[NEWS] Some Wednesday links

[rfmcdonald]

• In the United States, many churches have found themselves hit hard by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, some facing closure.


• Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust before being disappeared by the Soviet Union, seems to have survived past the date he was said to have died.


• At CNN, LZ Granderson makes the point that the people who talk about a "gay lifestyle" are projecting their own stereotypes, pretending that people, well, aren't people.
  
• It turns out that North Korea's proprietary Red Star operating system is based mainly on open source systems, with a bit of Microsoft thrown in.


• In Spain, some Muslims have been arrested for stabbing two security guards who tried to prevent them from praying in Córdoba’s old mosque, a Catholic church since the fall of Granada in 1492.


• Swedes, the Globe and Mail notes, are puzzled that Elin Nordegren seems to be staying with Tiger Woods despite his infidelities, although there's a minority at least who sympathize with her desire for a reconciliation.


• Russian scientists have synthesized superheavy element 117 for the first time.


• Someone beat the long-standing record for highest score in the ancient video game Asteroids.


• On Prince Edward Island, the warm weather has encouraged some farmers to start planting potatoes more than a month early.


• Disputes over fishing treaties might undermine Moroccan rule over the Western Sahara.


• Over at Bloomberg, writer Ann Woolner observes--and hopes--that the various legal barriers the Pope and Vatican City have erected to shield themselves against sex abuse claims will be torn down.


• In related news, in Nova Scotia the Church is going to have to cell a campground long used by coal-miners and their families in order to pay for the settlement.


• In Russia, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the Katyn massacre of tens of thousands of Polish prisoners during the Second World War alongside Polish officials and others.