Ashish Kumar Sen

Economic grievances, including high levels of unemployment and rampant corruption, have been a key driver of protests erupting across the Arab world in recent weeks.

Pakistan has doubled the size of its nuclear stockpile over the past several years, edging past India and now has more than 100 deployed weapons, according to a Washington Post report.

A leaderless uprising in Egypt rallied Sunday around Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, with the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s largest opposition group, saying it will support him in negotiations with President Hosni Mubarak‘s regime.

Protests for democratic reforms spread Thursday from Tunisia and Egypt to Yemen, where thousands of people gathered in the capital, Sanaa, to demand that the impoverished country’s longtime president step down.

The Obama administration on Wednesday voiced its support for the Egyptian people’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as a second day of protests in Cairo saw police using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse stone-throwing demonstrators.

Autocratic regimes in the Arab world are trying to buy the support of their citizens, driven by fear that ripples from the political upheaval in Tunisia could also sweep them from power.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was beheaded by Al-Qaida No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and not the four men convicted by a Pakistani court in his murder, according to a new report.