By Catherine Rampell, New York Times, Dec. 14/15, 2013
[....] It turns out that the real bottleneck is at the post-med-school step: residencies, those supervised, intensive, hazing-like, on-the-job training programs that doctors are required to go through before they can practice on their own.
New guidelines suggest that people over 60 can have a higher blood pressure than previously recommended before starting treatment to lower it. The advice, criticized by some physicians, changes treatment goals that have been in place for more than 30 years [....]
Tamerlan, the eldest, started hearing the voice as a young man. It disturbed him. It frightened him, as the voice inside grew more insistent. It may in the end have directed him.
More than 50 people were detained in Turkey, many with government ties, in a corruption probe that could destabilize Prime Minister Erdogan's power base.
By Alexander Christie-Miller, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 17, 2013
Istanbul - Turkish police today detained more than 50 people, including the sons of three cabinet ministers, in a corruption probe striking close to the heart of government.
'Pajama boy' is going viral, but perhaps not the way its creators, a political nonprofit with ties to President Obama, intended. Millennials may not be as ironic as the ad meisters think they are.
By Peter Grier, Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 18, 2013
By Mansour Mirovalev and Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, Dec. 17/18, 2013
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan — For most of the year, Dr. Tamara Khidoyatova treats patients as a doctor at a hospital here in this picturesque, old Silk Road city. But for a few weeks every autumn, she is forced to pick cotton, for which she is paid little or nothing.
By Ezra Klein, Wonk Blog @ Washingtonpost.com, Dec. 17, 2013
The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll asked respondents whether they trust Obama or the Republicans in Congress to do a better job "coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years." Forty-one percent said they trusted Obama. Forty-one percent said they trusted Republicans in Congress.
By Steven Erlanger, New York Times, Dec. 15/16, 2013
[....] “We’ve seen several red lines put forward by the president, which went along and became pinkish as time grew, and eventually ended up completely white,” said Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia. “When that kind of assurance comes from a leader of a country like the United States, we expect him to stand by it.” He added, “There is an issue of confidence.”
By Michael R. Gordon, Mark Landler and Anne Barnard, New York Times, Dec. 11/12, 2013
[....] The administration acted after warehouses of American-supplied equipment were seized Friday by the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist fighters who have broken with the moderate, American-backed opposition, but who also battle Al Qaeda.
WATERLOO, Ontario — Canada’s postal service said Wednesday that it would cease home delivery over the next five years, and substantially increase postal rates.
Nearly 230 million children under the age of five have not had their births officially recorded, excluding them from education, health care and social security, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today reported.
That is approximately one in three of all children under five who are unregistered or lack proof of registration, the agency said in a report released to coincide with its 67th birthday.
"There is almost no science fiction in the region -- it does not exist as a genre," Bahjatt told Foreign Policy. After seeing the immense popularity of Hawjan, he stressed that the dearth can't be attributed to a lack of demand and instead blamed it on the restrictions of conservative Islamic society. "In the past two decades in the region, imagination has been systematically shut down ... I think part of it might be religious.
By By David M. Herszenhorn and Andrew E. Kramer, New York Times, Dec. 11, 2013
KIEV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian authorities’ surprise decision to storm the central square occupied by antigovernment protesters here early Wednesday sharply escalated tensions with Western leaders, while an equally abrupt pullout by the police after a nine-hour siege created a growing sense of unpredictability about President Viktor F. Yanukovich’s handling of the crisis.
[.....] Mr. Jang’s purge was highly unusual for North Korea not only because its victim was a man long considered a core member of Mr. Kim’s inner circle but also because of the way the regime abandoned its customary secrecy about internal politics and publicized the purge — through front-page coverage in the North’s state-run newspapers and through the televised spectacle of party secretaries, some tearfully, attacking a man who was until recently the North’s second most powerful figure.
