Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rompuy was unanimously selected today to be the first permanent, full-time president of the European Council, after the UK said it was no longer pushing for former Prime Minister Tony Blair to get the post. Instead, the other top post created by the Lisbon Treaty - High Representative for Foreign Affairs - went to the UK's EU Trade Commissioner, Baroness Catherine Ashton. More from the BBC:

"Mr Van Rompuy, 62, had crucial French and German support. He has a reputation as a coalition builder, having taken charge of the linguistically divided Belgian government and steered it out of a crisis.

'Every country should emerge victorious from negotiations,' he told a news conference after his appointment.

'Even if unity remains our strength, our diversity remains our wealth,' he said, stressing the individuality of EU member states.

...The idea under Lisbon is to give the EU more coherence and continuity in key policy areas. Up until now the presidency has been held by member states in turn, on a six-month rotation."

The pair begin their new jobs on Dec. 1. BBC has profiles of Van Rompuy and the baroness here.

(Photo by Mark Renders/Getty Images)

Their reasoning goes like so: less reproduction, fewer people, less climate change. More:

"The battle against global warming could be helped if the world slowed population growth by making free condoms and family planning advice more widely available, the U.N. Population Fund said Wednesday.

The agency did not recommend countries set limits on how many children people should have, but said: 'Women with access to reproductive health services ... have lower fertility rates that contribute to slower growth in greenhouse gas emissions.'

'As the growth of population, economies and consumption outpaces the Earth's capacity to adjust, climate change could become much more extreme and conceivably catastrophic,' the report said.

The world's population will likely rise from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050, with most of the growth in less developed regions, according to a 2006 report by the United Nations.

The U.N. Population Fund acknowledged it had no proof of the effect that population control would have on climate change. 'The linkages between population and climate change are in most cases complex and indirect,' the report said."

It's a good thing it didn't get into countries limiting how many children people can have, because that wanders -- a la China -- into some serious human-rights issues.

(Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

Remember those images of Capt. Richard Phillips, seized by pirates and held adrift in a lifeboat this past April after the Somali rogues attacked the Maersk Alabama? After a five-day standoff, Phillips was rescued, the pirates didn't get a dime, one got taken to New York for trial, and three pirates were killed.

Some just don't learn.

From the AP:

"Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.

A U.S. surveillance plane was monitoring the ship as it continued to its destination on the Kenyan coast, while a pirate said that the captain of a ship hijacked Monday with 28 North Korean crewmembers on board had died of wounds.

...Phillips was not at the helm this time. He was due in Norfolk, Va., for a museum event opening for a piracy exhibit where he will also thank his rescuers from the destroyer USS Bainbridge, who are based in the city.

...Four suspected pirates in a skiff attacked the ship again on Wednesday around 6:30 a.m. local time, firing on the ship with automatic weapons from about 300 yards away, a statement from the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain said."

Phillips had no comment on the incident. "I'm not involved in it this time, so I don't want to speculate on things I don't know."

(Photo by Jon Rasmussen/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

Vladimir Putin -- currently Russian prime minister and, in the eyes of many, puppetmaster -- has shown that he's highly adept at promoting a hip, fly, and macho-enough-to-lead-Russia image, be it through his judo book, getting up close with lions, or shirtless photos fishing (the shirted photo is Putin catching a big one with the Bushes) and horseback riding. As the Daily Telegraph puts it today, "there appears to be no sporting or cultural activity where Vladimir Putin is not an Alpha male or a renaissance man." That would include -- look out, Jay-Z -- the world of rap and hip-hop. More:

"Mr Putin's surprise appearance on a music channel to hand out awards came as a shock even to the journalists his minders handpick to follow him around not to mention the audience of baseball cap-wearing adolescents.

Dressed in a polo-neck jumper and a sports jacket, Mr Putin, 57, looked distinctly awkward among a crowd of head-bobbing hand-waving teenagers. As the crowd around him writhed to a noisy rap song, he stood motionless with his hands stiffly at his sides while his security detail mingled among the audience 'in youth disguise'.

Mr Putin then took to the stage himself and spoke out against drugs and vodka, doing his best to show he knew about what he called 'mass youth culture'. 'Rap, even urban rap and street rap, is kind of crude, but is already filled with social content and addresses the problems of youth,' he told an open-mouthed audience. 'Graffiti is becoming a real art form - refined and polished. Break dancing is something completely unique.'"

Word, Pooty-Poot.

(Photo by Eric Draper/White House via Getty Images)