Blog Posts by Laura Rozen, Yahoo! News

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Havana Tuesday on the second day of his historic visit to Cuba, the first papal visit to the communist Caribbean island nation in 14 years. The pontiff is expected to meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and possibly his brother Fidel, the ailing former revolutionary leader. Latin America watchers said the Castro government has refused to allow any Cuban dissidents to meet with the pontiff, and resisted the pope's calls for greater openness. But the Cuban Catholic church has been energized by the visit, others said.

"For the Catholic Church in Cuba to have the Pope's blessing now — with the role it is playing, engaging with the Cuban government — is really huge," said Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy in the Americas, in an email to Yahoo News, from Cuba Tuesday, where she is currently traveling.

"For the American audience, this is an important opportunity to give a broader U.S. public a lesson about the extent of religious freedom in Cuba and the willingness of the Cuban government to give the Pope a platform to talk about his aspirations for the Cuban people," Stephens said. "These things are not anticipated or understood given how cut-off Americans are from the complicated realities of Cuba."

Some scholars suggested the pope could push back on the Cuban government's refusal to allow dissidents to meet with him."The Cuban government removed any opportunity for dissidents to meet with the pope and be in meetings where he is," David Smock, director of the program on religious studies and peace-building at the U.S. Institute of Peace told Yahoo News Tuesday. "The pope can make a strong statement and insist he be allowed to do so, but he has not been inclined to do so so far."

The Catholic Church "has been in decline through the communist-Castro period," Smock noted. Only about 10 percent of Cuba's population is estimated to practice the faith.

"I think he's trying to revive it; that's the main purpose of his visit," Smock said. "I think he wants to make some statement about greater openness and transition to a freer society, but he's been very muted."

The pontiff did allude to wanting more freedom, but fell short of becoming political in his statements. "I have also prayed to the Virgin for the needs of those who suffer, of those who are deprived of freedom, those who are separated from their loved ones or who are undergoing times of difficulty," Pope Benedict XVI, 84, said at a chapel in the Cuban town of El Cobre, site of the statue of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, the Associated Press reported.

Cuban officials bristled at the pope's calls for greater openness, however. "In Cuba there will not be political reform," Cuban economic czar Marino Murilla told foreign journalists covering the visit, the AP report said.

Former U.N. chief Kofi Annan said Tuesday that Syria has agreed to a ceasefire plan, but some implementation details remain to be worked out. Annan, who's been tasked with mediating an end to the Syria violence, received U.N. Security Council backing last week for a six-point proposal to ease the crisis.

"I indicated that I had received a response from the Syrian government and will be making it public today, which is positive, and we hope to work with them to translate it into action," Annan told reporters in Beijing Tuesday after a meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Reuters reported.

"So we will need to see how we move ahead and implement this agreement that they have accepted," Annan said.

The U.N. Syria envoy was on a two-day trip to China after a similar trip to Moscow to try to get Russia and China to back the measure. Annan's six-point plan calls for the withdrawal of heavy weapons and troops from population centers, access for the distribution of humanitarian assistance, the release of political prisoners and greater freedom of movement. It also asks the Syrian government and opposition to work with Annan on a political reconciliation plan.

Click photo to view more images. (Reuters/Pascal Rossignol)Dominique Strauss-Kahn was charged with complicity in an illegal prostitution ring. (Getty)Former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn faced preliminary charges Monday of aggravated pimping, or illegal procurement of prostitutes, in France.

Strauss-Kahn was summoned for eight hours of questioning Monday by French judges investigating an illegal prostitution ring operating out of the northern French city of Lille. The former IMF chief was notified that he was being placed under formal investigation, but allowed to leave after paying 100,000 Euros in bail, and agreeing not to talk to others being investigated in the case, or travel without consulting a judge, the Associated Press reported.

French prosecutors in Lille have been investigating an illegal prostitution ring that is alleged to have brought prostitutes from Belgium to luxury hotels in France and to parties in Washington, D.C., and New York attended by VIP clients, France's Radio France International reported in October. Eight people have been charged in the case so far, including a police officer in Lille and three directors with the city's Carlton Hotel, the New York Times reported.

An attorney for Strauss-Kahn adamantly denied Monday that his client had broken any law. "He firmly declares that he is not guilty of these acts and of never having the least inkling that the women he met could have been prostitutes," Richard Malka, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, told reporters.

Another lawyer for Strauss-Kahn had earlier acknowledged that Strauss-Kahn had participated in the sex parties, but said his client could not have known the women were prostitutes. "I defy you to tell the difference between a nude prostitute and a nude classy woman," DSK lawyer Henri Leclerk said in a statement in December. "Because as you can imagine, at these kinds of parties you're not always dressed."

Click photo to view more images. (AP/Haraz N. Ghanbari)Afghan security forces and police killed three NATO soldiers in two separate incidents Monday. Two of the soldiers killed were British and one was American. The latest "green on blue" attacks came as the top commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan wrapped up a visit to Washington during which he sought to bolster confidence in the mission that has been shattered by a series of recent incidents, including the March 11 shooting rampage by a U.S. soldier that killed 17 Afghan civilians.

Two British soldiers "were gunned down by an Afghan soldier in front of the main gate of a joint civilian-military base in southern Afghanistan," the Associated Press reported Monday, citing the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) for Afghanistan.

In a separate incident, a NATO service member "was shot by an alleged member of the Afghan Local Police" as the soldier approached a local police checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, ISAF said in a statement, adding that the incident is being investigated. Later reports indicated the third soldier killed was American. Details on his nationality were withheld until his next of kin could be notified, a spokesman for the force, Col. Gary Kolb, told Yahoo News by email Monday.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the top commander of the mission in Afghanistan, speaking in Washington Monday, sought to downplay concern over the "green on blue" attacks (or those by Afghan security personnel), calling the incidents unfortunate but not unexpected. "On any occasion where you're dealing with an insurgency and where you're also growing an indigenous force ... the enemy's going to do all that they can to disrupt ... counterinsurgency operations," he told reporters at the Pentagon Monday.

But the spike in such attacks in recent weeks has contributed to a plummeting in American public support for the Afghanistan mission. A new poll released Monday by the New York Times/CBS News found that 68% of Americans think the war in Afghanistan is going somewhat badly or very badly, up sharply from the 42% who thought that in November. "The poll found that more than two-thirds of those surveyed — 69 percent — think that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan," the New York Times wrote on the poll's findings.

The attacks have also raised alarm about the feasibility of a key element of the Obama administration's exit strategy for Afghanistan. Under a transition plan agreed to by President Barack Obama and NATO allies, U.S.-led forces plan to train some 350,000 Afghan army soldiers and police, and transition security responsibility to them in phases, as international forces withdraw from the country by the end of 2014.

Speaking in South Korea Monday, President Barack Obama warned the leaders of North Korea and Iran that their nuclear programs undermine their nations' security, and urged them to give their citizens the benefits of peace.

"The United States has no hostile intent toward your country," Obama said in remarks Monday at South Korea's Hankuk University, addressing the leadership in Pyongyang.

"But by now it should be clear, your provocations and pursuit of nuclear weapons have not achieved the security you seek, they have undermined it," Obama said. "And today we say, Pyongyang, have the courage to pursue peace and give a better life to the North Korean people."

Obama also urged Iran's leaders to seize the chance for a diplomatic resolution at the upcoming nuclear talks next month.

"There is time to solve this diplomatically, but time is short," he said. "Iran must act with the seriousness and sense of urgency that this moment demands."

The wife of Staff Sgt. Robert Bales said Monday she finds the crimes of which her husband stands accused "unbelievable." Bales was formally charged Friday with the premeditated murder of 17 Afghan civilians, including 9 children and a pregnant woman, as well as other attempted murders and assaults.

"He loves children, he's like a big kid himself," Karilyn Bales, 38, told the NBC Today Show's Matt Lauer in an interview Monday. "I have no idea what happened, but he would not ... he loves children, and he would not do that."

Karilyn Bales, 38, the mother of Bales' two children, ages 3 and 4, from Lake Tapps, Washington, said her husband had not shown signs of PTSD after his three previous deployments to Iraq. She saw no signs he was having nightmares, for instance.

"He shielded me from a lot of what he went through," she said, according to the Associated Press. "He's a very tough guy."

Karilyn Bales' comments come as it emerged Monday that the 17th murder victim Bales is accused of killing was an unborn baby. "The Americans are right and one of the females was pregnant, which is why they are saying 17," Kandahar province police chief Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq told the New York Times.

Pentagon investigators believe Bales set off twice from his base in Kandahar Province early on March 11, killing a dozen people in one village, before returning to his base and setting off for a second nearby village where he slaughtered another family asleep in their home.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was formally charged Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder, and six counts of assault. The formal accusations come almost two weeks after Bales allegedly walked door to door on the morning of March 11 and shot Afghan civilians asleep in their homes in the village of Belambey, in southern Afghanistan; after the killings he attempted to burn the bodies. His victims included nine children, one of whom was only two years old.

It's the worst atrocity that an American soldier has been accused of committing against Afghan civilians in the ten-year-old war in Afghanistan. If convicted by a military court, Bales could face the death penalty, or a minimum sentence of life with the possibility of parole.

Bales, 38, was read the charges at the U.S. military's prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he has been held for the past week, the Pentagon said.

While it had previously been widely reported that there were 16 people killed in the March 11 attacks in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province, American military investigators have apparently found evidence that there were 17 people killed, a U.S. military official in Afghanistan said.

"The reason for 17 vs 16 counts of murder is that the investigators felt that after they had collected the necessary evidence that they had justification to charge SSG Bales with 17 counts," Col. Gary Kolb, a spokesman for the U.S.-led ISAF command in Afghanistan, told Yahoo News by email Friday. "I will reiterate that the investigation and collection of evidence is ongoing."

A copy of the charges filed against Bales Friday, which were filed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), sent to Pentagon journalists by Bales' home base of Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington state, appear to redact the names of those he is accused of killing, describing them as female or male civilians or children appearing to be of Afghan descent.

Bales' civilian Seattle lawyer, John Henry Browne, has indicated he will question the Army's decision to deploy Bales to Afghanistan in December with a concussive brain injury sustained on his third tour in Iraq. "Some people do six or seven tours, but the question is whether the last tour was too much for someone with a concussive brain injury," he told journalists in Lansing, Kansas, last week, ahead of meeting with Bales in Leavenworth.

He said Bales has only a hazy memory of what transpired the night in question. Pentagon officials said that alcohol was found in Bales' living area, but Browne has not indicated if he believed it played a role in Bales' alleged acts.

But the charges of premeditated murder indicate that military prosecutors "plan to argue that he consciously conceived the killings," MSNBC reported. "A military legal official for U.S. forces in Afghanistan who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case, noted that premeditated murder is not something that has to have been contemplated for a long time."

Pres. Obama announced Jim Kim (second from left) as his pick to be the next World Bank president March 23, 2012. (Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP)It's fair to say that surprise was the initial Beltway reaction to President Obama's announcement Friday that he'd picked Dartmouth president Jim Yong Kim as the U.S. nominee to lead the World Bank. Kim, a Harvard-trained medical doctor, anthropologist and former World Health Organization official, is not a familiar creature around Washington circles. White House whispers had previously floated more well-known political figures for the position being vacated in June by Robert Zoellick—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former White House economic adviser Larry Summers, Sen. John Kerry and U.N. envoy Susan Rice, to name a few.

But it didn't take long for the rave reviews from the global health and development community to come in. Kim was an inspired choice, they said, to head the 187-nation bank, whose mission is to fight poverty and promote development.

"This [the choice] is much more significant than 'he is not a Washington insider,'" Heather Hurlburt, a former Clinton administration official who is now executive director of the progressive National Security Network, told Yahoo News. Hurlburt met Kim about ten years ago when she worked with Bono on the One campaign anti-poverty initiative. "This is someone who has actually done development. Have we ever had a World Bank president whose specialty is development? He is a practitioner."

Even former President Bill Clinton weighed in. "Jim Kim is an inspired and outstanding choice to lead the World Bank," he said in a statement, that noted Kim's "years of commitment and leadership to development and particularly health care and AIDS treatment across the world."