World Audio/Video - NPR

A University of Chicago professor won a share of the Nobel Prize in physics Monday. Yoichiro Nambu, a Tokyo-born U.S. citizen, shares the prize with two Japanese scientists. Nambu gets half the prize for the discovery of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics.

Most of the tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan who have lost legs to land mines have no way to make a living other than begging. But one group has come up with another way to feed its families: It operates a bicycle messenger service in Kabul.

More European governments are following Germany's lead by offering blanket deposit guarantees to savers in a frantic effort to calm fears among investors over the worst financial crisis in 80 years. Sweden became the latest to act.

U.S. officials are urging Pakistan to reform its Inter Services Intelligence spy agency. Pakistanis don't like taking orders from the U.S., but there are those who agree the ISI needs reforming. Recently the new prime minister attempted this, but he got cold feet.

The 2008 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine went in part to two French researchers for discovering the virus that causes AIDS. The award was not shared by American Robert Gallo, who has also claimed a role in the discovery of HIV. Additionally, a German scientist got the prize for establishing the cause of most cervical cancers.

The security forces, organized through local churches, are manning checkpoints in Iraq and working with police. The mystery of where their funding comes from seems to center on a media-shy and reclusive political figure.

Cleverly packaged U.S. subprime mortgages have contaminated economies around the world. European countries were among the first to realize that hundreds of billions of dollars in toxic mortgage securities were woven into their assets. Will the United States' place in the global economy survive?

Share prices dropped on the European markets in response to the growing financial crisis Monday. A number of European governments are guaranteeing bank deposits, following a trend set by Ireland last week.

Author David Rothkopf explains why he believes the current financial crisis may have "greater and more lasting ramifications" than the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. His op-ed, "9/11 Was Big. This Is Bigger," appeared Sunday in The Washington Post.

Horace Engdahl, a Nobel Prize official, commented on Wednesday that the United States is "too isolated" and "too insular" to generate literary Nobel laureates. He said Europe remains the "center of the literary world."