Evening Edition

On Tuesday, three West African presidents will visit Abidjan in a bid to convince the defiant 65-year-old leader to step down, a last-ditch plea that comes backed by a threat of regional military intervention.

Gbagbo said he took the threat “seriously” but would never back down, and his lieutenants warned that any intervention could put the millions of West African migrants living in Ivory Coast in danger.

Yury Lutsenko was detained by at least 10 Alpha special security officers while taking his dog out for a walk with his son in the capital Kiev, his spokeswoman Inna Kysil told AFP.

The former Orange Revolution leader was bundled into a car and taken to a jail operated by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), an offshoot of the Soviet-era KGB, the spokeswoman added.

While record crowds flocked to Bethlehem, the Palestinian town where Jesus Christ was believed to have been born, hundreds also defied Al-Qaeda threats to pack Our Lady of Salvation cathedral in Baghdad for Christmas mass.

Although there were no immediate reports of Christians being targeted in the Middle East, bombings in other parts of the world highlighted the threats facing believers.

A suicide bomber wearing a burqa, who some officials said was a woman, killed at least 43 people at a World Food Programme distribution point in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan on Saturday.

The blast occurred in Khar, the main town of lawless Bajaur tribal district, once a stronghold of Taliban militants who have carried out several bombings and suicide attacks in the area.

England skittled Australia for their lowest total in 133 years of Ashes Tests at the MCG and rubbed further salt into the wounds by skating to 157 without loss by stumps.

Australian cricket’s Boxing Day showpiece turned into a horror show before 84,345 fans as England’s bowlers had the Australians all at sea on a seaming MCG drop-in wicket to bowl them out off just 42.5 overs.

Some groups, in particular the ‘Ndrangheta from southern Italy’s Calabria region, are also investing in property and businesses here, as well as trafficking arms and drugs through Switzerland, sparking alarm among Swiss law enforcers.

Keen to stop the mafia from spreading its reach in the Swiss economy, federal police this year made the fight against Italian organised crime a priority.

The new legislation passed last week is aimed at protecting the ancient fish which experts fear is on the brink of extinction due to growing demand in Chinese restaurants, which use the fins in a hugely popular soup.

Few places prize the gelatinous delicacy more than Hong Kong, where it is a staple at high-end restaurants and wedding banquets, a mark of affluence in a city that accounts for as much as 80 percent of the world trade in fins.

The country has faced a violent political impasse since a presidential election last month, which was intended to heal the scars of a 2002-03 civil war but has instead ignited bloodshed between the rival camps.

“I can confirm that we have called for a general strike across the nation from tomorrow,” Ouattara’s spokesman Patrick Achi said. He said Ouattara would issue an official statement later on Sunday.

The standoff has killed more than 170 people, according to the United Nations, and threatens to push the West African country back into civil war.

Here are a few possible scenarios for what happens next:

Steps taken in the past month, including administrative controls to curb speculation and monetary tightening, had started to produce results, Wen said.

The People’s Bank of China raised interest rates on Christmas Day for a second time in just over two months as Beijing strengthened its battle against stubbornly high inflation.

In the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message, he said the Christmas message of peace and hope was always new, surprising and daring and should spur everyone in the peaceful struggle for justice.

Speaking from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to thousands of people braving the chill and drizzle in the square below, he delivered Christmas greetings in 65 languages, including those spoken in the world’s trouble spots.

Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency said at least 14,000 people have fled the violence and political chaos in Ivory Coast, some walking for up to four days with little food to reach neighboring Liberia. At least one child drowned while trying to cross a river.

The U.N. has said at least 173 people have been killed in violence over the disputed presidential runoff election held nearly one month ago, heightening fears that the country once divided in two could return to civil war. The toll is believed to be much higher, though, as the U.N. mission has been blocked from investigating other reports including an allegation of a mass grave.

The group of about 30 attackers armed with guns and knives even killed two people passing by Victory Baptist Church. The assailants only left after setting the church and pastor’s house ablaze.

Danjuma Akawu, the church’s secretary, managed to escape after he and others climbed over the church’s fence.

Pakistan says the attack is a sign of insurgent desperation, but the bombing and ongoing battles challenge Islamabad’s claims of victory over al-Qaida and the Taliban in this part of the porous northwest border.

WFP district coordinator Shahab Khan said on Sunday that all four food relief centers run by the United Nations agency in the Bajur district had been shut indefinitely since Saturday’s bombing in the area’s main town of Khar.

The Taliban in Afghanistan and other extremist groups use safe havens across the border in Pakistan, and the U.S. has been pushing Islamabad to clear the lawless tribal belt that runs along the frontier. The pressure has often strained U.S.-Pakistani relations, with Islamabad bristling at suggestions it should do more.

Gen. David Petraeus, who took over command of coalition troops in Afghanistan in July, told The Associated Press there had already been coordinated operations on both sides of the border.

In a matter of weeks, Congress will go from trying to help young, illegal immigrants become legal to debating whether children born to parents who are in the country illegally should continue to enjoy automatic U.S. citizenship.

Such a hardened approach – and the rhetoric certain to accompany it – should resonate with the GOP faithful who helped swing the House in Republicans’ favor. But it also could further hurt the GOP in its endeavor to grab a large enough share of the growing Latino vote to win the White House and the Senate majority in 2012.

2010 was tough for the concert business as high prices kept many fans at home. Promoters now say they plan to make shows more affordable in 2011. But they’ll also try to sell more T-shirts and other merchandise to make up for lost revenue.

Heading into last summer, usually the busiest time of the year, prices were set too high despite the sluggish economy. Managers and promoters believed fans would keep paying for the one or two concerts they see on average each year.

The Army division known as the Screaming Eagles, formed ahead of the 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy, has lost 104 men this year – or about 1 in 5 American deaths in Afghanistan. That is close to a toll of 105 divisional deaths in Iraq during a 2005-2006 deployment that was its deadliest year in combat since Vietnam.

The 20,000-strong division from Fort Campbell has been fighting in two of Afghanistan’s most violent regions, the south and the east, since it began deploying in February under President Barack Obama’s plan to roll back the Taliban with more troops. It is the first time the 101st has deployed in its entirety since Gen. David Petraeus led the division during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Malave, a probation officer who works in New Haven, says the racial abuse is so bad that he only crosses the town line into East Haven to go home. He and his wife are now preparing to sell their house and move, joining an exodus of Hispanics who say police have hassled them with traffic stops, false arrests and even jailhouse beatings.

The Justice Department has started a civil rights investigation, and the FBI recently opened a criminal probe. But that has not changed things on Main Street, where restaurants and stores that cater to Hispanics are going out of business.

Twelve curly-horned rams and 34 ewes plucked by helicopter from one rugged area of West Texas now call the Bofecillos Mountains along the Rio Grande in Big Bend Ranch State Park home. The capture and release days before Christmas was the latest step in a decades-long restoration project to bring the mountain sheep back to their range after unfettered hunting, fencing and disease from other animals decimated their numbers.

All but gone from Texas by the 1960s from more than 1,500 in the late 1800s, efforts to restore them in Texas’ Trans-Pecos region have proved successful. This fall, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologists tallied 1,115 sheep in Texas, up from 822 in 2006 and 352 in 2002.

But the race for Chicago mayor is providing fresh evidence that the city’s storied history for election shenanigans lives on. With Mayor Richard M. Daley’s retirement opening up the office for the first time in 21 years, Illinois authorities find themselves investigating allegations that candidates to succeed him turned in ballot-nomination petitions “signed” and “stamped” by notaries who didn’t actually sign or stamp them.

“The false notary, that’s a brand new one on me,” said Don Rose, a longtime Chicago political analyst who has worked on election reform campaigns.

But with the 150th anniversary of the war’s start just months away, New York state government has so far failed to scrounge up a single Yankee dollar to commemorate a conflict it played such a major role in winning.

New York isn’t alone. Other states saddled with similar budget woes are unable or unwilling to set aside taxpayer funds for historic re-enactments and museum exhibits when public employees are being laid off and services slashed.

Saturday’s grim news seemed to highlight the pope’s concern for his flock’s welfare.

In northern Nigeria, attacks on two churches by Muslim sect members claimed six lives, while bombings in central Nigeria, a region plagued by Christian-Muslim violence, killed 32 people, officials said.