World Audio/Video - NPR

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai promised Thursday to prosecute corrupt government officials and end a culture of impunity, speaking during an inauguration closely watched by the international community for signs that his administration is moving beyond the cronyism and graft of the past five years.

When Ayon committed suicide in 1999, she was just 32 years old — and already a star in the Cuban art world. A major exhibit of her work now under way in Havana has revived an enduring mystery in Cuba — about art, African myths and the shadowy, all-male secret society known as Abakua.

Prices for MRIs are much cheaper in Japan than in the U.S. The difference in prices provides some insight into why health care costs are so high in the U.S. There's something else at work, too. MRIs are very popular in Japan: Some people get them every year even if they aren't sick.

President Obama, in his first trip to China as president, met Wednesday with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Harry Harding, dean of the University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, discusses what the China visit say about U.S.-China relations.

Under the deal, Iran would send low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enriching and then to France to be converted into fuel rods, which would be returned to Iran. This would reduce the stockpile of material that Iran could enrich to a higher level and possibly use to make nuclear weapons.

The U.S. economic downturn and tighter border security has not deterred migrants from Central America seeking to enter the United States. But they are being abused in new and alarming ways. Tens of thousands of them are robbed, kidnapped and even killed attempting to cross Mexico.

A top Iraqi official vetoed the country's election law Wednesday, throwing plans to hold parliamentary elections in January into disarray. The move could unravel hard-won compromises, and it could complicate U.S. efforts to withdraw U.S. combat troops next year.

Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president vetoed part of a key election law, a move that could delay national polls slated for January even as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the timetable for American troop drawdown is on track.

The secretary of state will attend Thursday's ceremony for Afghan leader Hamid Karzai in Kabul and meet with top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChystal. Security is being tightened in the capital for the inauguration, which could be a target for militants.

The attempt marked the second time in seven months that Somali pirates have targeted the U.S.-flagged cargo ship. In April, pirates took the ship's captain hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days before he was freed by Navy SEAL sharpshooters.