A British-inspired menu was prepared for the monarchs using many ingredients sourced locally

Kings and queens from around the world have gathered in Britain to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Twelve UK royals joined the Queen to welcome the sovereigns of 26 countries for a luncheon at Windsor Castle.

Human rights campaigners have condemned the inclusion of Bahrain’s King Hamad al-Khalifa but the Palace said the Foreign Office approved his invitation.

Protesters gathered at Buckingham Palace, where Prince Charles is hosting a dinner for some of the royals.

King Hamad is not at the banquet.

Another invitation proving to be controversial is that of King Mswati III of Swaziland, who is accused of living a lavish lifestyle while his people go hungry.

Demonstrators at Buckingham Palace chanted and held banners reading: “Shame on you Liz Windsor,” and “Democracy now for Swaziland”.

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Analysis Peter Hunt News correspondent

For a woman whose key role is to act as a unifying figure, this was a divisive lunch.

The Queen’s supporters would argue it’s not her fault. According to them, Elizabeth can hardly pick and choose between a Hamad, a Mswati or a Simeon. And anyway they continue, her government is keen on deepening relations with Bahrain.

Some critics of the luncheon (the correct word for the occasion in royal circles) blame the Queen; others point the finger at the Foreign Office.

Against this backdrop, the 20 sovereign guests and six substitutes gathered for a photo with their host. They represent a club you are born into and cannot join, other than through marriage.

Some have not fared as well as the Queen. They have no throne, though they still style themselves king.

It was a rare occasion. A family gathering of sorts where politics intruded.

According to one report, Prince Andrew was heard to remark, “It’s alright. It’s going alright. I think”.

• Read more from Peter

Graham Smith, chief executive of Republic, said the group was “standing in solidarity” with protesters from Bahrain and Swaziland.

Campaigner Peter Tatchell criticised the Queen for “wining and dining dictators who stand accused of very serious human rights abuse”.

The Foreign Office earlier said it was having “a full and frank discussion on a range of issues” with Bahrain’s government.

The world figures arrived at Windsor Castle in a convoy of black chauffeur-driven cars in time for the start of the lunch at 12:30 BST amid tight security.

Also joining the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh for the lunch were Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, the Duke of York, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and the Earl and Countess of Wessex.

There was a group photograph before the royals sat down to lunch at round tables seating 12. Each group had least one sovereign, their spouse, a member of the British royal family and a member of the royal household.

A British-inspired menu was prepared using many ingredients sourced locally.

To start, the royals were given a tartlet of poached egg with English asparagus.

This was followed by a main course of new season Windsor Lamb with braised potatoes, artichokes, peas, carrots, broad beans, cabbage, and a tomato and basil salad.

Kent strawberries, vanilla Charlotte, dessert fruit and cheese concluded the meal.

The menu for Prince Charles’s banquet includes twice-baked cheese souffle with baby leaf spinach, line-caught sea bass with coastal samphire and rhubarb Eton mess.

Mr Tatchell said inviting the kings of Bahrain and Swaziland was “a shocking misjudgement” that showed the Queen was “out of touch with the humanitarian values of most British people”.

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Peter Tatchell: “It is very wrong that the Queen has invited seven royal dictators to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee”

“Inviting bloodstained despots brings shame to our monarchy and tarnishes the Diamond Jubilee celebrations,” he said.

Mohammed Sadiq, spokesperson for Justice for Bahrain, told the BBC he fully supported the Jubilee, but did not understand what had changed in Bahrain to prompt the Queen to invite King Hamad.

In April 2011, Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa pulled out of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s wedding amid controversy over human rights.

Mr Sadiq said: “How would the British feel if the Queen had invited Saddam Hussein or Colonel Gaddafi to such an occasion?”

Last month, Bahrain Grand Prix organisers were urged to cancel the race amid public unrest in the country and accusations of human rights abuses.

A Foreign Office spokesman said Britain had “consistently encouraged the Bahraini government to take further urgent steps to implement in full the recommendations of the Independent Commission of Inquiry as His Majesty the King has committed to doing.

“This includes bringing to account those individuals responsible for human rights abuses.”

Gibraltar tensions

On Wednesday, meanwhile, a group of UK-based Swazis protested outside the Savoy hotel, in London, where King Mswati – who is widely accused of profligate spending – is thought to be staying, with a delegation of 30 officials.

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Kings and queens of the world

• Which monarchs were invited to lunch?

King Mswati is rated by Forbes magazine as the world’s 15th richest monarch with a personal fortune of $100m (£62m) – while many of his 1.2 million subjects live in poverty.

Democracy campaigners also want Africa’s last absolute monarch to allow political parties and elections.

Saudi and Kuwaiti royals are also attending the banquet.

Amnesty international has recently highlighted repression in Saudi Arabia, as the authorities there crack down on protesters and reformists.

And Human Rights Watch has criticised Kuwait for the suspension of a daily newspaper and the conviction of its editor for incitement.

Meanwhile, Queen Sofia of Spain declined to attend because of a dispute over fishing rights off Gibraltar, a UK territory that Spain also claims.

Source: BBC

President Joyce Banda has said she wants Malawi to overturn its ban on homosexual acts – the first African country to do so since 1994.

Two Malawian men were sentenced to 14 years in prison in 2010 after saying they were getting married.

Several Western leaders have recently said they would cut aid to countries which did not recognise gay rights.

Mrs Banda took power last month after her predecessor, Bingu wa Mutharika, died of a heart attack.

She has since reversed several of his policies, including devaluing the currency, in a bid to get donor funding restored.

Many donors cut aid under Mr Mutharika, accusing him of economic mismanagement and political repression.

In her first state of the nation address to parliament, Mrs Banda said: “Some laws which were duly passed by the august house… will be repealed as a matter of urgency… these include the provisions regarding indecent practices and unnatural acts.”

The BBC’s Raphael Tenthani in the main city, Blantyre, says the president has the support of a majority of MPs and so should be able to get parliament to overturn the law.

However, he says it will be an unpopular move with many church leaders, as well as the wider population in this conservative country.

After a storm of international condemnation, Mr Mutharika did pardon the two Malawian men on “humanitarian grounds only” but said they had “committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws”.

Homosexual acts are illegal in most African countries.

In Uganda, an MP recently introduced a bill which stipulated the death penalty could be imposed for some homosexual offences, although he has since said he now wants this changed to life in prison.

South Africa is the only African country where same-sex marriages are legal – discrimination based on sexual orientation was banned after a new constitution was introduced when white minority rule ended in 1994.

‘Attempted coup’

Earlier this month, Mrs Banda said she did not want Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir to attend an African Union summit Malawi is hosting in July.

She said she feared the “economic implications” if Mr Bashir visited the country in defiance of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on war crimes charges over the conflict in Darfur.

Relations with donors have already improved under Mrs Banda and the UK, which had been extremely critical of Mr Mutharika, is now urging other donors to restore funding as soon as possible.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and aid used to make up a large proportion of the national budget.

Mrs Banda was elected vice-president as Mr Mutharika’s running mate in 2009 but the pair had since fallen out.

When the president died, there were reports that Mr Mutharika’s allies attempted to sidestep the constitution to prevent her succeeding him.

Mrs Banda also announced that an official inquiry would be opened into this “attempted coup” and the circumstances of Mr Mutharika’s death.

Source: BBC

Spanish oil company Repsol has announced a first attempt to find oil in Cuban waters has failed.

Repsol spokesman Kristian Rix said an exploratory well it drilled some 50km (31 miles) off Cuba was unsuccessful and would be abandoned.

But he said it was too early to say whether the whole project would be called off.

Mr Rix says Repsol is assessing the data to determine what steps to take next.

“It is not uncommon to strike out with offshore wells, and four out of five are dry,” he said.

Cuba produces only half of the oil it needs.

It relies on subsidised imports from the friendly government of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela for its energy needs.

The island imports more than 100,000 barrels a day at favoured rates, paid for with the services of thousands of doctors and health workers working in Venezuela.

Hope on the horizon: the Scarabeo 9 drilling rig can be seen from the seafront in Havana

The BBC Havana correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, says that finding substantive offshore reserves of its own would break that dependence.

“Today we have strong relations with Venezuela and that’s good for Cuba,” says Juan Triana, of the Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy.

“But if this relationship did not work in the future, that would be a very dramatic position.”

Drilling in Cuba’s northern coast began some three months ago.

The Scarabeo 9 oil was brought all the way from China, to bypass the American trade embargo imposed on the communist island five decades ago.

Repsol is the first company to explore. It is leasing the rig for $500,000 (£320,000) a day.

Preliminary studies of the rock formation beneath Cuban waters suggest there are considerable deposits to discover – anything from five billion to 20 billion of barrels of oil.

That would make Cuba a net energy exporter.

Source: BBC

The Nasa commentary said there was ”a launch abort”

The US firm SpaceX has aborted the lift-off of its Falcon rocket and Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station (ISS).

The rocket’s engines were shut down just as the vehicle was about to leave the pad at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Onboard computers noticed the chamber pressure in one of the nine Merlin engines under the Falcon was outside its acceptable value.

Tuesday is the next launch opportunity.

Elon Musk, the CEO and chief designer at SpaceX, tweeted: “Launch aborted: slightly high combustion chamber pressure on engine 5. Will adjust limits for countdown in a few days.”

The time being given for Tuesday’s attempt is 03:44 EDT (07:44 GMT; 08:44 BST).

SpaceX is attempting to become the first private company to send a supply craft to the ISS. Such unmanned freighter missions are usually performed by government-owned vehicles.

Both SpaceX and another private firm, Orbital Sciences Corp, have been given billion-dollar contracts by Nasa to keep the space station stocked with food and equipment. Orbital hopes to make its first visit to the manned outpost with its Antares rocket and Cygnus capsule system later this year.

This new approach is intended to free Nasa to concentrate more of its effort and funds on planning exploration missions far beyond Earth, to asteroids and Mars.

The current SpaceX mission is billed as the final demonstration of its freight service before it picks up its re-supply contract.

The company hopes eventually also to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.

To that end, its capsule has been designed from the outset to carry people; and under another Nasa programme, the company is working to develop the onboard life-support and safety systems that would make manned Dragon flights feasible.

Since the shuttles were retired last year, America has no means of launching its own astronauts into space – rides must be bought for them on Russian Soyuz rockets at more than $60m (£38m; 47m euros) per seat. SpaceX says Dragon could be ready to carry people in 2015 at a seat price of $20m (£13m; 16m euros).

“In order for Nasa to be able to afford any programme of exploration in the future given the fiscal realities of the government, it has to transition away from high-cost services that are procured by and for the government into shared-use services that are competitively sourced,” observed Jeff Greason, the president of XCOR Aerospace and a leading proponent of commercial space activity.

Source: BBC

President Obama opened the G8 summit with a dinner for the world leaders

Europe’s debt crisis is expected to dominate the summit of the G8 group of major world economies near Washington.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will face calls from President Barack Obama and new French leader Francois Hollande for stimulus measures, analysts say.

Greece’s possible exit from the eurozone is also high on the agenda.

As Mr Obama welcomed other G8 leaders late on Friday, they discussed the nuclear stand-off in Iran and North Korea, and the unrest in Syria.

But the eurozone is expected to top the agenda when the leaders of the US, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Russia, Italy and Canada hold a full day of talks on Saturday at President Barack Obama’s Camp David retreat north of Washington.

After meeting Mr Hollande at the White House on Friday, Mr Obama told reporters that the aim of the summit was to promote both fiscal discipline and a “strong growth agenda”.

“President Hollande and I agree that this is an issue of extraordinary importance not only to the people of Europe but also to the world economy,” Mr Obama added.

Continue reading the main story

The French president, who took office this month, said he and Mr Obama shared “the same conviction that Greece must remain in the eurozone”.

‘Decisive action needed’

Greece’s caretaker government was sworn in this week after elections failed to produce a viable coalition to run the country. New elections have been scheduled for 17 June.

The result of the poll could determine the fate of austerity measures which Greece’s international creditors are insisting on.

Investors fear any refusal by Athens to impose deep spending cuts agreed under a bailout deal could result in the country quitting the bloc of 17 countries that use the euro.

Larger countries such as Spain or Italy that are struggling to ease their debt loads might then become vulnerable, potentially triggering wider eurozone upheaval and even a global financial crisis to rival the one of 2008.

Mr Hollande also met British Prime Minister David Cameron at the British embassy in Washington.

Mr Cameron said that Greece must decide if it wanted to remain in the euro.

“We need decisive action from eurozone countries in terms of strengthening eurozone banks, in terms of a strong eurozone firewall and decisive action over Greece. That has to be done.”

The office of the Greek interim prime minister has said Mrs Merkel had suggested the country hold a referendum on euro membership on election day, but the German chancellor’s cabinet has dismissed this as “false”.

On Friday, the leaders also agreed:

• North Korea faces further isolation, if it “continues down the path of provocation”
• Iran’s government had the onus to prove the claim that its nuclear programme was peaceful
• The UN-backed peace plan on Syria had yet to be fully implemented

After the G8 summit ends on Saturday evening, most of the leaders will decamp to Chicago to join a larger group of international officials for a Nato summit on Sunday and Monday, at which Afghanistan is expected to be the main item on the agenda.

Source: BBC

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng – who was at the centre of a diplomatic crisis with the US – says he is at Beijing’s airport, where he expects to leave to go to the US.

The blind activist told reporters he did not have a passport, but believed he was going to New York.

Mr Chen recently spent six days in the US embassy in Beijing after escaping house arrest in north-east China.

He wants to leave China and has been offered a place at New York university.

Chen Guangcheng, a self-taught lawyer who campaigned against forced abortions under China’s one-child policy, was jailed for four years in 2006 for disrupting traffic and damaging property, and placed under house arrest after his release in 2010.

‘Leave of absence’

Mr Chen later told AFP news agency by phone: “I’m at the airport. I do not have a passport. I don’t know when I will be leaving. I think I’m going to New York.”

He said his wife and two children were at the airport with him, accompanied by hospital staff.

“Thousands of thoughts are surging to my mind,” Mr Chen told the Associated Press news agency.

Referring to his supporters, he said: “I am requesting a leave of absence, and I hope that they will understand.”

Last month he fled from house arrest in Shandong province. According to media accounts, the blind activist climbed over the wall of the property with the help of his wife late at night.

When he landed on the other side he broke his foot. He is then said to have felt his way in the dark, stumbling and falling, to a nearby village when a friend took him into his home.

He was then driven hundreds of kilometres away to the American embassy. He took refuge there during a visit by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in Beijing for high-level talks.

On 2 May, after six days at the embassy, he agreed to leave the compound, initially saying he wanted to stay in China.

He was taken to a Beijing hospital to be treated for his injury. During his stay at the hospital he called the US Congress twice.

On 3 May he pleaded for help to leave China with his family, saying he feared for his safety. On 16 May he called US lawmakers again accusing Shandong authorities of harassing his family.

Mr Chen was offered a place to study law at New York University after Beijing said he would be allowed to apply to study abroad.

The US has said visas for Mr Chen and his family are ready.

Source: BBC

France’s newly elected President Francois Hollande said Friday that he is sticking to his campaign pledge to remove his country’s forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

After an Oval Office meeting at the White House with the U.S. president, Hollande told reporters, “I reminded President Obama that I made a promise to the French people to the effect that our combat troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by the end of 2012.”

But, he added, the French government “will continue to support Afghanistan in a different way, our support will take a different format.”

As the Frenchman spoke, Obama looked on but made no comment.

According to the website of the International Security Assistance Force, France has 3,308 troops in Afghanistan.

Source: CNN

The spiraling conflict between Sudan and South Sudan poses a threat to world oil prices, the prime minister of neighboring Kenya has warned.

Speaking to CNN’s Jim Clancy, Raila Odinga called on the international community to take a more active role in resolving the crisis that brought the two countries close to war in April.

“Certainly, if this continues it is definitely going to affect the oil prices and therefore the international community cannot sit by and just watch this happening,” said Odinga. “But apart from affecting the oil prices, many people are going to die,” he added.

Odinga called on the African Union (AU) to increase its presence in the hotly contested border between the two countries.

Kenya’s future after striking oil

Struggling for survival in South Sudan

Air raids resume on South Sudan

“AU need to send more troops to the border between the North and the South, and while they are there insist that the demarcation be done using independent forces so that the issue of border dispute is resolved once and for all,” said Odinga.

“If AU does not have the capacity to do so, then the U.N. should complement AU forces.”

Read more: Oil discovered in Kenya

Odinga’s call comes as AU mediator and former South African president Thabo Mbeki arrived in the Sudanese capital city of Khartoum Thursday in a bid to convince the two parties to resume negotiations.

South Sudan split from Sudan last year as part of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of war in Africa’s largest nation.

The war left two million people dead and ended with the peace agreement that included an independence referendum for the South.

Significant issues between the countries remain unresolved, however, including status of their citizens, division of national debt, disputed border areas and sharing of oil wealth.

Simmering tensions peaked last month when South Sudan seized the oil-producing region of Heglig from its northern neighbor. Oil fuels the economies of both nations and Heglig oil facilities account for about half of Sudan’s production of 115,000 barrels a day.

South Sudanese forces withdrew days later after Sudan lodged protests with the United Nations and African Union, but South Sudan said it continued to come under aerial and ground attack.

Odinga said neighboring Kenya wants the matter “to be dealt with as quickly as possible so the humanitarian crisis is avoided.”

He added: “The previous conflict in the Sudan had a very devastating effect on Kenya because we hosted the majority of the Sudanese refugees in Kenya. As we are talking right now there is already an influx of new refugees coming from South Sudan as a result of this conflict, so there is a big fear in Kenya that we may again end up having to host so many refugees as a result of this conflict.”

Opinion: Can Kenya avoid Africa’s resource curse?

In late March, Kenya announced that it had finally struck oil after decades of exploration. British-based Tullow Oil said it established more than 20 meters (65 feet) of net oil pay, which refers to the depth of the oil reservoir.

But Odinga said that the experience from other African countries has shown that oil can either be “a blessing or a curse.” On a cautious note, Odinga stressed that Kenya should not neglect other sectors of the economy in favor of oil.

“One-commodity economy is dangerous in my view because it is not sustainable and therefore in Kenya we must avoid the pitfalls that have been fallen in the other countries on the continent by managing this oil properly,” said Odinga.

Source: CNN

Trayvon Martin’s girlfriend, talking to him on the telephone, heard the teenager saying “get off, get off,” in the moments before his cell phone cut off and he was shot dead, according to a recording released Friday of the girl’s interview with a prosecutor.

Another witness, however, seems to put Martin on top of George Zimmerman for at least part of the struggle, according to another recording.

“When I first walked out there, the black guy was on top, and the only reason I can tell that was because the guy that was on the ground under him at that point wrestling was definitely a lighter color,” the man, whose name has not been made public, said in the interview.

Martin was African-American. Zimmerman is Hispanic.

When first interviewed, the witness said the individual on the bottom was calling for help. But a few weeks later, in another interview, he said he wasn’t sure.

“At first I thought it was the person on the ground, because me thinking rationally, if someone was on top, the person on the bottom would be yelling,” the witness aid. “I truly can’t tell who, after thinking about it, was yelling for help just because it is so dark on that sidewalk. You can’t see a mouth.”

In his second interview, the witness said when he returned to the window while calling 911, he saw the person who had been on top sprawled in the grass, not moving. Another person with his hands in the air said, “The gun’s on the ground. I shot this guy in self-defense,” according to the witness.

Another witness said the heavier of the two individuals appeared to be on top.

“I know after seeing the TV of what’s happening, comparing their pictures, I think Zimmerman was definitely on top because of his size,” the witness said.

The recordings provide the most detailed look yet into previously reported witness statements detailing the last moments of Martin’s life.

Martin, 17, was shot to death February 26 while walking in the Sanford, Florida, neighborhood where he was staying during a visit with his father.

The girlfriend, whose name has not been made public, told Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda that Martin got away from the man, who turned out to be Zimmerman, but only temporarily.

He was out of breath from running away and scared, she said, and decided not to keep running because he was close to the house where he was staying.

And as Zimmerman drew closer, the girl said, Martin called out, “Why you following me for?” according to the recording.

“I hear this man, like this old man, say, ‘What are you doing around here?’ ” the girl said.

The girl said she called out to Martin, asking what was happening, but he didn’t answer. The next thing she heard was a bumping sound, followed by what might have been a scuffle.

“I could hear it a little bit, ‘Get off, get off,’ then the phone just hung up,” the girl said.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, is charged with second-degree murder in the death, which sparked nationwide protests and inflamed public passions over race relations and gun control.

Another witness interviewed by police said Zimmerman “looked like he had just gotten his butt whupped,” according to a recording released by authorities. The witness also said Zimmerman seemed nonchalant about the shooting, “like it was nothing.” Zimmerman told the witness to call his wife and “just tell her I shot somebody.”

A woman told Sanford officers she did not hear the sounds of fighting outside her residence. “I heard nothing but a little kid scared to death, like crying.”

Zimmerman has claimed self-defense in the shooting, saying Martin charged him after the two exchanged words, knocking him to the ground and hitting his head repeatedly against a concrete sidewalk.

Prosecutors say Zimmerman profiled Martin as a criminal and killed him, even though he was doing nothing wrong.

Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty.

The recordings and other documents released as part of the court case also touch on the racial component of the case.

In one recording, a former co-worker of Zimmerman’s says Zimmerman made him the butt of a long-running office joke, ridiculing his Middle Eastern accent and bullying him in what the witness described as a juvenile but infuriating effort to fit in with other workers. In another, an anonymous caller tells a Sanford police officer that Zimmerman and his family are racists.

“I don’t know what happened. I don’t know at all, who this kid was or anything else,” the woman said. “But I know George. And I know he does not like black people. He would start something. He’s a very confrontational person.”

Some people have also attributed a racial epithet to Zimmerman during his call with an emergency dispatcher. But an FBI analysis, released Thursday, determined that the word could not be definitively identified “due to weak signal level and poor recording quality.”

Zimmerman’s former attorneys and an audio expert said in April that they believed Zimmerman used the word “punks,” not a slur.

The recordings released Friday are the latest in a series of revelations from the official investigation into the shooting. Authorities are making details of the case publicly available as attorneys prepare for Zimmerman’s trial.

Among the documents released was one filed with prosecutors by Sanford police two weeks after the shooting, urging Zimmerman’s arrest.

New documents shed light on Trayvon Martin killing

“The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog (sic) in an effort to dispel each party’s concern,” the police request to arrest Zimmerman said. “There is no indication that Trayvon Martin was involved in any criminal activity.”

Other documents released this week include Martin’s autopsy report and a fire department report on Zimmerman’s injuries.

The autopsy report showed that Martin died of a gunshot wound to the chest fired from within 36 inches and that he had traces of marijuana in his blood and urine.

In his 911 call just before the shooting, Zimmerman had speculated that the teen looked like he was “up to no good or he’s on drugs or something.”

Martin’s blood contained THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, according to autopsy results released Thursday. The autopsy was conducted February 27, the day after the teenager was killed.

Toxicology tests found elements of the drug in the teenager’s chest blood — 1.5 nanograms per milliliter of one type (THC), as well as 7.3 nanograms of another type (THC-COOH) — according to the medical examiner’s report. There also was a presumed positive test of cannabinoids in Martin’s urine, according to the medical examiner’s report. It was not immediately clear how significant these amounts were.

No precise levels on the urine were released.

What happened that night?

Just before the shooting, Zimmerman, 28, called 911 to complain about a suspicious person in his neighborhood.

In the call, Zimmerman said he was following Martin after the teen started to run, prompting the dispatcher to tell him, “We don’t need you to do that.”

Prosecutors say Zimmerman disregarded the advice, leading to a confrontation between the two.

A screaming voice could be heard on other 911 calls placed by neighbors, with some speculating that those screams came from Martin and others that they belonged to Zimmerman. As part of an analysis released this week, the FBI did not make a final determination either way, citing several reasons, including the fact they came during “an extreme emotional state,” that there weren’t enough words to make a good comparison and that the sound quality was low and distant.

FBI analysis — Zimmerman’s 911 call (pdf — strong language)

Zimmerman claimed, according to a police report released earlier, that he’d been “assaulted (by Martin) and his head was struck on the pavement.”

According to a report from the Sanford Fire Department, released Thursday, Zimmerman had “abrasions to his forehead,” “bleeding/tenderness to his nose” and a “small laceration to the back of his head” when emergency personnel arrived at the scene at 7:27 p.m., six minutes after they were first called.

By that time, Martin had no apparent pulse, according to the fire and EMS report. Emergency personnel attempted resuscitation and chest compressions, to no avail. He was pronounced dead at 7:30 p.m.

Source: CNN

U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders are set to address a host of pressing economic and military security issues this weekend as the United States hosts a high stakes Group of Eight summit outside Washington and a NATO summit in Chicago.

A user’s guide to the Chicago NATO summit

The three-day diplomatic marathon kicked off Friday morning with remarks by Obama on the rising concern over global food security. Obama outlined a new international effort to address hunger in Africa and elsewhere, calling it a moral, economic and security imperative.

The failure to adequately address the issue is “an affront to who we are,” he declared.

Obama also met at the White House on Friday with new French President Francois Hollande, who was elected on a platform opposing increasingly unpopular eurozone austerity measures.

“Much of our discussion centered on the situation in the eurozone,” Obama noted. “President Hollande and I agree that this is an issue of extraordinary importance not only to the people of Europe but also to the world economy.”

NATO invites Pakistan to Chicago summit

Who gets invited to NATO summits?

Leaders of most of the G8 — made up of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, Canada and Russia — were meeting later Friday and Saturday at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. Debate is expected to focus on whether an economically weakened, debt-laden Europe should continue down the road of austerity trumpeted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel or focus more on economic stimulus to help the continent grow its way out of the current crisis.

Hanging over the deliberations is the fate of economically battered Greece, which has been unable to form a new elected government. Many analysts believe that Athens will be forced to exit the euro currency shortly, which could further rattle global economic confidence.

“Greece must stay in the eurozone,” Hollande insisted during his meeting with Obama. We all “must do what we can to that effect.”

The G8 leaders are also expected to discuss the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program and the bloody conflict in Syria, where at least 9,000 people have died over the past 14 months, according to United Nations estimates. In recent days, violence has spilled over into Lebanon and Turkey, where thousands of Syrians have fled.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not attend the G8 meeting, which makes significant progress on either Syria or Iran unlikely. Russia has been at odds with the United States and other G8 countries over exactly how hard to crack down on Damascus and Tehran.

Later this weekend, the war in Afghanistan is expected to dominate discussions at the NATO summit. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Zardari are both expected to attend the meeting.

Opinion: Why ordinary Afghans worry about NATO summit

NATO leaders are currently on a timetable to withdraw all of the alliance’s combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

One of the key issues to be discussed in Chicago is who will pay to build up Afghan security forces during and after the NATO drawdown. Afghan national security forces should total around 350,000 by 2015, according to CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen. Karzai’s government can afford to cover only a fraction of the cost, which is expected to total roughly $4 billion annually after 2014, Bergen notes.

NATO’s post-Afghanistan future unclear

Another issue is Islamabad’s continued blockade of much-needed NATO supplies over Pakistani roads to Afghanistan. Pakistan has kept its airspace open but closed its ground routes after the death of about two dozen Pakistani soldiers in November at the hands of NATO forces at a post on the Afghan-Pakistan border. NATO insists that the incident was an accident.

Obama officials are also pushing for more Pakistani involvement in peace talks with the Taliban.

Protests are expected near the sites of both the G8 and NATO summits this weekend.

“We expect the worst and hope for the best,” said Ross Rice, an official with the Chicago FBI. That “is the way to characterize how the weekend plays out.”

Source: CNN