GWADAR, Pakistan - Clean-up and damage assessment were under way Wednesday in southern Pakistan, a day after Cyclone Yemyin killed at least 14 people. Dr. Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, director general of the Meteorological Department, said the storm packed 80 mph winds as it went ashore from the Arabian Sea, Pakistan's Daily Times reported. The storm made landfall about 45 miles from Karachi. Various regional officials reported apart from the deaths, some 200 fishermen had been ... [full story]

GAZA -Muslim groups are reportedly threatening Gaza's small Christian community. The danger to the 2,000 Christians in Gaza comes not from Hamas, but from more fanatic groups that want to enforce Muslim law on everyone there, Christian leaders told The Washington Times. "They are small groups that are very militant and want to enforce Shariah law, and want the Christians to abide with it," the Rev. Hanna Massad, pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church, told ... [full story]

First-time home buyers are having an increasingly tough time acquiring their first dream home. Prices continue to slowly increase along with mortgage interest rates, and lenders are more pickier about qualification requirements. However, those young first-timers seem to be more determined than ever to find a way to purchase a home - perhaps even more determined than their parents a generation earlier. To help first-timers during this active summer home buying season, some timely suggestions ... [full story]

"A Mighty Heart" uneasily pops a question beyond (and also below) the timely issues that it mostly raises well: How far should a real-life tragedy become the pedestal for a brand-name movie star?   'A MIGHTY HEART' - 'A Mighty Heart,' starring Angelina Jolie and Daniel Futterman, is based on the real-life kidnapping and murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, and what his wife went though in trying to save him. CNS Photo courtesy of ... [full story]

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said farewell to Parliament Wednesday, ending a decade in office and ushering in Gordon Brown as Labor's new leader. In the House of Commons, Blair praised the bravery of British troops fighting in Iraq and of those who had been killed. Opposition Conservative leader David Cameron paid tribute to Blair as Blair's wife and children watched from the gallery, the BBC reported. Formally, Blair has to submit his ... [full story]

KARA-ULA, Iraq - Christian refugees from some of the most war-torn Baghdad neighborhoods have settled in the Kurdish north of Iraq. Some 70 homes have been erected in Kara-Ula, a village on the Turkish border, to house Christians fleeing the violence and death threats that marked living in the Iraqi capital, The New York Times reported Wednesday. "We saw everything a human can see," said Majida Hamo, a mother of four who moved to the ... [full story]

TORONTO - Canada's point-based immigration is backlogged with more than 800,000 applications, meaning a wait of at least four years for hopeful professionals. While immigration officials deny there is a quota system, the immigration legislation awards more points to the educated, bi- or multi-lingual, and those between 21 and 49 years old, the International Herald Tribune reported Wednesday. However, in the oil-rich province of Alberta, immigration's slow bureaucratic pace has left the oil industry short ... [full story]

BEIJING - China's federal food regulator said widespread use of illegal and toxic ingredients has been found in at least 180 small food processing plants. At a Beijing news conference, Han Yi, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine's quality control division said most of the cases were found at plants that employ fewer than 10 people, the China Daily reported Wednesday. Such additives as mineral oils, formaldehyde, paraffin wax and ... [full story]

DES MOINES, Iowa - A poll released by the presidential campaign of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson showed him gaining support in Iowa, but John Edwards still in the lead. The poll of 500 likely Democratic caucus goers, conducted by Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin and Associates, found the former U.S. senator from North Carolina in the lead with 34 percent, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., at 24 percent, Sen. Barrack Obama, D-Ill., at 17 percent ... [full story]

Ronald Reagan said famously, "The trouble with those on 'the left': if they see something move, they'll tax it, if it keeps moving, they'll regulate it, and if it stops moving, they'll subsidize it." We would add, as longtime "tax cutters," that unfortunately, all too often, that phenomenon is also occurring on "the right." Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Max Baucus, D-Mont., are co-sponsoring a bill to tax private equity firms that go public, as ... [full story]