Your Friday news...
-The World Bank offers an immediate $12.2 billion assistance package to countries worst hit by skyrocketing food prices. The bank says 100 million people could be impoverished by the rising cost and scarcer availability of food.
-Ali Larijani, a chief rival to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been elected speaker of the Iranian Parliament, hinting at a possible political shift in the country.
-Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said Thursday that he was denied a service medal for criticizing the trial process. The Defense Meritorious Service Medal, a relatively common decoration issued for achievement in a non-combat assignment.
