US troops who caused scandal by sleeping with prostitutes ahead of a visit to Colombia by President Barack Obama also allowed sniffer dogs to sleep in hotel beds and defecate on the premises.

A partially redacted report into April's incident released Friday by the Pentagon revealed little that was not already known about how 12 soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors had taken prostitutes to their hotel rooms.

The team was in place as part of the security detail for Mr Obama's visit to the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, and their behaviour came to light after nine civilian US Secret Service officers were caught for the same offence.

The report concluded that, while servicemen had breached US military law by consorting with sex workers and in some cases by committing adultery, and had shown bad discipline by drinking, they had not endangered national security.

The mother of a blogger in detention has died after setting herself on fire ahead of her daughter's trial for propaganda against the Communist state, sources close to the family said on 30 July.

Dang Thi Kim Lieng is the mother of Ta Phong Tan, a 43-year-old Catholic former policewoman, who was arrested on 5 September 2011 and has been held in detention since. She is due in court in Ho Chi Minh City on 7 August alongside the two other bloggers Nguyen Van Hai also known as 'Dieu Cay' and Phan Thanh Hai, who blogs under the name 'Anhba SG'.

Ta Phong Tan used her blog to denounce corruption and injustice in Vietnam's legal system.

The three bloggers face a possible 20-year jail sentence for violating article 88 of Vietnam's Criminal Code oultlawing anti-government propaganda.

Dang Thi Kim Lieng set herself on fire in front of the People's Committee in Bac Lieu province.

The Michigan Democratic Party has accused Republican Senate candidate Clark Durant of illegally profiting off a "sponsor-a-child" charity.

The charity, Genesis Foundation, was created to provide tuition for children attending Cornerstone Schools, a system of nonprofit schools Durant co-founded in Detroit. But tax returns showed that about 95 percent of all funds donated to the charity go directly to Durant and his daughter, Hope Durant Loomis.

"For that reason it does not appear that this Foundation is organized and operating as a tax-exempt charitable organization," attorney Tammie Tischler explained in an IRS complaint filed on behalf of Democrats Monday. "Contributions come in from two donors and go directly to Mr. Durant and Ms. Loomis as compensation for program services."

She said the Genesis Foundation "appears to be a complete sham organization."

The British ambassador to Israel has said international support for the Jewish state among those in the political mainstream is eroding, driven by settlement expansion in the West Bank and continued restrictions on Gaza.

There is "growing concern" in the UK over lack of progress towards peace with the Palestinians, and Israel was now being seen as Goliath against the Palestinians as David, said Matthew Gould, in reference to the biblical story.

In an unusually forthright interview for Israel's Channel 10 news, Gould said he detected a shift among the middle ground of British members of parliament towards a more critical view of Israel.

"Israelis might wake up in 10 years' time and find out that the level of understanding in the international community has suddenly changed, and that patience for continuing the status quo has reduced," he said.

"Support for Israel is starting to erode and that's not about these people on the fringe who are shouting loudly and calling for boycotts and all the rest of it. The interesting category are those members of parliament in the middle, and in that group I see a shift."

Belarus has expelled the Swedish ambassador for meeting opposition groups and "destroying" relations between Stockholm and Minsk.
Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said the accusations against Ambassador Stefan Eriksson were "ridiculous" and "groundless".

The move comes a month after a Swedish PR firm dropped hundreds of teddy bears over Belarus in a pro-democracy stunt.

Mr Bildt said Sweden would not welcome Belarus's incoming ambassador.

He added that two other Belarusian diplomats in Stockholm had also been told to leave.

In power since 1994, Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko has cracked down hard on political opponents. His re-election in 2010 was marred by reports of abuses.

Four weeks into a trial between two titans of the biotech industry, Monsanto Co. claimed on Tuesday that its biggest competitor, DuPont, owes them $1 billion for infringing on their patent for herbicide-tolerant lab-made crops.

Monsanto insisted this week that rival company DuPont owes them $1 billion for producing genetically modified crops that were designed to withstand the herbicide Roundup, a technology for which the leading biotech corporation has a patent for. Monsanto's accusations are based on hundreds of lines of DuPont-made soybean crops that combined the patented Roundup Ready trait with their own herbicide immunity called GAT. Although DuPont claims that their products performed better than Monsanto's crops by combining technologies from both companies, Monsanto maintains that DuPont infringed on their copyright going back several years and should now compensate them to the tune of $1 billion.

DuPont has filed a counterclaim in response under the argument that Monsanto deceived the US government in getting patent approval for their Roundup Ready crops. Attorneys for DuPont say that Monsanto was not clear with the US Patent and Trademark Office about what genes used in their Roundup Ready crops actually helped organisms fight off herbicides, allowing them wide breadth to thwart similar attempts at the technology from its competitors.

The NYPD's top officials have endorsed the department's surveillance of Muslims and even top-secret missions abroad. According to the author of a new book, though, the FBI says these efforts produced "no intelligence of any value."

That's what reporter Ronald Kessler has found, at least, and he's dug deep to get to the bottom of the NYPD's controversial surveillance tactics that was first uncovered by the Associated Press in recent months. Earlier this year it was discovered that the NYPD had been conducting clandestine surveillance over Muslims and collecting intelligence everywhere from local markets to mosques and even in cities abroad. Kessler investigated that program to put together his forthcoming book, The Secrets of the FBI, and in an except just released by the author, he writes that even one of America's biggest intelligence agencies is up in arms over the NYPD's actions.

Kessler writes that the efforts under former FBI Director J Edgar Hoover "not only trampled on Americans' rights but often failed to focus effectively on real threats such as spies and terrorists." Decades after Hoover's death, however, Kessler says that those merits are alive and well, but not with the FBI. Even though it's arguably not part of their job, the NYPD has adopted controversial techniques and policies that the author compares to the practices put forth by Hoover.

"In an unprecedented move, Michael B. Ward, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, went public to say that the New York surveillance tactics were not an effective form of intelligence gathering and were in fact harming the fight against terrorism by fomenting distrust among New Jersey's Muslims," Keller writes.

A North Dakota court has approved the use of drones to help arrest citizens on US soil. UAVs have primarily been used to conduct strikes against purported militants in countries like Pakistan, but their use at home has been on the rise as of late.

­District Judge Joel Medd denied a request to dismiss charges against Rodney Brossart, who was arrested after law enforcement resorted to using a Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to inspect his property, according to court documents obtained by US News.

Judge Medd wrote that "there was no improper use of an unmanned aerial vehicle" and that the UAV "appears to have had no bearing on these charges being contested."

Last June, Brossart was arrested after a long standoff with police, prompted by his refusal to return a herd of cows that had meandered onto his farm in the town of Lakota. During the standoff, Brossart was tased by police after allegedly threatening to kill an officer entering his property. At one point, the Department of Homeland Security offered the local SWAT team one of its Predator drones.

Court documents show that the drone was used "for surveillance" while local SWAT team chief Bill Macki said the UAV inspected Brossart's property to make sure that neither he, nor his family members, were armed or left the farm during the arrest.

While being stripped naked by US airport technology might make some travelers uncomfortable, the TSA has further elevated concern by refusing to hold public hearings regarding its rules and regulations of nude full-body scanners.

A year ago, the Transportation Security Administration was ordered to hold public hearings regarding the use of its full-body scanners at US airport security checkpoints - hearings that never occurred, reported Wired.

In a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in July 2011, claiming the body scanners were intrusive and unconstitutional, the US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block use of the scanners - but ordered the hearings.

Under the Administrative Procedures Act, the TSA would have to go through a 90-day "notice and comment" period for any rules that would affect the rights of the public.

Critics of the machines, including worried air passengers, claim that the radiation used by the scanners to see through clothes are privacy violations and threats to ones health. Some have questioned the scanner's effectiveness, worrying that the machines might not detect explosives taped to a person's body - or placed inside the body. These concerns, among others, would have to be addressed at the hearings.

A senior Palestinian official says Abbas leaning toward waiting until after the U.S. vote, in line with a U.S. request, to avoid further strain to his relationship with the Obama administration.

The Palestinians are bracing for possible punitive reactions by the United States and Israel if they go ahead with plans to seek UN General Assembly recognition of "Palestine" as a non-member observer state, according to an internal document obtained yesterday.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, backed by the Arab League, is ready in principle to take this step, but hasn't decided whether to submit the request when the General Assembly convenes in September or to wait until after the U.S. presidential election in November.

A senior Palestinian official said Abbas leans toward waiting until after the U.S. vote, in line with a U.S. request, to avoid further strain to his relationship with the Obama administration.

However, some members of Abbas' inner circle are pushing for a September bid, arguing that the Palestinians have gained nothing by trying to appease the U.S.

"We have nothing to lose from the Americans," said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO Executive Committee. "What we need is to move fast."

The final decision is up to Abbas.