Politics

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Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak looks aside during the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday, Nov. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Uriel Sinai, Pool)

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Iran's chief negotiator Saeed Jalili gets earphones fitted as he prepares for an interview with Iranian Television in Geneva, Switzerland, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010. Talks between Iran and six world powers are going into a second day with no sign of progress on U.N. Security Council demands that Tehran curbs its nuclear activities. (AP Photo/ Anja Niedringhaus)

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South Korean President Lee Myung-bak (right) talks with Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin during a Cabinet meeting at the Blue House, the president's official residence, in Seoul on Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010. Mr. Lee called for five islands near the disputed sea border with North Korea to be turned into "military fortresses." (AP Photo/Yonhap, Jo Bo-hee)

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Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican, said of the compromise: "This framework will allow us to extend all current tax rates and give economic recovery and job creation a chance." (Associated Press)

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President Obama speaks to the news media Monday after meeting with Democratic congressional leaders about a year-end bipartisan agreement to extend expiring tax cuts. He said "there are things that I do not like" about the compromise with Republicans in exchange for an unemployment insurance extension. (Associated Press)

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (left) says that congressional lame ducks "are acting more like chickens with their heads cut off."

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Palestinian refugees in Lebanon displaced by war more than three years ago live in temporary apartments that residents say are cramped, musty and bug- and rodent-infested. The U.N. relief agency is far short of the funding needed to rebuild. (Heather Murdock/Special to The Washington Times)

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Few residents of the haphazard refugee camp have any hope of moving home someday, but many still hold on to keys to the houses their families fled in the wars of 1948 and 1967. (Heather Murdock/Special to The Washington Times)

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Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara (left), Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan observe a moment of silence for the victims of the latest attacks in South Korea by North Korea before the start of their trilateral meeting at the State Department on Monday. (Associated Press)

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Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. answers questions Monday during a news conference at the Justice Department about the sucesses of "Operation Broken Trust," a federal task force targeting investment fraud. (Associated Press)

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Pakistani volunteers rush an injured person into a local hospital in Peshawar on Monday. A pair of suicide bombers disguised as policemen killed as many as 50 people and wounded an estimated 100 in an attack targeting a tribal meeting called to discuss the formation of an anti-Taliban militia in Pakistani tribal area of Mohmand. (Associated Press)

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A self-identified drug trafficker poses in a Rio slum. "You take any animal and put it up against the wall," he says, describing gang response to the slum crackdown. "Its last option is what? To attack." (Associated Press)

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Iranian opposition members demonstrate against the Iranian nuclear program in front the United Nations in Geneva on Monday, Dec. 6, 2010. Delegations of Iran, the European Union, the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany are meeting in Geneva for nuclear talks with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Saeed Jalili, Iran's chief negotiator. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

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Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announcing the results of "Operation Broken Trust," a three-and-a-half-month operation targeting investment fraud, at the Justice Department in Washington, Monday, Dec. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Recipients of the 2010 Kennedy Center Honors -- including, from left, Bill T. Jones, Paul McCartney and Oprah Winfrey -- react to the President Obama's introduction of Mr. McCartney during a reception in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)