TV News LIES

A month after seven former Union Carbide employees were given two-year jail terms for their role in the deadly gas leak in Bhopal a quarter-century ago, a senior Indian official met with survivors' groups Friday with a new plan to clean up the abandoned factory site.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told survivors in the central Indian city that he will head a panel set up to monitor the government's effort to decontaminate the site, which activists say has polluted the groundwater in the neighborhood and led to chronic ailments.

Some 300 left-wing activists clashed with police on Friday during the weekly protest at the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Ten activists were detained and held for questioning over blocking roadways and failing to comply with police instructions.

Every weekend, Israeli protesters demonstrate alongside the Arab locals against settler activity in the Arab neighborhood. The demonstrators decry the settlers' takeover of several homes in the area.

Several little-known provisions of the new health care overhaul law take effect in coming months that could have a lasting impact on the nation's health care system.

They include eliminating co-payments for certain preventive services such as mammograms, giving the government more power to review health insurers' premium increases and allowing states to expand Medicaid coverage to low-income adults without children.

Here's a quick look at some of the changes that are occurring this year:

Frustrated with limited data on the BP oil gusher, a group of independent scientists has proposed a large experiment that would give a clearer understanding of where the oil and gas are going and where they'll do the most damage.

The scientists say their mission must be undertaken immediately, before BP kills the runaway well. They propose using what's probably the world's worst oil accident to learn how crude oil and natural gas move through water when they're released at high volumes from the deep sea.

At least 50 people have been killed in a suicide bombing in a Pakistani tribal village on the border with Afghanistan, officials said. At least 100 people were wounded in the explosion in Yakaghund village in the Mohmand tribal region.

The bomber came on a motorbike and blew himself up near the gate of the local administrator's office, witnesses said. Mohmand is part of Pakistan's tribal regions where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have a strong presence.

Researchers associated with the Rand Corp.'s Drug Policy Research Center said Wednesday that not much is certain about the potential impact of Proposition 19 except that the price of California's choicest weed could plunge more than 80%, down from $300 to $450 per ounce to about $38.

In the past year, discriminatory legislation institutionalized inequality, political delegitimization, and incitement against them. Also, their needs and rights have gone unaddressed, including violent racist incidents, at times involving killings.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that the United States must make its position on Israel's nuclear strategy clear before talks on Tehran's atomic programme could resume. Sanctions imposed by "arrogant" Western powers would not slow Iran's nuclear progress, he said.

The United States, Europe and the United Nations have imposed sanctions on Iran over its disputed nuclear programme. Iran says its aim is to generate electricity and rejects Western suspicions it is seeking to build a nuclear bomb.