By Colum Lynch, Turtle Bay @ ForeignPolicy.com, June 19, 2013
The Somali militant movement al-Shabab today launched a deadly strike against a U.N. humanitarian compound in Mogadishu that killed one international staffer, three contractors, four Somali security guards, and an unknown number of Somali civilians.
Then the group gloated about it in a creepy series of Twitter posts.
By Dan Roberts in Washington, guardian.co.uk, 16 June, 2013
[....] Speaking in a hearing mainly about telephone data collection, the bureau's director, Robert Mueller, said it used drones to aid its investigations in a "very, very minimal way, very seldom".
However, the potential for growing drone use either in the US, or involving US citizens abroad, is an increasingly charged issue in Congress, and the FBI acknowleged there may need to be legal restrictions placed on their use to protect privacy.
CAIRO - Egypt's tourism minister tendered his resignation on Tuesday over President Mohamed Mursi's decision to appoint as governor of Luxor a member of a hardline Islamist group blamed for slaughtering 58 tourists there in 1997.
Prime Minister Hisham Kandil did not accept the resignation of Tourism Minister Hisham Zaazou, who remains in the post for now. However, the move pointed to a split in government over an appointment that one critic called "the last nail in the coffin" of the tourism industry.
CAIRO (Ma'an) -- Egypt has declared a state of alert in the Sinai after extremist Islamist fighters set up a military base in the peninsula, Egyptian security officials said Monday. Egyptian forces and police have imposed curfews on Sinai cities el-Arish, Sheikh Zuweid and Rafah. Military helicopters were seen hovering over the cities, a Ma'an reporter said.
Before leaving for this week's G-8 summit in the United Kingdom, President Obama sat down with Charlie Rose in the White House Library for a 45-minute interview on topics ranging from Syria to the National Security Agency.
That discussion will air tonight at 11:00 PM on PBS stations across the country. For more specifics, check your local listings.
By Toby Matthiesen, New York Review of Books blog, June 12, 2013.
Synopsis: Pictures of Hezbollah militants standing amid the ruins of al-Qusayr, the former Syrian rebel stronghold, have offered dramatic evidence of the extent to which foreign Shia fighters are shifting the course of the Syrian war. But Bashar al-Assad is head of an ostensibly secular regime and many Shia think that Alawites are heretics. Why exactly is Hezbollah getting involved, and is this conflict really rooted in religion?
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is the most popular potential 2016 candidate in the Republican Party — and the least popular with the GOP base, according to a new Gallup poll.
Those numbers come as Christie is set to appear with former President Clinton Friday evening — instead of stopping by the annual Faith & Freedom Coalition gathering of religious conservatives, an event that drew many other potential GOP presidential candidates [.....]
The BBC has condemned "unprecedented levels of intimidation" of BBC employees' families by Iran ahead of Friday's presidential elections.
It said Iran had warned the families of 15 BBC Persian Service staff that they must stop working for the BBC or their lives in London would be endangered.
The family members themselves had been threatened that they may lose jobs and be barred from travelling abroad [....]
By Spencer Ackerman in Washington, guardian.co.uk, 13 June, 2013
A senior undercover CIA officer, accused by the spy agency of "war crimes", has alleged that it halted an internal investigation that could have exonerated him and placed him under surveillance instead.
By Bill Chappell, The Two Way @ npr.org, June 11, 2013
As Google and other large tech companies cope with the aftermath of recent reports that the National Security Agency has had broad access to their users' data, the search giant is asking the U.S. government for permission to publish the number of national security requests it receives, including those made under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Home page teaser: Homicides in the city have dipped to a level not seen since the early 1960s, a decline credited in part to a comprehensive analysis of suspected gang members.
CHICAGO — A year after this city drew new attention for soaring gun violence and gang bloodshed, creating a political test for Mayor Rahm Emanuel in President Obama’s hometown, Chicago has witnessed a drop in shootings and crime. Killings this year have dipped to a level not seen since the early 1960s.
By Ian Johnson, NY Review of Books Blog, June6,2013
One of the most striking features about daily life in China is how much of what one encounters has been appropriated from elsewhere. It’s not just the fake iPhones or luxury watches—pirated consumer goods are common in many developing countries. In many Chinese cities, foreign ideas and concepts are constantly being used to shape the external reality, from clothes and pop music to contemporary art and film. [....]
By Allan Kozinn, New York Times/Music, June 9/10, 2013
Vinyl is growing out of its niche. [....]
These days, every major label and many smaller ones are releasing vinyl, and most major new releases have a vinyl version, leading to a spate of new pressing plants [....]
