In early February, Iran touted its newest-generation nuclear centrifuges and increased capacity for producing higher-grade uranium (Agence France Presse, February 15, 2012).  Now, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency has released its latest report citing Iran for obstructing its investigative work and stating that Iran had not answered questions about possible military aspects of its nuclear programs.  However, Iran’s envoy to the agency insists that Iran desires to “keep talking” to the IAEA (BBC, February 24, 2012).

Due to the overuse of antibiotics, bacteria are growing more resilient and more deadly.  According to an article in The Independent, “Britain is facing a ‘massive’ rise in antibiotic-resistant blood poisoning caused by the bacterium E.coli—bringing closer the spectre of diseases that are impossible to treat.  Experts say the growth of antibiotic resistance now poses as great a threat to global health as the emergence of new diseases such as AIDS and pandemic flu.”

What started out as a joking comment has now become a very real possibility.  In order to manage its growing national debt, Britain’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) is looking to sell its vast military vehicle storage facility at Ashchurch.  The facility houses more than 6,000 defense-ready vehicles, including hundreds of high-tech tanks.

Newsweek magazine recently reported that “Terrorist attacks on Christians in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia increased 309% from 2003 to 2010.”   The article described how Christians in the Middle East are being attacked and suffering for their religious views.  The author’s rhetoric is more alarming than one would expect from the mainstream press.  “Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion.  It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm… [it is] the conspiracy of silence...

Tuesday night, a fire burned an overcrowded prison outside the capital, Tegucigalpa. The 900-bed prison was operating at nearly double capacity. The cause of the fire is unclear; however, one possible source is an inmate who set himself on fire intending to kill everyone.  On Wednesday, 357 prisoners were missing and over 250 were dead, with many others believed to have escaped into the countryside.