Scientists from the US space agency Nasa advise the trapped Chilean miners to exercise and regulate their day and night sleep patterns.

More than 100 demonstrations are planned across France to protest against the government's policy of deporting Roma people.

Violence in Afghanistan will get worse before it gets better, the UK's most senior military commander in the country tells the BBC.

Police question the three Pakistan players accused of corruption, while the ICC says that trio implicated have a disciplinary case to answer.

HM Revenue and Customs says some 1.4 million people each owe about £1,500 in tax, while 4.3 million will get an average rebate of £418.

Nine people, including four foreigners, are killed when a light aircraft crashes after taking off from Fox Glacier in New Zealand, say reports.

BP replaces the blowout preventer that failed to stem the leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well and says it has paid $8bn (£5.2bn) in damage costs.

Israeli and Palestinian talks seen from the inside

Powerful earthquake damages New Zealand city of Christchurch

At Asia Times, Melody Kemp writes, New case for US reparations in Laos:

Laos carries the tragic distinction of being the most heavily bombed country in the history of modern warfare. Thirty-five years after the United States wound up its so-called "secret war" against communist guerillas, the impact of its unexploded ordnance (UXO) continues to take a heavy human and economic toll.

A new report published jointly by UXO Lao and the Lao National Regulatory Authority (NRA) has shed more light on the damage caused by the US's UXOs. The research surveyed 94% of Lao households and concluded that an estimated 20,000 people had died from UXOs since the conflict ended after the communist takeover in 1975.

Maligna Saignavongs, the retired head of the NRA and the country's chief negotiator for the Convention on Cluster Munitions, estimates that figure could be even higher. "In the remote areas, many people simply bleed out and die, their bodies eaten by animals. Their families may not know they died from UXO." ...

"The US State Department is keen to let people know that they have provided more assistance for UXO clearance than anyone else," said Mike Boddington, founder of the Vientiane-based, British-run Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise, or COPE.

COPE's research shows that the US government, corporations and private foundations have given over $39.5 million for UXO clean-up since 1993 - a trifling sum compared with the billions it has allocated for its new generation of wars. A US Senate committee recently recommended committing $7 million for UXO clearance in Laos in 2011 and $3.5 for similar activities in Vietnam. The US Congress allocated about $5 million and the US State Department $1.9 million for UXO clearance in Laos this year. ...

During the conflict, the largest numbers of bombing-related fatalities came among soldiers. Nowadays, it's farmers, fisherfolk, foresters and women and children foraging for food in UXO-contaminated areas. That is, those being killed now by what is known to be US ordnance are civilians merely trying to make a living. Many of those killed and injured, such as the five children killed in southern Champassak province in February this year, were not even alive during the war.

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2006:

The sordid story of ... George Allen's activist racism has grown this week to include an article in The Nation featuring a 1996 photograph of Allen posing with the leadership of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC).

The ADL and the SPLC both have extensive posts warning the public that the CCC is a white supremacist hate group.  But in today's world, it is much more revealing to find instances where loud and proud White Supremacists actually mention and praise the same CCC standing like nervous prom dates posing in the photo with Governor George Allen.  So, I decided to try some basic Google searches to see what I could find.

The results took me back to my old friends at Stormfront and to some new friends at KKK.com.