World

For Thanksgiving, NASA's space food experts always try to make sure astronauts get to enjoy traditional holiday fare, even if its not exactly home cooking. And being so far from home, astronauts can get pretty attached to their comfort foods.

This year, Kevin Ford, the commander of Expedition 34 and currently working at the International Space Station, says he has the ingredients to make one favorite Thanksgiving dish the NASA nutritionists may not have anticipated: Candied yams with marshmallows.

The yams are thermostablized and come in a plastic pouch.

Some analysts have suggested that one impetus for the Israeli military strikes in Gaza is the upcoming election season in Israel. With elections set for January, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu changed the political landscape last month by announcing that his Likud Party would run along with a right-wing party led by hawkish Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Likud Party leaders complained that they were left in the dark before the prime minister effectively vaulted Lieberman into the No. 2 political position.

The cease-fire between Hamas and Israel has been a political boost for Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The Islamist leader spent hours in meetings and on the phone with world leaders, including President Obama, and got results: a cessation of violence that puts Egypt back on the international map. But Morsi faces a test Thursday night, when negotiations on the details begin.

Ethiopia has one of the world's fastest growing economies, but in some ways it's decades behind in terms of development. Transportation remains largely by foot, bicycle or donkey. Ethiopia hopes that by restoring the century-old imperial railway, and adding thousands of new miles of lines, the nation will be propelled into the future.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Maen Rashid Areikat is chief of the PLO delegation in Washington, D.C. That means he is the de facto ambassador of the Palestinian Authority in the United States. Welcome to the program.

MAEN RASHID AREIKAT: Thank you.

HOST: I want to ask you first about what we just heard Leila Fadel say. Is Egypt now the guarantor of this agreement in the Gaza Strip?

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And I'm Robert Siegel.

As anti-austerity protests spread around the country, the Spanish government is drafting a law prohibiting citizens from taking photos and video of riot police on the job. Video already released on YouTube shows police firing rubber bullets into crowds and beating demonstrators. The proposed ban on citizen photography seems to have prompted even more people to join protests and take pictures, including 12 year old Paula Carrasco.

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ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: I'm Anthony Kuhn in Gaza City. Just before the cease fire took effect, the streets were silent and deserted. War-weary Gazans know that this is the time the combatants take their parting shots just before they let their guns go silent. At the Al-Sheefa Hospital(ph), Dr. Ashraf al-Kidrah(ph), a health ministry spokesman, says that the news of the cease fire brings forth mixed emotions.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish. After more than a week of fighting and at least 145 dead, Israel and Hamas agreed today to a cease fire. The Egyptian government took the lead in negotiating that agreement with help from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

SIEGEL: Clinton held talks today not only in Cairo, but also in Jerusalem and Ramallah. And she said the cease fire was just the start of the process.

In eastern Congo, the city of Goma was captured by rebel forces. But on the streets, life appears normal and people are not particularly fearful. Many say that the rebels have humiliated their national army and UN peacekeepers. Even some wounded government soldiers in the military hospital seem in a conciliatory mood.