The Associated Press today added an entry on mental illness to the AP Stylebook.

This isn’t only a question of which words one uses to describe a person’s illness. There are important journalistic questions, too. “When is such information relevant to a story? Who is an authoritative source for a person’s illness, diagnosis and treatment? These are very delicate issues and this Stylebook entry is intended to help journalists work through them thoughtfully, accurately and fairly.”

Avoid using mental health terms to describe non-health issues. Don’t say that an awards show, for example, was schizophrenic.

A whistleblowing Russian lawyer whose death in custody became a symbol of rights abuses and strained relations with the United States will go on posthumous trial in what relatives say is revenge by the Kremlin.

The circumstances of his demise led the United States last year to bar entry to Russians accused of involvement in his case or in other rights abuses.

"It's inhuman to try a dead man. If I take part in this circus, I become an accomplice to this,"

The law, approved last March by Israel's legislating Knesset, requires models to prove they have maintained a Body Mass Index (BMI) of at least 18.5 for three months prior to a fashion shoot or show.

"This law is another step in the war against eating disorders,"

But critics of the law in this country say it and others like it—the Madrid Fashion Show's ban on women whose BMI is below 18, for example, and Milan's Fashion Week's ban on models with a BMI below 18.5—are misguided, focusing on weight instead of health.

IN 1884 Roger Casement, an ascetic young Ulsterman, joined an expedition up the Congo river led by Henry Morton Stanley, a Welsh-born American explorer, believing that commerce, Christianity and colonialism would emancipate the dark continent.

When reports reached London that the rubber boom had prompted a similar reign of terror against the indigenous population in Putumayo, in the Peruvian Amazon, the British foreign secretary sent Casement to investigate, with the words: “You're a specialist in atrocities. You can't say no.

Only a few years after his lauded success in Peru he was hanged in Pentonville prison as a traitor. Having transferred his thirst for justice to the fight for Irish independence, he sought German military support for the cause during the first world war

The court decided that, although the doctor was innocent, circumcising an infant for non-medical reasons violates Germany's constitutional protection of every person's bodily integrity—and should thus be a crime.

As it happens, the movement against circumcision is spreading, from California, where “intactivists” have tried to ban it, to Israel, where some parents now opt for brit shalom (the “covenant of peace”) as a ritual alternative

Dieter Graumann, president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, asserted that the verdict, if it is upheld, would make Jewish life in Germany, just as it is blooming again, practically impossible

Listen to MP3 of this story ( minutes) Alternate WMA version | MP3 download ELEANOR HALL: China's anointed successor to Hu Jintao as leader of the Communist Party, Xi Jinping, has been missing from public view in recent days.Officials are yet to provide

an explanation for his absences, and now speculation is building about why and what it could mean for the transition to a new generation of leaders in China later this year.

This is a bit unusual, but it is not totally surprising in view of the age of the Chinese leaders. I do believe that the Chinese authorities are extremely sensitive and worried about various potential adverse events or developments that may affect the image of the leadership succession process and the coming party congress.