The Greek government on Wednesday began issuing "civil mobilization orders" to striking truckers that, according to Greece's Kathimerini, essentially calls them up for army duty and forces them back to work. However, many truckers are not giving in and are refusing to return to their routes.

The biggest problem with this strike is most of these drivers are responsible for hauling fuel from refineries to the country's gas stations. And now many stations are running dry.

Despite Pyongyang's aggressive rhetoric against ongoing U.S./South Korea joint military exercises on both sides of the Korean Peninsula, the U.S.-led United Nations Command met with North Korean military officials Friday (7/30) for a third round of talks over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris received a "suspicious envelope" Friday (7/30). In a statement on its website, the Embassy said that preliminary testing did not indicate anything harmful in the envelope. But medical personnel are examining two embassy staffers who handled it.

There is no mention of why the offending envelope is "suspicious".

The U.S. Department of State issued a Travel Warning on July 29, 2010 to warn U.S. citizens of the risk of travel to Mali, and to continue to recommend against all travel to the north of the country due to the kidnapping threats against Westerners. This replaces the Travel Warning for Mali dated November 19, 2009 to update security and threat information.

The full Mali Travel Warning is available on the State Department website here or in the PlanetData World News & Information section here.

It is being reported (CNN, BBC) that the body of the second U.S. sailor abducted by the Taliban last Friday following a firefight in Afghanistan's Logar province was recovered Wednesday by villagers in Yousaf. It is still unclear why the two men left their base Friday night and drove off unescorted in this dangerous part of the country.

China's state-run Xinhua news agency reports that severe flooding in China has washed at least 3,000 chemical-filled barrels, from two storage facilities, into the Songhua River in the city of Jilin. Another 4,000 swept into the same river are reported to be empty.

Workers are frantically working to retrieve the barrels while residents are said to be filling up on bottled water.

Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia is stealing blood from hospitals and blood banks in some of Iraq's Sunni populated provinces for use in medical procedures performed on its members, according to a New York Times article (link below).

The Times reports that "Iraqi health officials say the raids have been occurring for some time", however officials in Iraq's Health, Defense and National Security Ministries, as well as the U.S. military, are unaware of these armed robberies.

A roadside bomb exploded in southernwestern Afghanistan as a bus drove by on Wednesday (7/28). At least 25 passengers were killed and nearly two dozen more wounded by the blast on a highway in Delaram in Nimroz province.