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| • Run on Afghan bank's deposits reported |
 The Afghan president's brother — a major investor in the Kabul Bank — confirms to NBC News that funds were used to buy villas in Dubai but urges the U.S. to step in to prevent a financial panic.
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| • Israel and Palestinians in direct talks |
| Israeli and Palestinian leaders opened direct peace talks under U.S. auspices on Thursday and agreed to meet every two weeks to try to forge a deal within a year. |
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| • Newsweek: Why Mideast peace talks should be secret |
| By making a spectacle of negotiations, leaders have made Israelis and Palestinians less likely to agree. They should have conducted back-channel, off-the-record talks. |
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| • Newsweek: How Obama could broker Mideast peace |
| The biggest sign that success could be coming is the real risk of violence flaring up should the talks fail. These kinds of negotiations tend to come in waves, and with each successive collapse, the distrust grows and several more years pass. |
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| • Army: Chaplain is 1st killed in action since '70 |
| The first Army chaplain to be killed in action since Vietnam, died this week in Afghanistan, military officials said Thursday. |
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| • Nazi-hunter worked for Mossad, biography says |
 Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, who became famous for spending years tracking down Nazi war criminals, was working for Israel's spy agency Mossad, according to a new biography.
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| • Report: Aide to U.K. PM linked to royal phone taps |
| Britain's government came under pressure Thursday amid allegations that a top prime ministerial aide was involved with a newspaper investigation into the royal family that involved illegally tapping cell phones. |
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| • Dutch mother held, suspected of killing three babies |
| Dutch authorities have found two babies' bodies in the garden of a women arrested last week for killing another child, the prosecution service said on Thursday. |
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| • Sick whale euthanized with explosives in Australia |
| A terminally sick humpback whale that became stranded on a beach in Western Australia two weeks ago was euthanized Thursday with an explosive charge. |
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| • Scotland announces minimum price for alcohol |
 LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Scotland's government announced on Thursday that its planned minimum price for alcohol would be set at 45 pence per unit, meaning a bottle of wine would cost at least 4.23 pounds ($6.52) and a bottle of whisky 12.60 pounds.
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| • Key Australian lawmaker backs Labor to govern |
 Prime Minister Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power in Australia on Thursday when an independent lawmaker said he would support her center-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.
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| • For Mexico's president, cartels aren't only concern |
 Mexican President Felipe Calderon will deliver a major speech Thursday, and ahead of that he released video clips touting his priorities — yet none refer to his war on drug cartels.
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| • Dutch release Yemeni men held in terror probe |
 Two Yemeni men arrested on suspicion they may have been involved in an airline terrorism plot are released without charge when no evidence was found, Dutch prosecutors say.
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| • Newsweek: Why combat will continue in Iraq |
| There is a real risk that President Obama’s claim in his Oval Office address that “the American combat mission has ended” in Iraq may come to rank with President Bush’s ill-judged boast of “mission accomplished” back in May 2003. |
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| • Three bombs kill 25 at Pakistan Shiite march |
 Three bombs ripped through a Shiite Muslim religious procession in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing 25 people and wounding about 150 others, officials said.
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| • Australian school drops 'gay' from classic song |
| An Australian school principal has asked students to stop using the word "gay" when singing a classic children's song, but said Thursday no offense was intended — he was simply trying to keep the kids from laughing. |
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| • French debate: First it was burqas, now burgers |
 The bacon is gone from the bacon burgers, replaced by smoked turkey. At a fast food restaurant outside Paris, a new certificate on the wall proclaims that its beef comes from cows slaughtered in line with Islamic law.
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| • Pakistan Taliban leader charged in CIA bombing |
| U.S. officials have charged the leader of Pakistan's Taliban with planning attacks against American forces in Afghanistan, including last year's suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees. |
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| • N.Y. imam: Mosque fight about Muslim role |
 The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York said the fight is over more than "a piece of real estate" and could shape the future of Muslim relations in America.
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| • Official: Captured Mexican drug lord knows key info |
 A former Texas high school football player and petty street dealer who allegedly rose to become one of Mexico's most savage assassins says he personally knew the country's top drug lords.
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| Updated: 23 minutes ago |
