The risks of food riots and malnutrition will surge in the next two years as the global supply of grain comes under more pressure than at any time in 50 years, according to one of the world’s leading agricultural researchers.

Recent pasta protests in Italy, tortilla rallies in Mexico and onion demonstrations in India are just the start of the social instability to come unless there is a fundamental shift to boost production of staple foods, Joachim von Braun, the head of the International Food Policy Research Institute, warned in an interview with the Guardian.

Despite months of sabre-rattling by U.S. President George W. Bush, America’s top spies have concluded that Tehran’s ruling mullahs may not want a finger on the nuclear trigger after all.

As recently as October, Mr. Bush was hinting at air strikes against Iran’s secretive and mostly underground nuclear sites, warning that averting World War III meant preventing Tehran from tipping its missiles with nuclear warheads.

So a key finding in yesterday’s National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons program four years ago, was unexpected and may avert a showdown.

GOP presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, who has made tough talk about combating Islamic terror a staple of his campaign, has had extensive business dealings with a foreign ministry helmed by a man with ties to the 9/11 attacks, according to a new report.

Giuliani Partners, a consulting firm which the former New York mayor founded after leaving in office in 2002, maintains a “cozy business relationship,” with the “terrorist-tolerant” nation of Qatar, writes the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett. Barret reports that the firm’s business partners in Qatar have included that country’s former minister of Islamic affairs, Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani (above right), who has been accused of helping suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad evade an an FBI arrest attempt in 1996.

Though some dismiss them as crude-oil Cassandras, the peak-oilers are not wild-eyed pessimists. Their number includes men like T. Boone Pickens, the Dallas oil tycoon, and Houston’s Matt Simmons, who founded the world’s largest energy investment banking company. They point to hard data indicating that the world is quite simply running out of oil and doing so quickly…

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.