Evening Edition

At the opposite end of the scale, the populations of Sierra Leone, Haiti and Zimbabwe would fall by more than half if migrants were allowed to leave at will, the poll found.

Gallup researchers interviewed nearly 350,000 adults in 148 countries between 2007 and 2010 to calculate each country’s potential net migration score — the number of adults who would like to leave a country minus the number who would like to move in — seen as a proportion of the total adult population.

Torrential monsoon rains unleashed the worst floods for 80 years, affecting 20 million people and an area the size of England in Pakistan’s worst natural disaster that has already created economic, political and humanitarian chaos.

The floods have left nearly 1,500 people dead in the nuclear-armed country of 167 million — a top US foreign policy priority on the frontline of the US-led war on Al-Qaeda and locked in battles with homegrown Taliban.

Ban told a UN emergency fundraising session in New York on Thursday that the world had a duty to act while millions are still without shelter and a fifth of the country — roughly the size of England — submerged by flood waters.

“It is one of the greatest tests of global solidarity,” Ban told the General Assembly meeting, saying that Pakistan was facing a “slow-motion tsunami.”

Viktor Bout, said to have inspired the Hollywood film “Lord of War” starring Nicolas Cage, has been fighting extradition since his March 2008 arrest in a Bangkok sting operation by US agents posing as Colombian rebels.

He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted in the United States on charges including conspiracy to kill US nationals and to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organisation.

The land that turns out grand cru wine is hardly the usual setting for giant construction cranes. Yet top world architects, from Christian de Portzampac to Jean Nouvel, are redesigning some of the world’s most hallowed cellars in the region.

At Chateau Cheval Blanc, Pritzker prize-winner de Portzampac has installed a pair of tall cranes to add seashell-like sculptures and “green” roofing and walling to the estate’s previously unexceptional 19th-century buildings.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi was thought to have only three months to live because of terminal prostate cancer when he was released on compassionate grounds and returned to his homeland Libya to a hero’s welcome.

But he has defied his prognosis, to the dismay of mainly American relatives of the 270 people who died when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, four days before Christmas in 1988.

The European Union’s decision to ban such imports has angered Canada and prompted a legal challenge by Inuit groups from Canada and Greenland.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, was caught by surprise on Thursday when an Inuit organisation made public a decision by the European General Court to temporarily freeze the ban.

U.N. and Haitian police guarded the provisional electoral council headquarters in Port-au-Prince to prevent any trouble as feverish expectations mounted over which of the 34 original contenders would be on the confirmed list for the November 28 presidential election.

Late on Thursday, a council member, who asked not to be named, told Reuters that locally popular 40-year-old singer-songwriter and international celebrity Jean was not on the list because he failed to satisfy several legal requirements.

Potash is already soliciting bidders willing to pay more than BHP’s offer of $130 a share, a source close to the matter said, prompting speculation that China, one of the world’s biggest potash importers, may join the fray.

The source said Potash Corp was confident that it could attract a competing bid, given the expectation for rising demand for potash, an important crop nutrient.

Islamist charities have moved swiftly to fill the vacuum left by a government overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster and struggling to reach millions of people in dire need of shelter, food and drinking water.

It would not be the first time the government has announced restrictions against charities tied to militant groups, but critics say banned organizations often re-emerge with new names and authorities are not serious about stopping them.

“I’d take it one step further. I’d say that it’s far, far worse today than it was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,” said Reza Aslan, a writer and scholar on religion, using the shorthand for the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Public opinion polls show more than 60 percent of Americans oppose building the proposed Muslim cultural center and mosque two blocks from the site known as “Ground Zero.”

At a meeting of the Democratic National Committee, Biden said voters would begin to focus on the election in the next few weeks and would not like the rehash of failed Bush administration policies pushed by Republicans.

“They are going to look at what the Republican Party is really offering — more of the past, but on steroids,” Biden said, adding Republicans had been shoved to the right by conservative “Tea Party” candidates.

Nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” and the inspiration for Hollywood movie “Lord of War” starring Nicholas Cage, the 43-year-old Bout faces U.S. accusations of trafficking arms since the 1990s to dictators and conflict zones in Africa, South America and the Middle East.

The verdict was a victory for the Obama administration which summoned the Thai ambassador in Washington this week to express concern Bout could be freed.

The vote looks so close, the result may have nothing to do with policy but simply come down to which leader, Prime Minister Julia Gillard or the opposition’s Tony Abbott, voters like best.

The uncertainty helped pressure the Australian dollar on Friday. The Aussie was quoted at $0.8910 by late afternoon, down 0.85 percent from late on Thursday, while the benchmark stock index fell 1 percent.

Libya feted the return home of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, touting it as a victory for Libyan negotiating skills although the official reason for his release was compassionate grounds — prostate cancer, believed at the time to be terminal.

But Megrahi remains alive today, prompting U.S. questions about the medical advice that led to his release, and calls from Britain on Libya to eschew any festivities on the first anniversary of the release that would be regarded as offensive to the families of Lockerbie victims, who were mainly American.

The latest guidelines for BP’s $20 billion victims compensation fund say the nearer you are geographically to the oil spill and the more closely you depend on the Gulf of Mexico’s natural resources, the better chance you have of getting a share of the money.

Also, a second set of rules expected this fall will require that businesses and individuals seeking compensation for long-term losses give up their right to sue BP and other spill-related companies – something that could save the oil giant billions.

The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.

Earlier this month, top federal officials declared the oil in the spill was mostly “gone,” and it is gone in the sense you can’t see it. But the chemical ingredients of the oil persist more than a half-mile beneath the surface, researchers found.

And unlike many oysters across the Gulf Coast, ruined by BP’s massive oil spill and the fresh water poured in to fight it, Supan’s oysters are all alive.

Now, nearly four months after the spill, Supan’s oysters may offer the Gulf oyster industry a chance for a better long-term recovery. But his special breed of modified oysters, which some say are prohibitively expensive, could be a hard sell to an industry reeling from the BP disaster.

With just over 10 weeks before nationwide elections that could define the remainder of Obama’s first term, only 38 percent say they support his expanded war effort in Afghanistan – a drop from 46 percent in March. Just 19 percent expect the situation to improve during the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse. Some 49 percent think it will remain the same.

The numbers could be ominous for the president and his Democratic Party, already feeling the heat for high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a $1.3 trillion federal deficit. Strong dissent – 58 percent oppose the war – could depress Democratic turnout when the party desperately needs to energize its supporters for midterm congressional elections.

But Sam Mazzola declined to describe what happened Thursday night as he spoke Friday afternoon outside the compound in Columbia Station, southwest of Cleveland.

Mazzola says the bear and the victim, 24-year-old Brent Kandra, played together and loved each other, and that the bear was Kandra’s favorite.

There was little reason for investors to buy. There were no reports to offset Thursday’s disappointing news that growth in the domestic economy continues to slow. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 57 points a day after falling 144. The other major indexes also fell moderately.

“We’re not seeing any significant growth prospects,” said Peter Costa, president of Empire Executions. “Why be in the market if there’s no (near-term) prospects for growth?”

Kerry urged President Hamid Karzai to move quickly to combat corruption or risk losing support in the U.S. Congress at a critical phase in the war. U.S. lawmakers have expressed doubt the military effort can succeed without a serious campaign against bribery and graft that have eroded the Afghan people’s trust in the Karzai government.

Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, met twice with Karzai on Tuesday and then returned for a second, unscheduled round of talks Friday after traveling to Pakistan to see areas devastated by massive floods. After the meeting, the two appeared before cameras and Karzai made his first public remarks about two investigative units instrumental in the recent arrest of one of Karzai’s top advisers.

The six-count indictment alleges that one of the most dominant pitchers of his era obstructed a congressional inquiry with 15 different statements made under oath, including denials that he had ever used steroids or human growth hormone. As he did when he testified to a House committee in 2008, the seven-time Cy Young winner denied using the substances again Thursday and said he will fight to clear his name.

“I never took HGH or Steroids. And I did not lie to Congress,” Clemens said on Twitter. “I look forward to challenging the Governments accusations, and hope people will keep an open mind until trial. I appreciate all the support I have been getting. I am happy to finally have my day in court.”

In a pep talk for the party’s rank and file, the vice president challenged the widespread notion that significant losses in House races, and perhaps the Senate, could cost the party its comfortable majorities – a possibility White House press secretary Robert Gibbs suggested last month before saying Democrats will hang onto the House.

“On Nov. 3 … there will be in Washington, D.C., a Democratic majority in the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate. That will be the case,” Biden said in a speech to the Democratic National Committee. And, he said, Democrats will do better than expected in gubernatorial races, too.

Police without basic investigative skills such as the ability to lift fingerprints, and prosecutors who lack training to try terror cases, are some of the main reasons cited. Another daunting challenge: Judges and witnesses often are subject to intimidation that affects the ability to convict.

The legal system’s failure to attack terrorism is critical because it robs Pakistan of a chance to enforce a sense of law and order, which militants have set out to destroy.

Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in connection with the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 above Lockerbie, Scotland, was ordered in 2001 to serve 27 years in jail, but freed on Aug. 20 of last year on compassionate grounds, as he is suffering from prostate cancer.

In a statement urging Libya to show restraint, Britain’s Foreign Office in Friday described the bombing, which killed 259 people onboard – mostly Americans – and 11 on the ground, as the “worst act of terrorism in British history.”

The couple met at a memorial for the victims and say they instantly fell in love. They planned to spend Friday night with family, friends and nearly two dozen victims’ relatives at a rehearsal dinner for their weekend wedding in New Jersey.

Stratis, 28, and Tedeschi, 33, both grew up in New Jersey but didn’t meet until December 2008 at a memorial dinner to remember the 20th anniversary of the bombing that killed all 259 people aboard Flight 103 – mostly Americans – and 11 on the ground in 1988 in Lockerbie, Scotland.

When part of his body was returned to her – his lower half shattered into 34 pieces – it was final proof he had indeed been killed when Islamic extremists brought down the World Trade Center. As Americans take sides over plans to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque blocks away, Hamdani says it feels personal.

“Why are we paying the price? Why are we being ostracized? Our loved ones died,” she said at her Lake Grove, N.Y., home. “America was founded on the grounds of religious freedom,” and opposition to the cultural center “is un-American. It’s unethical. And it is wrong.”

Some the imam’s American critics said they fear he is using the taxpayer-funded trip to raise money and rally support in the Muslim world for the mosque.

“I think there is no place for this,” said the Rev. Franklin Graham, who is the son of evangelist Billy Graham and opposes the Islamic center and mosque. “Can you imagine if the State Department paid to send me on a trip anywhere? The separation of church and state – the critics would have been howling.”

Giuliani, who led New Yorkers through Sept. 11 and its aftermath and whose opinion on the mosque could carry considerable clout, made his comments as the imam leading plans for the community center toured the Middle East promoting religious tolerance.

“If you are a healer, you do not go forward with this project,” Giuliani said on NBC’s “Today” show, referring to the center’s leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. “If you are a warrior, you do.”

Shackled in leg irons, Bout vowed to prove his innocence in an American courtroom.

“We will face the trial in the United States and win it,” Bout told reporters in Russian after the verdict, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.

The prosecutor, once described as “Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree and a sense of humor,” raised eyebrows when he appeared to go beyond the normally dry recitation of facts by accusing Blagojevich of a “political corruption crime spree” that would make “Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

But this week in the courtroom, the man often mentioned as a candidate to be the next FBI director suffered a setback: Jurors deadlocked on all but one charge. The failure to win a bigger conviction has now raised questions about possible missteps by prosecutors – and about Fitzgerald’s future.

“It was the only way we had to fit into a mainstream role that was understandable to anybody,” said Chloe, managing editor of a fashion website. “When I told my father I was taking Frankie’s name he was sort of blown away because I definitely consider myself a feminist.”

With a battle over the state’s ban on gay marriage possibly headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, it’s likely more same-sex couples will do the same. For the Frankenys, the name switch couldn’t magically grant all the marriage benefits denied same-sex couples when compared to one man, one wife, but it was one more way to express their union. It’s a symbol rendered even stronger now that legal gay marriages are on hold in California, and for partners who’ve never had the option.

Some universities now offer essay contests in the fall that carry prizes from campus bookstore gift certificates to dinner with best-selling authors to a semester of free tuition.

The rite of summer reading, meant to give first-year students something in common and jump-start discussion, is often seen as a chore. Educators say competition and rewards are new ways to give the assignments a higher profile and stress their importance, though contest participation lags.

The aid package enacted last week requires governors to sign off before their states can receive a share of the $16 billion in federal medical assistance money. The bill contained another $10 billion that school districts will get no matter what.

The situation is most taxing on GOP governors who are possible 2012 presidential candidates, such as Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty and Mississippi’s Haley Barbour. They have railed against Washington spending. Taking the money opens them up to charges of hypocrisy, but rejecting it deprives their states of tens of millions of dollars.

It’s part of a weeklong study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to figure out ways to quickly minimize the impact of an airborne assault on the nation’s 15 subway systems and protect the nation’s infrastructure. U.S. subway systems include 810 miles of track in tunnels and accounted for about 3.45 billion trips taken last year, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

The scientists are monitoring concentration of the gases – which are invisible to the naked eye and nontoxic – and particles as they move throughout the system and then up into the streets above, pushed by turbulence created by trains thundering through the tunnels. Researchers use electronic devices to take air samples at more than 20 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority stations and in subway cars.

At demonstrations this month in New York, Oklahoma City and Quantico, Va., where Army Pfc. Bradley Manning is being held, dozens of supporters have shouted that “Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime.”

The same slogan appears beside Manning’s smiling face on buttons and posters offered by Courage to Resist, an Oakland, Calif.-based support group for U.S. troops who refuse to fight. The group has raised about $45,000 from nearly 750 people in 18 countries to help pay for a civilian defense lawyer for Manning, project director Jeff Paterson said.

The rush of promised help came after U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing a hastily called meeting of the General Assembly, urged governments and people to be even more generous than they were in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and this year’s Haiti earthquake, because the floods were a bigger “global disaster” with the Pakistan government now saying more than 20 million people need shelter, food and clean water.

“This disaster is like few the world has ever seen,” Ban told the meeting. “It requires a response to match. Pakistan needs a flood of support.”

None of this is true. But to surprising levels, it is believed.

Blame it on the media, or on human nature. All presidents deal with image problems – that they’re too weak or too belligerent, too far left or far right. But Obama also faces questions over documented facts, in part because some people identify more with the rumormongers than the debunkers.