The Philippine government and the main communist rebel group agreed to resume peace talks stalled since 2005, hoping to sit down next month in Norway, officials from both sides said on Wednesday.

The government will be suspending arrest warrants against rebel leaders who take part in the talks.

The 40 years of a Maoist-led insurgency has killed more than 40,000 people and scared potential investments in the poor.

(Read more from Reuters)

The United Nations Children’s Fund yesterday welcomed the release of nearly 200 child soldiers by a Central African rebel group.

The People’s Army for the Restoration of Democracy (APRD) has released 166 boys and 16 girls aged between 10 and 17 since April, and nearly all those child soldiers have since been reunited with their families, UNICEF said in a statement.

The release of the child soldiers follows the rebels’ signature of a peace agreement last year and a visit to the Central African Republic (CAR) by the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.

The mayor of Washington, DC signed a bill this week that will establish a 5 cent fee charged to the consumer for every plastic bag used at a grocery store, or other retailer. The nickel fee will go into effect January 1 and will pay for cleaning up the Anacostia River (with a penny of it going to the retailer).

Mayor Adrian Fenty described the change as a simple step and said in a statement, “Disposable bags are a menace to our waterways, and dramatically cutting down on their use will have a measurable impact almost immediately.”

President Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia reached a preliminary agreement yesterday to cut the American and Russian nuclear arsenals by as much as a third while exploring options for cooperation on missile defense.

They hammered out agreements on a range of concerns including health issues.

“President Medvedev and I made progress on negotiating a new treaty that will substantially reduce our warheads and delivery systems,” said Mr. Obama. “We renewed our commitment to clean, safe and peaceful nuclear energy, which must be a right for all nations that live up to their responsibilities under the NPT. And we agreed to increase cooperation on nuclear security, which is essential to achieving the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear material within four years.”

(Read more in the Boston Globe)

In this White House photo, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign documents on nuclear arms reduction before their news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow Monday, July 6, 2009.