* Beijiing was a city of orange sky and yellow dust when sandstorms blew in from the desert last week. In the south, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, air pollution levels hit record levels. The culprit: increasing desertification of some areas of China. "Such storms, caused by eroded topsoil exacerbated by drought and deforestation, had once been common in the Chinese capital." (Bloomberg) The Chinese government urged people to either stay home, or to wear masks if they went outside.
* The Indian military is going to start harnessing the potency of bhut jolokia--the world's hottest chili, also called "ghost chili"--for use in hand grenades containing tear gas.
* "We don't trample the livelihood of those we're trying to win over." Commander Jeffrey Eggers, advisor to General Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, talking about why U.S. and NATO forces have not attempted to destroy opium fields in Marja, Afghanistan, an area once considered the Taliban's turf.
* An Australian citizen named Norrie May-Welby has become the first person in the world to be legally declared "neuter." May-Welby was born male, underwent a gender-change operation, then decided that neither the male nor female label fit.
* Seven police officers in Angola were sentenced to prison for the killings of eight men in a poor neighborhood of Luanda, the capital. From Reuters: "Judge Salomao Filipe said the trial had shown that the officers ordered a group of young men to lie face down on the ground and then shot them in July 2008. The shootings, during an operation aimed at ending gang violence, were 'unjustifiable,' the judge said."