Around the World for 03/15/08

Who gets rich off $3 gas - who doesn't - Motorists may fume when forking over $3 a gallon at the local service station, but as it turns out, your local filling spot makes chump change from a gallon of gas. So exactly who is getting rich? The guy running the service station makes just a few cents, while crude oil producers take the biggest chunk.

Violence in Tibet as Monks Clash With the Police - Violence erupted Friday morning in a busy market area of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, as Buddhist monks and other ethnic Tibetans brawled with Chinese security forces in bloody clashes.

U.S. Image Abroad Hard to Fix, Longtime Ally Says - Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist, said this week that whoever succeeds President Bush might restore something of the United States’ battered image and standing overseas but that “the magic is over.”

EU-US agree on visa waiver talks - The EU and the US have agreed on a twin approach in their talks on doing away with visas for travel to the US. The US will negotiate with the 27-member bloc as a whole, but will also talk to individual countries.

Streak hits 21 with Lakers up next - Their run was in peril but they refused to let it end, driving themselves to a second-half comeback and an 89-80 victory over the Charlotte Bobcats on Friday night that pushed the Rockets' winning streak to 21 games, the second longest in NBA history.