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This just in: Major League Baseball is rife with steroid abuse.

Asia


JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

Negotiators at the U.N. climate conference Bali are working overtime to nail down wording for a final statement, though there are late-breaking signs that the clash between the EU and the United States over binding emissions targets may be easing.

Business confidence is dropping in Japan.

The pope did not, contrary to expectations, grant an audience to the Dalai Lama during the latter's visit to Italy.

Europe

Inflation in the eurozone climbed to 3.1 percent in November, the highest figure in six years.

British PM Gordon Brown's "scheduling conflict" with the EU Treaty signing ceremony appears to have backfired.

In a leaked proposal slammed as "indecent" by Serbia's foreign minster, the EU hinted that Serbia would be granted quicker accession if only it relented on Kosovo. 

Middle East

The Inspector General for Iraq is being inspected by the FBI for wasteful spending and unauthorized monitoring of e-mail. Payback time?

Referring to Republicans and Iraq, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "They like this war. They want this war to continue."

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is going back to school.

Lebanese military officers called for unity at the funeral for a top general who was assassinated by a car bomb earlier this week.

Elsewhere

Zimbabwe's ruling party chose... drumroll... Robert Mugabe as its candidate for the upcoming presidential election in March.

"Around 4,500 foreign terrorists" have flocked to Somalia, according to a Somali government official.

A federal jury in Miami convicted zero of seven defendants who were accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to outlaw waterboarding, a tactic that the CIA says it has already abandoned. The White House has nonetheless threatened a veto.

Today's Agenda

  • Pakistan is poised to lift its state of emergency tomorrow, but critics have their doubts.
  • U.S. President George W. Bush welcomes Peru's Alan Garcia to the White House.

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