MOSCOW (Reuters) –
The U.S. and Russian presidents are to sign a pact on Thursday committing the former Cold War foes to unprecedented nuclear arms reductions, cementing a hard-won deal that should put strained ties on firmer footing.

After nearly a year of tough negotiations, the signing by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in Prague, the capital of a former Soviet satellite now in NATO, will symbolize cooperation between Washington and Moscow for the sake of global security.

Both presidents say new cuts in the largest arsenals on the planet are a step toward a world without nuclear weapons and a signal to nations seeking them that there is no need.

But the successor to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) will not come into force without ratification by lawmakers in both countries, and could face a rough ride in the U.S. Senate.

Analysts say it will be no cure-all for Russian-American relations, which have improved after hitting a post-Soviet low during Russia‘s 2008 war with Georgia but remain troubled by a range of disputes.

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DHAKA (AFP) –
Supermarket giant Asda has installed webcams in two factories in Bangladesh, allowing viewers to see working conditions there in a bid to show it does not use “sweatshop” labour.

The webcams are “part of our effort to increase the transparency of the Asda business and show customers where their products come from,” the company’s website says.

Asda, along with other Western clothing makers, has been targeted in the past by campaigners for employing people in Bangladesh on low wages and in poor conditions, but it says it is committed to quality and fairness.

The initiative, showing a clothing testing lab and the finishing section of a factory making trousers and shorts, was criticised Friday by one Bangladesh garment industry group for “spying” on workers.

“It is sort of spying on us. We are working to further improve the working conditions at our factories… but buyers do virtually nothing,” Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin, vice president of the association, told AFP.

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When Sven left his Berlin apartment one cold December morning to go to work, he got a nasty surprise – his gleaming white Audi was nowhere to be found. Sven, who declined to give his last name, looked up and down his leafy road in the trendy Prenzlauer Berg district, but it had vanished. Just then, a neighbor shouted from her balcony that she’d seen the car ablaze in the middle of the night. Burnt beyond recognition, the car was removed by the fire brigade after neighbors alerted police.

Sven’s Audi was the latest victim in a spate of car burnings in the German capital, which police have blamed on far-left militants who are waging an increasingly violent campaign against the wealthy Germans they see as being the cause of the recent gentrification of Berlin. According to police, the number of cars set on fire in the city reached a record high of 270 in 2009. The Interior Ministry also released figures last month showing that crimes committed by left-wing extremists jumped by almost 40% last year – and violent offenses were up by 53%. “These far-left militants are becoming more dangerous,” says Rainer Wendt, head of Germany‘s police union. “They’re terrorizing neighborhoods by burning cars or assaulting policemen.” (See pictures of the dangers of printing money in Germany.)

Intelligence agencies estimate there are some 6,300 extreme left-wing militants in the country who are bent on violence. Although they’ve been dubbed “far-left radicals” by police, experts say they have little in common with the leftist student protesters who agitated against the government in the 1960s, apart from their commitment to violence and their targets – symbols of capitalism. “Back in the late 1960s and early ’70s, the protesters had a distinct left-wing ideology – the majority were Marxists who dreamed of revolution and they wanted change,” Christian Pfeiffer, the head of the Hanover-based Lower Saxony Institute of Criminology, tells TIME. Today’s far-left radicals are a motley bunch of anarchists, anti-globalization activists, peace campaigners, anti-nuclear protesters and disillusioned youths who defy easy categorization. “They have no clear political aims and they don’t adhere to any particular left-wing ideology,” says Pfeiffer. “They feel they haven’t achieved their goals – they’re very disappointed and angry and they have nothing to lose.”

Experts say the protesters see themselves as losers locked in a Manichaean struggle against authoritative symbols of the state, such as police officers, and the rich, whose luxury BMW, Porsche and Audi cars represent a blatant affront to disillusioned Germans. Major German cities like Berlin and Hamburg, which have undergone rapid social and political transformations in the last two decades, are the perfect breeding ground for this type of dissent. “These protesters have zeroed in on gentrified neighborhoods in large cities” where there’s a widening gap between the rich and poor, says Michael Kohlstruck, a political scientist at Berlin’s Technical University. (See pictures of the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall.)

Over the past few years, these groups have also become increasingly violent, venting their anger, for instance, at the 2007 G-8 summit in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm and during the traditional workers’ holiday of May Day. During last year’s May Day demonstrations, scores of people chanting anti-capitalist slogans threw bottles and stones at police and set cars and dumpsters on fire in the capital. Nearly 50 police officers were injured in the chaos.

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CLEVELAND – The women who vanished into Cleveland’s house of death were strangled by commonplace objects that were never intended for killing.

A green belt with a metal buckle. The strap of a shoulder bag. An electrical charger for a cell phone or camera. A knotted piece of cloth.

Yet these are what silenced most of the 11 women unearthed last fall at the home of Anthony Sowell, a registered sex offender who has pleaded not guilty to an 85-count indictment in their deaths. Many still had the ligatures wrapped around their necks.

Autopsy reports obtained Thursday by The Associated Press revealed that eight of the women were strangled, most with household objects. Nine had traces of cocaine or depressants in their systems.

The reports offer the first comprehensive look at the horrors the women may have endured.

One woman’s body, found in the basement under a mound of dirt, was nude and gagged at the mouth with her shirt tied behind her head. Most were bound at the wrists or ankles with shoelaces, cable wire and rope. Many were barely clothed. Four were nude from the waist down.

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HAIFA, Israel – On a dusty, wind-swept field overlooking the Mediterranean, a small team of researchers is putting the final touches on what Israel says is a major game changer in tank defense: a miniature anti-missile system that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach the armored vehicles.

If successful, the “Trophy” system could radically alter the balance of power if the country goes to war again against Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon or Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Its performance could also have much wider implications as American troops and their Western allies battle insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think people will be watching the Israelis roll this thing out and see if they can get the hang of it,” said John Pike, director of the military information Web site GlobalSecurity.org in Alexandria, Virginia. “The future of the United States army is riding on the proposition that something like this can work.”

The Trophy is believed to be the first of a series of so-called “active defense” systems to become operational. Such systems aim to neutralize threats before they strike the tank. In the past, tanks have relied on increasingly thick layers of armor or “reactive” technology that weakens an incoming rocket upon impact by setting off a small explosion.

Israeli weapons maker Rafael, the developer of the Trophy, says the system has been in the works for years, but the bitter experience of Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon gave the project an extra push.

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