By Jane Perlez, New York Times, May 24-25, 2013

BEIJING — The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, bluntly told a North Korean envoy Friday that his country should return to diplomatic talks designed to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons, according to a state-run Chinese news agency.

“The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and lasting peace on the peninsula is what the people want and also the trend of the times,” Mr. Xi said in a meeting at the Great Hall of the People with Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a personal envoy of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, the China News Service reported.

Vice Marshal Choe, who has been in Beijing for three days on a mission to repair the prickly relationship between North Korea and China, handed Mr. Xi a letter from Mr. Kim. The contents were not disclosed.

In telling the North it should return to the negotiating table, Mr. Xi appeared to strike a stern tone, saying, “The Chinese position is very clear: no matter how the situation changes, relevant parties should all adhere to the goal of denuclearization of the peninsula, persist in safeguarding its peace and stability, and stick to solving problems through dialogue and consultation.”

The Chinese leader called for resuming the so-called six-party talks [....]

By Cass R. Sunstein, Bloomberg View, May 20, 2013

There is no standard definition of the all-important term “wing nut,” so let’s provide one. A wing nut is someone who has a dogmatic commitment to an extreme political view (“wing”) that is false and at least a bit crazy (“nut”).

A wing nut might believe that George W. Bush is a fascist, that Barack Obama is a socialist, that big banks run the Department of the Treasury or that the U.S. intervened in Libya because of oil.

When wing nuts encounter people with whom they disagree, they immediately impugn their opponents’ motivations. Whatever their religion, they are devout Manicheans, dividing their fellow citizens into the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

Wing nuts have a lot of fellow travelers -- people who don’t fit the definition, yet who are similarly dogmatic and whose views, though not really crazy, aren’t exactly evidence-based. You can be a wing nut on a particular issue without being a wing nut in general. Most human beings can hear the voice, at least on occasion, of their inner wing nut.

The good news is that wing nuts usually don’t matter. The bad news is that they influence people who do. Sadly, more information often fails to correct people’s misunderstandings. In fact, it can backfire and entrench them. Can anything be done? [....]

By Nicholas Kulish, New York Times, May 22/23, 2013

BERLIN — Three of Europe’s most powerful countries — Britain, Germany and France — have thrown their weight behind a push for the European Union to designate the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, a move that could have far-reaching consequences for the group’s fund-raising activities on the Continent.

On Wednesday, Germany signaled an about-face in its policy toward the group, with a statement saying Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle supported listing “at least the military wing” of the organization as a terrorist group. The announcement came just a day after Britain’s Foreign Office said it would pursue doing the same, promising to “work closely with our European partners on this issue to reach a robust, collective E.U. position.”

France had been undecided, but on Wednesday night Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it would join Britain and Germany in seeking to have the “military wing” of Hezbollah put on the European Union terrorist list, according to Agence France-Presse.

Mr. Fabius was speaking in Amman, Jordan, after a meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People, a group designed to aid the rebellion against Mr. Assad.

If approved, such a move could choke off sources of funds from Hezbollah’s members and sympathizers throughout Europe [....]

Woolwich killing: meat cleaver, knife and jihadist claims filmed on mobile

By Vikram Dodd, Shiv Malik & Ben Quinn, guardian.co.uk, May 22,2013

Dramatic footage emerges of suspect after British soldier is killed in suspected terror attack

• British soldier dead in suspected terror attack in London
• Knife attack near barracks 'an eye for an eye', says suspect
• Killing in street is 'absolutely sickening' says prime minister

Also @ The Guardian:

• LIVE blog: latest on the Woolwich attack
• Woolwich killing: horror on John Wilson Street
• Meat cleaver and jihadist claims filmed on mobile
• Lone wolf and jihadist theories will occupy forces
• Woolwich: suspect believed to be involved - video
•  

By Jane Mayer of the New Yorker.  If you are wondering how far PBS is willing to go to placate David Koch to keep their funding?  It gives you a look into the special documentry "Citizen Koch" and its fall out.  The program was never aired except at Sundance.  David Koch resigned from WNET on May 16th. 

By Judith Durbin via vocativ.com 5/20

Syrian rebels under siege in a strategic city on the Lebanese border are increasingly turning to social media to wage psychological warfare, according to Vocativ analysts monitoring the region.

The town of Al Qusayr has become ground zero in the war between rebel fighters on the one side and the joint forces of President Bashar Al Assad and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on the other. Some of the most intense fighting has taken place there over the last few days. The New York Times reports both sides consider this battle a turning point in the larger civil war that has been raging for more than two years.

With so much at stake, Syrian rebel groups, who have been adept in the past at using Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, are now utilizing a fake twitter feed, which looks like that of Al-Manar, the official mouthpiece of Hezbollah.

By Aidan Foster-Carter, ForeignPolicy.com Op-Ed, May 20, 2013

[....] Pyongyang's faux rage at Security Council Resolutions 2087 of Jan. 22, and 2095 of March 7, which condemned its rocket launch and nuclear test respectively, recycled similar ludicrous canards it hurled at similar resolutions in 2006 and 2009, calling the Security Council, a "marionette of the U.S." A U.S. plot, and puppet? Hardly: Every resolution has been unanimous. China and Russia water down the wording, but they're on board. It's North Korea versus the world.

And that's just the way they like it. Some believe that all their banging and shouting is just a bumpkin's way of knocking on the door -- rude and rough, but they are out in the cold and they want in. If that were true, Kim Jong Un just missed a prime opportunity. [.....] Since 2011, she [South Korean President] has called for "trustpolitik." Vague? No. It means: I Am Not Lee Myung-bak (the former president who refused to negotiate with the North). Try me. We can do business.

Yet Kim Jong Un refused to give Park or peace a chance. As in 2006 and 2009 -- Pyongyang can be so predictable, when it's not being unpredictable -- Pyongyang followed its rocket launch with a nuclear test. Its timing -- on Feb. 12, 2013, a fortnight before Park's inauguration -- not only rained on her parade but guaranteed yet one more Security Council knuckle-rap to wax angry about. Pyongyang also took more than its usual umbrage at the U.S.-South Korean war games that roll around every spring. North Korea is even notified of the dates, so its shrieks that this is an invasion plan ring hollow. (The North Koreans don't believe their own propaganda, so nor should the rest of the world.) [....]

By James Dao, New York Times, May 18/19,2013

[....] As of Monday, just under 600,000 claims qualified as backlogged, meaning they had been pending for over 125 days.

Though the numbers have grown, delays in processing disability claims are nothing new, and neither are complaints about the backlog. Just last year, some veterans advocates tried to make the backlog a presidential campaign issue. They failed. But this year, something changed: the criticism grew louder and perhaps more partisan, and began reaching a wider audience.

A new conservative-leaning nonprofit organization, Concerned Veterans for America, produced the Web video calling for Mr. Shinseki’s resignation and is sponsoring a similar online petition, which has been signed by more than 9,000 people. Representative Duncan Hunter, a California Republican and Marine Corps veteran of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, has joined the call.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the largest organization representing the new generation of veterans, has also made the backlog the focus of aggressive lobbying in Washington, writing a letter signed by 67 senators that urges Mr. Obama to “take direct action” to resolve the problem. The group has stopped short, however, of calling for Mr. Shinseki’s resignation.

And perhaps most embarrassing for the administration, the backlog has become a repeated topic of outraged ridicule on “The Daily Show,” on which the host, Jon Stewart, has skewered the paper-choked bureaucracy in a series titled “The Red Tape Diaries.”[....]

By Brian Stelter and Michael D. Shear, New York Times, May 20/21, 2013:

The White House on Monday defended President Obama’s support for aggressive investigations into national security leaks despite new disclosures about a 2009 case in which the Justice Department searched a reporter’s personal e-mails and attempted to track his movements.

Details of the government’s investigation of the reporter, James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, emerged in a court affidavit obtained by The Washington Post. Without naming Mr. Rosen, the document describes the reporter as “at the very least, either as an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator.”

The case involved a 2009 article by Mr. Rosen about North Korea that was published on FoxNews.com. Mr. Rosen reported that intelligence officials expected North Korea to respond to the passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning its nuclear and ballistic missile tests by launching another missile. He quoted a source who described missile activity in North Korea, but Mr. Rosen said he was withholding some details “to avoid compromising sensitive overseas operations.”

The Justice Department subsequently investigated the leak and indicted a government adviser, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim. He has pleaded not guilty. The government used records tracking Mr. Rosen’s use of his security badge at the State Department, apparently trying to establish his connection to Mr. Kim.

Mr. Rosen was not charged with any crime. But the suggestion that he was a “co-conspirator” appalled many of his colleagues, some of whom rallied to his defense on Monday [.....]

Also see:

Gov't presses ahead on another leak case
By Pete Yost, Associated Press, May 20, 2013

WASHINGTON—In another case of the Obama administration investigating classified information improperly disclosed to reporters, the government is prosecuting a State Department expert on North Korea in a probe that appears to step into uncharted territory—by declaring that a journalist is committing a crime in disclosing leaked information. During the investigation of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, law enforcement officials obtained a search warrant for some private emails of James Rosen, the chief Washington correspondent for Fox News. Investigators also tracked Rosen's comings and goings from the State Department [.....]