Tunisian authorities conditionally released one of the only men in custody for alleged links to September's attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in the Libyan city of Benghazi, the latest blow to an investigation that has limped along for months.

Armed groups assaulted the lightly guarded mission on Sept. 11 and killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, but despite U.S. promises there has been little news of progress so far in bringing the perpetrators to justice.

Ali Harzi, a 26-year-old Tunisian extradited from Turkey in October, was one of the only people actually detained over the attack and at the time Tunisian authorities said they "strongly suspected" he was involved.

On Tuesday, however, his lawyer Anwar Oued-Ali said the presiding judge had "conditionally freed" Harzi the night before for lack of evidence. He must remain in the Tunis area to be available for any further questioning.

U.S. officials in December lamented the lack of cooperation with the governments of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt in their ongoing investigation into the attack, saying most of the suspects remain free.

Record unemployment and fraying social welfare systems in southern Europe risk creating a new divide in the continent, the EU warned Tuesday, when figures showed joblessness across the 17 EU countries that use the euro hit a new high.

Official data showed eurozone unemployment rose to 11.8 percent in November, the highest since the euro currency was founded in 1999. The rate was up from 11.7 percent in October and 10.6 percent a year earlier.

In the wider 27-nation EU, the world's largest economic block with 500 million people, unemployment broke the 26 million mark for the first time.

Last year "has been another very bad year for Europe in terms of unemployment and the deteriorating social situation," said Laszlo Andor, the EU's Employment Commissioner.

"Moreover, it is unlikely that Europe will see much socio-economic improvement in 2013," he said.

The Long Island Power Authority should be converted into an investor-owned utility to end poor management practices that exacerbated slow and halting repairs of blackouts from October's Hurricane Sandy, a New York state investigative panel said today.

Privatization would make management of the state-owned electrical system answerable to the New York Public Service Commission, which should be empowered by the legislature with stronger sanctions including the ability to revoke a utility franchise, the panel told Governor Andrew Cuomo today in a preliminary briefing.

Cuomo, a Democrat, convened the so-called Moreland Commission in November with the power to subpoena witnesses, after more than two million homes and businesses lost electricity from the storm, some for as long as 21 days. Some of the panel's recommendations will need legislation and Cuomo said he's waiting for its final report. No date was given for its release.

For the first time in more than a decade, the black market pharmaceutical peddlers are back on Nasser Khosrow Street near Tehran's main bazaar.

"Medicine, medicine," the street dealers shout. "Any kind you want."

Business is brisk. For many Iranians, such underground channels are now the only way to get needed - or even life-saving - drugs as Western sanctions over the country's nuclear program have indirectly limited normal supplies to hospitals and pharmacies.

But for others, even the sidewalk touts are not an option. Iran's sinking currency has more than doubled the prices of some of the imported medicines and supplies, potentially putting them out of reach for lower-income patients.

While medicine and humanitarian supplies are not blocked by the economic embargoes on Iran, the pressures are clearly evident in nearly every level of Iranian health care. It's a sign of the domino effect of sanctions on everyday life.

French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac has come under investigation for possible tax fraud. A media report had claimed he once held an undeclared account in Switzerland which the minister keeps denying.

Prosecutors in Paris announced on Tuesday that French Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac was under investigation for alleged tax evasion. The country's Mediapart news website had reported the minister once owned an undeclared UBS account in Geneva, Switzerland, which he subsequently moved to Asia.

Cahuzac himself is in charge of combating tax fraud. He kept denying the website report on his offshore accounts, dismissing them as "crazy claims" and adding that the investigations underway would surely prove his innocence.

Two Indian soldiers died in a firefight with Pakistani army troops in the disputed Kashmir region, the Indian army said Tuesday, amid heightened tensions in the region following a deadly clash two days ago.

India said a group of Pakistani troops had crossed the Line of Control, the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the region, and entered the Indian-controlled side of the Himalayan territory.

According to the Indian military, the Pakistani troops had taken advantage of thick fog in a wooded area to intrude into the Mendhar sector of Poonch district, but were spotted by a routine Indian patrol.

After a firefight lasting about 30 minutes the Pakistani troops retreated to their side of the Line of Control, the Indian military said, leaving two Indian soldiers dead.

Several missiles fired from American drones slammed into a compound near the Afghan border in Pakistan early Tuesday, killing eight suspected militants, Pakistan officials said.

The two intelligence officials said the compound was located near the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal area.

One of the officials said an al Qaeda operative was believed to have been killed in the strike.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

North Waziristan, the area where the strike occurred, is considered a stronghold for insurgent groups operating in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is one of the few parts of the tribal areas that border Afghanistan in which the Pakistani military has not conducted a military operation to root out militants, despite repeated pushes to do so from the American government.

James Holmes, accused of killing 12 people in Colorado cinema, was not showing normal emotions, says arresting officer.

The man accused of shooting dead 12 people inside a Colorado cinema was relaxed but "out of it" in the moments after the massacre, a court has heard .

James Holmes, who is alleged to have sprayed the audience of a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises with bullets, wounding 58 people, appeared unmoved as he "stared into space", the police officer who arrested Holmes told the hearing.

"It was like there weren't normal emotional responses", officer Jason Oviatt said, according to a report of proceedings by the Denver Post. The testimony came as prosecutors in the US began laying out their case against Holmes, watched by family members of those who were killed.

The session, at the Arapahoe county justice centre, will decide if the suspect is sent to trial over the killings. Holmes, 25, is charged with more than 166 separate offences relating to the mass shooting of 20 July in Aurora, including first degree murder.

If convicted, and prosecutors decline to pursue a death penalty sentence, he would face a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

The Arapahoe court is expected to hear the case against Holmes for the first time. Many of the details of the police investigation into the events surrounding the massacre have been kept out of the public domain until now.

The Supreme Court on Monday considered what limitations could be placed on class-action lawsuits, an increasingly active battleground for consumer advocates and corporate interests.

The issue is whether plaintiff lawyers offer low-ball estimates of the damages they seek or take advantage of procedural loopholes to keep their cases in state courts, where Justice Antonin Scalia said "generous juries" and "very favorable judges" can be common.


Cases that seek less than $5 million and deal with state law and regulatory issues generally remain in state courts. If a lawsuit seeks $5 million or more, a 2005 law requires that the case be transferred to federal courts, where conditions are more favorable for the corporate defendants.

Corporations and their trade associations are asking the court to interpret the Class Action Fairness Act to keep plaintiff lawyers from either underestimating the damages or breaking the litigation into less-than-$5-million pieces. Even with such stipulations, businesses say, lawyers can use the suits to demand higher settlements in lieu of years of legal wrangling.

Shannon McLeish of Florida is a 45-year-old married mother of two young children. She is a homeowner, a taxpayer and a safe driver. She votes in every election. She attends a Unitarian Universalist church on Sundays. She is also, like nearly all who have a relationship with the Occupy movement in the United States, being monitored by the federal government. She knows this because when she read FBI documents obtained by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) through the Freedom of Information Act, she was startled to see a redaction that could only be referring to her. McLeish's story is the story of hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps more - whose lives are being invaded by the state. It is the story of a security and surveillance apparatus - overseen by the executive branch under Barack Obama - that has empowered the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security to silence the voices and obstruct the activity of citizens who question corporate power.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, executive director of the PCJF, said in a written statement about the released files: "This production [of information], which we believe is just the tip of the iceberg, is a window into the nationwide scope of the FBI's surveillance, monitoring, and reporting on peaceful protesters organizing with the Occupy movement. These documents show that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are treating protests against the corporate and banking structure of America as potential criminal and terrorist activity. These documents also show these federal agencies functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and Corporate America."

The FBI documents are not only a chilling example of how widespread this surveillance and obstruction has become, they are an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent. Anyone who defies corporate power, even if he or she is nonviolent and acting within constitutional rights, is a suspect. These documents are part of the plan to make us fearful, compliant and disempowered. They mark, I suspect, a government attempt to end peaceful mass protests by responding with repression to the grievances of Americans. When the corporate-financed group FreedomWorks bused in goons to disrupt Democratic candidates' town hall meetings about the federal health care legislation in August 2009, Eric Zuesse of the Business Insider notes, "there was no FBI surveillance of those corporate-organized disruptions of legitimate democratic processes. There also were no subsequent FreedomWorks applications for Freedom of Information Act releases of FBI files regarding such surveillance being used against them - because there was no such FBI campaign against them."

The combination of intimidation tactics by right-wing fringe groups, which speak in the language of violence and hate, with the state's massive intrusion into the personal affairs of the citizen is corporate fascism. And we are much farther down that road than many of us care to admit.