And now the Chinese government is crying over spilled milk.

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao said in an interview that his government was partly to blame for the contaminated milk scandal.

While assuring tough legislation and monitoring, the Chinese Premier said his government is to blame concerning industry regulation.

Another 1,500 workers at three General Motors Corp. plants will be laid off indefinitely over the next few months due to decreasing demand for many products, the International Herald Tribune reported on its website.
GM, which posted a $15.5 billion net loss in the second quarter, has been battling an industry sales slouch in the United States. Its 2008 U.S. sales were down nearly 18 percent through September.
GM plans to lay off 700 workers at its Pontiac Assembly plant, about 400 hourly workers each at its Wilmington, Del., assembly plant and …

A community in eastern Uganda has banned the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), an official has said.
Historically, natives of Kapchorwa believed that a woman who married without first being circumcised would be stricken for life with various illnesses.
Kapchorwa district chairman Nelson Chelimo said it was “outmoded” and “not useful” for the community’s women.
The Sabiny are the only group in Uganda that practices female circumcision, which involves cutting off a young girl’s clitoris.
“The community decided that it was not useful, that women were not getting anything out of it, so …

International Space Station
The spacecraft Soyuz which blasted off on Sunday from Khazakstan was already on International Space Station (ISS). The Soyuz crew consists of 5 people and multi-millionaire spaceflight participant Richard Garriott boarded the ISS at 4:38 a.m. EDT.
Richard Garriott whose father was a former astronaut Owen Garriott was welcomed by cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, whose father is also a veteran of the Russia space program.
Garriot who shed a huge portion of his money will stay on the facility until October 24. He will gather photos and information for his sponsors …

Authorities are becoming concerned that the economic woes could turn more violent, and they are advising people to get assistance. In some places, mental-health hot lines are jammed, counseling services are in high demand and domestic-violence shelters are full, the Associated Press reported.
A laid off money manager in California loses his wealth and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old widow from Ohio shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to expel her from the house she called home for 38 years.
“A lot of people are telling …

Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan – The spacecraft Soyuz blasted off early this Sunday from Khazakstan. The crew consisting of 6 people namely: Commander E. Michael Fincke, Flight Engineers Yury V. Lonchakov, Gregory E. Chamitoff, Sandra H. Magnus, Koichi Wakata and a spaceflight participant Richard Garriott.
Richard Garriott is a computer game-developer multi-millionaire. He is a private passenger aboard a Soyuz capsule, having paid the Russian space agency $30 million for the privilege and undergone a year’s training.
The Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft has penetrated the orbit and will be docking with the ISS in …

Scientists have found 274 new marine species beneath the surface of the ocean near Australia.

BUDAPEST, Hungary — NATO defense ministers authorized attacks on Afghanistan’s drug trade, after the United States reached a compromise with its other 25 allies in a major shift in strategy for the alliance.
The United States had been pushing for NATO’s 50,000 troops to take on a counter-narcotics role to hit back at the Taliban, whose increasing attacks have cast doubt on the prospects of a Western military victory in Afghanistan.
However, Germany, Spain and others were wary and their doubts led to NATO imposing conditions on the anti-drug mandate for the …

The U.N. health bureau says it is investigating an unknown disease that killed three people in Johannesburg.

The Swedish Academy granted the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.