicating that significant stocks of melamine-laced powder may remain in circulation in China despite a September 2008 crackdown after at least six babies died from ingesting the chemical.

Read More in: Biotech & Global Pestilence

A dozen businesses have sprung up to help denizens of the digital world grapple with the thorny issues raised after your physical being leaves behind only its virtual reality. Internet experts and estate planners say a cybercrisis is brewing because popular Internet services have policies that, barring an order from a court, forbid accessing or transferring accounts -- including recovering money -- unless someone has the password.

Russia and the United States have agreed to resume talks on a new strategic arms reduction treaty. US President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed last year to reduce the nuclear warhead stockpile to between 1,500 and 1,675 for each country. A higher level of the negotiators shows that the sides have made progress toward signing a new START treaty, which was at the top of their agenda last year. The new treaty is to replace the 1991 agreement, which expired on December 5, 2009.

Read More in: The Magog Invasion

Advances in ultrasound imaging and abortion procedures have forced providers ever closer to the nub of their work. This intimacy exacts an emotional toll, stirring sentiments for which doctors, nurses, and aides are sometimes unprepared. Most apparently have managed to reconcile their belief in the right to abortion with their revulsion at dying and dead fetuses, but a noteworthy number have found the conflict unbearable and have defected to the pro-life cause.

Read More in: The Decline of the U.S.

Egyptian Maher El-Gowhary and his 15 year old daughter Dina never pray twice at the same church, never stay longer than a month in any one apartment. They are constantly under threat, always on the run because they converted to Christianity in a largely Muslim country.

Read More in: Global Religion

The UN climate report that contains an erroneous claim on the rate of glacier retreat also includes references to studies not originating from peer-reviewed scientific literature, some of them linked to environmental activists. A review of references listed in the four-volume 2007 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows that it includes reports linked to various green groups, including WWF and Greenpeace.

Read More in: Global Government

A Wixom arms manufacturer has been selling the United States military high-tech gunsights headed for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan inscribed with coded references to Bible verses. Trijicon Inc.'s combat optical gunsights are shipped with codes that make references to the Gospels of John and Matthew and the Book of Revelations. Although the military prohibits proselytizing in the combat zones of the Middle East, a spokesman for the Air Force said the inscriptions do not violate that prohibition.