Gunmen were on drugs during Mumbai attacks

The thugs responsible for last week's attacks in Mumbai fueled their terror binge with cocaine and hallucinogens, Indian officials say.

"We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood," one official told London newspaper the Telegraph. Syringes and other drug paraphernalia were found on the scene of the horrific crimes.

The drugs help explain how the 10 young men were able to fight hundreds of Indian commandos for 50 hours without stopping to eat or sleep. One terrorist fought for 6 hours despite a severe wound to his thigh before later being killed by commando fire.

Officials also found evidence of steroid use, which they say is not uncommon among terrorists.

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Are the Greek riots a taste of things to come?

After firing 4,600 tear-gas canisters in the past week, the Greek police have nearly exhausted their stock. As they seek emergency supplies from Israel and Germany, still the petrol bombs and stones of the protesters rain down, with clashes again outside parliament yesterday.

Bringing together youths in their early twenties struggling to survive amid mass youth unemployment and schoolchildren swotting for highly competitive university exams that may not ultimately help them in a treacherous jobs market, the events of the past week could be called the first credit-crunch riots. There have been smaller-scale sympathy attacks from Moscow to Copenhagen, and economists say countries with similarly high youth unemployment problems such as Spain and Italy should prepare for unrest.

Ostensibly, the trigger for the Greek violence was the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy, Alexis Grigoropoulos. A forensic report leaked to Greek newspapers indicated he was killed by a direct shot, not a ricochet as the policeman's lawyer had claimed. The first protesters were on the streets of Athens within 90 minutes of Alexis's death, the start of the most traumatic week Greece has endured for decades. The destructiveness of the daily protests, which left many stores in Athens's smartest shopping area in ruins and caused an estimated €2bn (£1.79bn) in damage, has stunned Greece and baffled the world. And there was no let-up yesterday, as angry youths shrugged off torrential rain to pelt police with firebombs and stones, block major roads and occupy a private radio station.

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A week on, protesters still on Greece's streets

Protesters are promising to remain on the streets of Greece, one week after the police killing of a 15-year-old boy sparked massive riots.

Demonstrations are scheduled Saturday, followed by daily rallies over the next week, including plans to gather outside police headquarters.

Riots that followed the police shooting of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos have left hundreds of stores smashed and looted. At least 70 people have been injured and more than 200 arrested.

The protests are driven in part by the widening gap between rich and poor in a country where the minimum monthly wage is €658 ($850), graduates have poor job prospects and the government is making painful reforms to the pension system.

"It is clear that this wave of discontent will not die down. This rage is spreading because the underlying causes remain," said veteran left-wing politician Leonidas Kyrkos.

At the site where Grigoropoulos was shot, scores of people came to leave flowers and pin messages to a a notice board. A privately made street sign was placed on the corner of the block with the teenager's name.

Internet tribute sites were also flooded with messages.

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U.S. seems to have turned a blind eye to Afghan ally's war crimes

Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida members who'd surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.

When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum's headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum's militiamen had fired into the metal containers.

Dostum's men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.

Earlier this year, bulldozers and backhoes returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e Leili desert.

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Author, humanitarian, international philanthropist and seventh-grader

Stefan has just finished his third book about his San Francisco adventures with his pet rats.

As with his first two books, all proceeds go to build schools in Africa.

"I want to help the less fortunate," said Stefan, 13, at a recent book signing at a law firm in a downtown high-rise. "There are a lot of AIDS orphans in Africa."

For $5,000, he financed the conversion of an abandoned cowshed in Kakamega, Kenya, into a two-room school. He's now halfway through construction of an eight-room school for 100 children, the Stefan Lyon Academy, in the neighboring village of Bungoma.

Stefan is on a book promotion tour for the holidays, hoping to raise the last $30,000 to finish the school.

Stefan, who has his own nonprofit, the Stefan Lyon Foundation, knows that he's not a typical 13-year-old, but he also doesn't know what all the fuss is about.

For as long as his mother, Denise Lyon, can remember, Stefan was always a compassionate child.

"He'd sit with the kids who got bullied at school until they felt better," she said.

Part of his empathy is conditioned. Before he could walk, his mother would carry him on her back as she handed out lunches to the homeless.

By elementary school, Stefan passed out cookies and blankets to the homeless at the Civic Center from his red wagon.

He'd insert notes in the cookie bags:

"I'm thinking of you."

"God loves you."

He served drinks at Glide Memorial Church, and brought art supplies to a homeless youth center.

At 8, he wrote a letter to Mayor Gavin Newsom urging him to help the homeless.

Newsom had him in for a meeting, and asked the boy what he should do.

"Stefan told him, 'You need to be gracious,' " Denise Lyon said.

The mayor, somewhat stunned, presented Stefan with the seal of the city.

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