Anytime a bunch of politicians go on television to eat cucumbers, you know something is up. On Monday, there was Clara Aguilera, agriculture councilwoman for the region of Andalucia, pointedly biting into a whole cuke. A day later it was the turn of Mariano Rajoy, head of Spain's opposition Popular Party, and Esperanza Aguirre, president of the regional government of Madrid to do the same with a mercifully sliced version. These days, the local media is full ...

Residents of Yemen's capital Sana'a awoke on Tuesday to a dawn chorus of bird song and machine-gun fire. An uneasy truce between rebel tribesmen and loyalist troops had prevailed over the weekend. But now the two sides were back at it, launching shells at each other as windows rattled across the city and plumes of dark smoke rose into the crystal blue sky. Despite four months of mass protests and defections from within his army, party and tribe, ...

Every morning at 8, Maulawi Zahir heads into Waygal district center, a remote mountain village of stone houses stacked almost vertically up granite slopes. As the undeniable man in charge of the Afghan village, the Taliban leader is there to hear and settle disputes. But despite his group's ascendancy, he struggles to burnish his credentials among his constituents, even in an area where loathing for NATO and the Afghan government runs deep. "People aren't happy, but they ...

It has become one of the most controversial questions in cancer medicine: Can using a cell phone cause brain tumors? The federal government and the mobile-phone industry have maintained that there is no conclusive data to support a link between cell-phone radiation and cancer, but a growing band of scientists are skeptical, suggesting that the evidence that does exist is enough to raise a warning for consumers — before mass harm is done. What scientists and regulators ...

The fate of the U.S. is going to be decided over the next year. O.K., I know that's overly dramatic, but here's why I say it. The deficit-reduction commission co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson has put the long-term fiscal health of the country front and center on the national stage. If we're lucky, we'll have a serious debate about it. We could decide that we are willing to undertake real reforms and fix the problem. Or we could once again kick ...

Is the federal government reading your email? That may sound outrageous, but it may well be perfectly legal. The Constitution protects your home, your car, and your body from unreasonable searches. But the courts have been much less clear about whether it protects your Gmail or Yahoo Mail account. So while the courts continue to deliberate, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont is now trying to give email new protections by upgrading the main federal Internet ...

Should America be afraid of China? America needs to understand China, but it need not be afraid of China. Why not? China and the U.S. are afraid of certain tendencies in each other. China is afraid of America militarily surrounding it. America is afraid that China wants to dominate Asia and in effect push us out. I think we should find common projects on which we can work together, that create a sense of cooperation and community, so that the issue of ...

This fall, young girls in China's southern Guangdong province will be learning a new subject in school: how to avoid becoming a mistress. Although Chairman Mao kept a stable of women at his disposal, extramarital peccadilloes were frowned upon during China's more fervent socialist years. But as economic reforms have helped Guangdong become one of the nation's wealthiest regions, the province has been beset by a flood of ernai, literally, "second breast," as mistresses are commonly known ...

The capital of Syria has the illusion of calm. But do not trust appearances. In fact, trust is a very precious commodity in Damascus nowadays. The city, according to residents, is swarming with secret police. Nobody dares speak out against the government. In central districts of the capital, the number of street peddlers seem to have quadrupled. The scuttlebutt is that the extra sales force are being employed by the government to spy on and even beat ...

Society At A Glance 2009 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development 132 pages The Gist: If you're looking for another reason to hate on France, you might check out the latest report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. According to the Paris-based group, the French spend twice as much time enjoying meals each day than most Americans, and get nearly an hour's more sleep each night than most Japanese . The study, which is based on government ...