Shorter Question Everything

Harvard: Sodium Azide
Harvard University says six researchers who became sick in August apparently were poisoned. The Boston Herald says a memo released Friday says the group drank from a coffee machine on Aug. 26 that later tested positive for sodium azide, a common preservative used in labs. A leading toxicologist believes the chances are slim that six lab workers at Harvard University Medical School were poisoned by accident. “An accident? Sodium azide is a poison,” said David M. Benjamin, a toxicologist and Chestnut Hill-based clinical pharmacologist. “Absolutely not.”

Honduras
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya and de facto Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti reached an agreement late Thursday to resolve a months-long standoff over who should lead the country and appears to open the door for Zelaya to return to power. The key to the deal, Clinton said, was Micheletti’s agreement that Zelaya, who was forced from office in June, would be reinstated before the elections that are scheduled for Nov 29. It remained unclear whether Zelaya would exercise full presidential powers under the agreement

Propaganda Alert: Pakistan
Pakistani soldiers battling their way into a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border have seized passports that may be linked to 9/11 suspects, as they confront an enemy skilled in operating in a mountainous terrain with endless ways to wage a guerrilla war. It was impossible to determine whether the passports are genuine, and German and Spanish officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. has maintained for years that South Waziristan and other parts of the rugged frontier have sheltered Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants. [And so this present is granted, just as the Clinton visits and there's millions in US aid on the table. Convenient]

Bosnia
The prime minister of Bosnia’s Serb half said on Friday he would pull out of talks on constitutional reform led by the United States and European Union set to speed up Bosnia’s path to EU and NATO membership. Milorad Dodik was the first among Bosnia’s Serb, Muslim and Croat leaders to reject a EU-U.S.-proposed constitutional reform package this month, calling it “unconstitutional and biased against Serbs.”

Juniper Cobra: US and Israel
Israel and the United States have launched a three-week joint air defense exercise, code-named Juniper Cobra 10, in the port city of Haifa. The military exercises which are described as the largest ever by the two allies are conducted under a media blackout in the West.

Canada
In his first public speech, the new director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service chastised those critical of Canada’s efforts to fight terrorism. “Many of our opinion leaders have come to see the fight against terrorism not as defending democracy and our values, but as attacking them,” Richard Fadden told an Ottawa conference of security and intelligence experts Thursday.

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