The Pentagon’s New Bomb

The Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000lb of reinforced concrete.

The 15-ton “massive ordnance penetrator” (MOP) will be the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, ten times more powerful than the weapon it replaces. The Pentagon has awarded a $52 million (£33m) contract to speed up placement of the bomb aboard the B-2 Stealth bomber, and officials say the bomb could be fielded as soon as next summer.

Venezuela Takes Over Hilton Hotel

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the obligatory acquisition of a Hilton-run hotel on the resort island of Margarita, it has emerged.

The move was ordered just weeks after the hotel housed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe during the Africa-South America Summit.

The hotel would help develop tourism projects in a “socialist framework”, a decree signed by Mr Chavez said.

Hilton Worldwide, which manages the hotel, said it was analyzing the move.

Nobel Prize Panel Defends Obama Award Decision

Members of the Norwegian committee that gave Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize have issued an extraordinary defence of their decision after a storm of criticism that the award was premature and a potential liability for the US president.Asked to comment on the uproar after Friday’s announcement, members of the five-strong panel said they had expected the decision to generate both surprise and criticism.

“We simply disagree that he has done nothing,” committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. “He got the prize for what he has done.”

Dollar Falls To 14-month Low Against Euro

The dollar slid to a 14-month low against the euro on Wednesday as investor appetite for risk increased following upbeat comments from Intel Corp. and after a top Federal Reserve official indicated U.S. interest rates would likely remain low for a quite a while.

By early afternoon London time, the euro was trading 0.3 per cent higher at $1.4896, just down on the 14-month high of $1.4913 it hit earlier in the session.

Meanwhile, the dollar was 0.5 per cent lower against the Japanese currency at 89.20 yen.

Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez Denied Travel For New York Award

A Cuban blogger who has criticized her government has been denied permission to travel to New York to pick up a prestigious journalism award Wednesday.

Yoani Sanchez writes a blog that gets more than 1 million hits from around the globe every month, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world last year.

So when Columbia University said it would award her the Maria Moors Cabot Prize special citation, Sanchez asked the Cuban government for permission to travel to New York this week. The government said no.