By Alison Shale & Jack Ewing, New York Times, Sept. 23, 2013

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel took steps on Monday to form a new government, a day after she scored a stunning personal triumph in German national elections that cemented her position as the most powerful politician in Europe.

Ms. Merkel became the only major European leader to be re-elected twice since the financial crisis of 2008, winning a strong popular endorsement for her mix of austerity and solidarity in managing the troubled euro zone.

On Monday morning, Ms. Merkel met with leaders of her center-right Christian Democratic party to discuss strategy for forming a coalition government, most likely with the center-left Social Democrats, who finished second in the polling [....]

Ms. Merkel said Monday that she did not expect German policy toward the euro zone to change, a statement that is likely to come as a disappointment to other European leaders who hoped she would be open to bolder action once the election was behind her [....]

The surprising show of strength for Ms. Merkel and the Christian Democrats — even their own polls had not suggested such a result — was just short of an absolute majority, according to preliminary results published on Monday. No chancellor has achieved an absolute majority since Konrad Adenauer in 1957 [....]

Sometimes the arcane politics of NYC vomits up a people's mayor.  It seems about to happen again.  Perhaps the example of a vigorous populist/progressive will shame that reprobate in the White House into some semblance of activism.

Mara Hvistendahl made waves in 2011 with Unnatural Selection,  her book profiling the global rise of sex-selective abortions. But two new studies highlighted by The Economist say the problem is poised to get worse.

The studies look at the Caucasus, where the popularity of sex-selection rivals Asia’s high rates of male preference. The natural ratio of men to women is 105 men born for every 100 females. But in places like Georgia, the ratio is 120 to 100, and in Armenia, if the first child is a female, 61 percent of second children are sons. The scariest thing uncovered by the studies is that there could be more to come

Well a few things have been on my mind and building up, so let’s begin.

Charter Schools and Voucher programs:  There is no evidence that Charter Schools are any better than public schools, there is evidence however that they are much, much worse. What is this about, the incessant need to cheap out on our children? What I mean by cheap out here is, the hiring of unqualified individuals with crackpots ideas to teach our children.

Read the rest at The Angriest Liberal

By Bernard Avishai, News Desk @ newyorker.com, Sept. 20, 2013

Editor's introduction: This is one of two explorations of whether a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a future. The other is by Yousef Munayyer, "Thinking outside the Two-State Box."

(The name of the author of the first essay may be familiar to some as a contributor at TPMCafe. Both have biographical entries on wikipedia, Avishai here and Munayyer here.)

By Michael Martinez. Faith Karimi and Zain Verjee, CNN, September 21, 2013, updated 3:21 PM EDT

Members of Al-Shabaab -- the militant group linked to al Qaeda that's claimed responsibility for Saturday's deadly mall attack in Kenya -- tweeted that "there will be no negotiations whatsoever" at the mall.

Al-Shabaab also tweeted Saturday that "all Muslims inside #Westgate" -- referring to the Kenyan mall that was attacked -- "were escorted out by the Mujahideen before" the violence began.

Police and gunmen were facing off Saturday night in an upscale shopping mall in the Kenyan capital after an attack that killed at least 30 people, authorities said [....]

By Nahal Toosi, The Associated Press, Sept. 19, 2013

[....] It's a remarkable trend in a nation where just 12 years ago the Taliban government barred girls from attending school and many educated Afghans were forced to flee. Some 7,870 students attended Afghan colleges before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001; today, the figure is up around 26-fold to almost 204,000, as many as a fifth of them women, according to the Ministry of Higher Education.

The growth has been possible in part because Afghan leaders realized that the country's public universities, decimated by years of war, couldn't meet the demand for seats. So in 2006 they legalized private higher education.

Today, 70 private institutions of higher education operate in Afghanistan, educating about 74,000 students, or more than a third of the total, according to the ministry. Many are like Kardan, set up by businessmen with little or no background in academia. Some are backed by foreign governments striving for influence here, and at least one is run by an ex-Taliban leader. 

Education authorities say steps are being taken to ensure that the private schools are not merely money-making schemes. But even critics agree that a thriving private sector is crucial for education in this country of 30 million people, two-thirds of whom are 24 or younger [....]

In the opposition's view, the deal with Russia contains a de facto admission of the legitimacy of the Assad government, undermining the goal of Syrian uprising and the likelihood that any peace talks will result in Assad's removal.

U.S. President Barack Obama said this week that while it was still his goal to "transition" Assad out of power, dealing with his chemical weapons would come first.

Diplomats who monitored a major opposition meeting in Istanbul at the weekend said a lack of flexibility by the coalition in the way it deals with the changing diplomatic priorities, as spelled out by Obama, could rob the opposition of Western support.

The Arab- and Western-backed Free Syrian Army needs what friends it can get as it struggles to deal with mounting chaos in rebel areas.

By Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, Washington Post Guest Op-Ed, Sept. 19/20, 2013

[....] The world has changed. International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities [....]

Read the whole thing. He's not just talking to the U.S. and the E.U., but to all of his fellow leaders in his part of the world as well. He specifically mentions Syria-- I announce my government’s readiness to help facilitate dialogue between the Syrian government and the opposition-- Iraq, Afghanistan and Bahrain. The words Israel and Palestine are conspicuously missing.

Guns don't kill people, gun carriers kill people.  Or gun carriers kill gun carriers kill gun carriers.  Either way, stop blaming the guns.

By Martin Lukacs, Suzanne Goldenberg & Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 19 September 2013

Russia is pushing for next week's landmark UN climate science report to include support for controversial technologies to geoengineer the planet's climate, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.

As climate scientists prepare to gather for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Stockholm to present the most authoritative state of climate science to date, it has emerged the Russian government is asking for "planet hacking" to be included in the report. The IPCC has not included geoengineering in its major assessments before.

The documents seen by the Guardian show Russia is asking for a conclusion of the report to say that a "possible solution of this [climate change] problem can be found in using of [sic] geoengineering methods to stabilise current climate." Russia also highlighted that its scientists are developing geoengineering technologies.

Geoengineering aims to cool the Earth by methods including spraying sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight, or fertilising the oceans with iron to create carbon-capturing algal blooms [....]