A North Carolina man must stand trial in a plot to hire a hit man to behead three witnesses from his brother’s terrorism case, a federal magistrate judge ruled on Friday.

... unlike Mr. Rajoelina.

The government of Andry Rajoelina in Madagascar is colluding with France to prevent the return of ousted president Marc Ravalomanana to the island, undermining the SADC Road Map agreed upon last year to return Madagascar to political and economic stability.

Last weekend SADC faced the most serious challenge to its authority and its ability to implement its decisions and impose its will on member states, following the near collapse of the Road Map process.

You may want to take this one lightly. It’s hard to believe that France would have this opinion and the French are universally hated in this part of the world.

As many as 5,000 anti-fascist demonstrators gathered in Vienna late Friday, organisers said, to protest against a ball attended by European far-right figures including France’s Marine Le Pen.

Police, who numbered several hundred drawn in from several other regions of Austria, many in riot gear and with helicopters overhead, put the number of demonstrators at only 500, however.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta still believes someone in authority in Pakistan knew where the most wanted terrorist in the world was hiding. Bolstering his hunch, he tells Scott Pelley, were intelligence reports of Pakistani military helicopters passing over the compound in Abbottabad, where Navy Seals found and killed Osama bin Laden last year.

Poland on Thursday signed an international copyright agreement, sparking more demonstrations by Internet users who have protested for days over fear it will lead to online censorship.

Controversy in Poland has been deepening over the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA. Though many other industrialized countries have signed it, popular outrage appears to be greater in Poland than anywhere else.

This one was not unexpected.

Jamshid Muhtorov, a/k/a Abumumin Turkistony, a/k/a Abu Mumin, 35, of Aurora, Colorado, was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport by members of the FBI’s Denver and Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a charge of providing and attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Department of Justice announced today. The arrest took place without incident. Muhtorov made his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Chicago this yesterday morning.

Muhtorov’s arrest is the result of a long-term investigation conducted by the FBI’s Denver Joint Terrorism Task Force. The Chicago Joint Terrorism Task Force provided investigative support.

A 21 year-old Norwegian has been arrested for inciting terrorism and making threats against the authorities after admitting publishing a video on YouTube that called for the deaths of the country’s crown prince, prime minister and foreign minister.

As well as showing photographs of Crown Prince Haakon, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre with text urging Allah to “destroy them” with painful deaths, the video also promoted a protest in Oslo on Friday. ‘Demonstration: Norwegian troops out of Afghanistan’, however, only attracted a crowd of 40 – far short of the 500 to 700 people the Islamic organisers were expecting.

Ron Paul told the debate audience, “Now, you can’t argue. I’ve talked a long time about cutting off that credit from the Fed. I was trying to prevent this stuff. Also, I opposed the Community Reinvestment Act as well I had legislation in 10 years before the bust came to remove that line of credit to the Treasury [to Fannie and Freddie].” Indeed, Ron Paul predicted that Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were part of a housing bubble and would be the subjects for giant government bailouts and the excuse for a spiraling national debt in a February 2004 speech. “A taxpayer bailout of the GSEs would dwarf the savings-and-loan bailout of the early nineties and could run up the national debt to unmanageable levels.” Ron Paul had warned about Fannie and Freddie’s role in a growing “housing bubble” in each of the years 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005.

DoubleLine Capital LP’s Jeffrey Gundlach, manager of the top performing mortgage fund last year, is shunning “overpriced” Ginnie Mae securities, because investors underestimate the risk that the Federal Reserve and President Barack Obama will spur a homeowner refinancing wave.

“I’m astonished people are fighting the will of the U.S. government,” Gundlach, founder and chief investment officer of Los Angeles-based DoubleLine, said in a telephone interview. “Investors are being insufficiently compensated,” especially given the risk of higher prepayments.

Côte d’Ivoire is abandoning free health care for all after a brief experiment because of skyrocketing costs.

As of February, the free service would only be available to mothers and their children. Specifically, this will mean free care for deliveries and free treatment for diseases affecting children under six years old. Consultation fees would drop from 1,000 CFA francs to 650 francs CFA ($2-1.5).

South African mediator says rival Madagascar leaders “irresponsible”

Regional heavyweight South Africa says efforts to mediate a solution to Madagascar’s political crisis have been frustrated by the irresponsible behavior of the Indian Ocean island nation’s rival leaders.

South African deputy foreign minister Marius Fransman gave his blunt assessment before heading into a meeting Tuesday with factions from Madagascar, which has been in turmoil since President Marc Ravalomanana was toppled in 2009 in a coup led by Andry Rajoelina.

Who’s expected to pay?

... it’s probably too late for me. ... Save yourself.

Researchers have found that group settings can alter the expression of IQ in certain people. The researchers gathered test subjects with similar baseline IQ scores and then placed them in small group settings to see how their cognitive capacity would be affected by perceptions of their status in that group. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), they were able to document the neural responses and found that women were more likely to experience negative changes.