By Joshua Foust, Op-Ed @ ForeignPolicy.com, May 14, 2013

Why human rights advocates should stop worrying about the phantom fear of autonomy.

(Joshua Foust is a national security columnist for PBS and the editor of the Central Asia blog Registan.net. His website is joshuafoust.com.)

This is a surprising op-ed from someone who is as far from a dilettante on the Afghanistan area as someone from the West can be.

By Chris Cillizza, Washington Post, May 14, 2013

BBC News, May 14, 2013

A steeper-than-expected rise in US shale oil reserves is about to change the global balance of power between new and existing producers, a report says.

Over the next five years, the US will account for a third of new oil supplies, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The US will change from the world's leading importer of oil to a net exporter.

By Ewen MacAskill in Washington, guardian.co.uk, May 13, 2013

[....] The US attorney's office for the District of Columbia confirmed on Monday that subpoenas had been issued for phone records. It said it valued press freedom but it had to balance this against the public interest.

AP revealed on Monday that the justice department, without informing the organisation in advance, had obtained two months' worth of phone records of calls made by reporters and editors. [....]

By Tony Pugh, McClatchy Newspapers, May 10, 2013

WASHINGTON — A New York federal judge on Friday denied a request by the Obama administration to delay his April 5 court order that allows emergency contraceptives to be sold without age limits or a prescription.

In a sharply-worded decision, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of Brooklyn said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to stay his order pending an appeal was “frivolous” and “taken for the purpose of delay.”

By Eric Lipton, New York Times, May 11/12, 2013

WASHINGTON — The government of South Korea hired a former C.I.A. analyst, two White House veterans and a team of ex-Congressional staff members to help secure a few paragraphs in the giant immigration bill.

By Tom Watkins and Gul Tuysuz, CNN, May 11, 2013

Istanbul -- A top Turkish official blamed Syria and its secret police for Saturday's bombings in the southern Turkish town of Reyhanli in which dozens of people were killed and scores were wounded.

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay leveled the accusation against President Bashar al-Assad's government and the Mukhabarat, Syria's secret police, in comments aired by the Turkish news agency Cihan.

Urban farms are lovely but they aren't actually green.

By Will Boisvert, New York Observer, April 22, 2013 issue

I have no idea where my food comes from, but I hope it’s shipped by rail from a California factory farm.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m an environmentalist, not an agribusiness executive. But I’m an environmentalist who can do math, and the numbers on locavorism, like much else in green-urbanist food ideology, don’t add up. 

By Hussein Dakroub, The Daily Star, Lebanon, May 10, 2013

BEIRUT: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said Thursday Syria would supply his party with “game-changing” weapons in response to last week’s Israeli airstrikes on Damascus that reportedly targeted shipments of sophisticated Iranian arms destined for the group.

By Clayton Sandell & Carol McKinley, ABC News, May 7, 2013

By Kenneth Raposa, Forbes, May 9, 2013

China’s president Xi Jinping pledged his support to the people of Palestine earlier this week, and then did the same to Benjamin Netanyahu and the people of Israel on Thursday. Xi is not picking sides in this fight. [.....]

By Marc Santoro, New York Times, May 9/10, 2013

It was a huge bank heist – but a 21st-century version in which the robbers never wore ski masks, threatened a teller or set foot in a vault.

Yet, in two precision operations that involved people in more than two dozen countries acting in close coordination and with surgical precision, the organization was able to steal $45 million from thousands of A.T.M.'s in a matter of hours.

By Ken Wells & Ari Levy, Bloomberg News, May 6, 2013

In 1999, Al Gore, then U.S. vice president and a Democratic candidate for president, sold $6,000 worth of cows.

Agence France Presse, May 6, 2013

A Kenyan court on Monday sentenced two Iranians to life in prison on terror-related charges, including the possession of explosives allegedly to be used in bomb attacks.

"I shudder to imagine the amount of damage that could have been seen," judge Kiarie Waweru Kiarie told the court in the capital Nairobi.

Ahmed Mohammed and Sayed Mansour, who were arrested last June, were found guilty of possessing 15 kilos (33 pounds) of the powerful explosive RDX.

By Shafiq Alam, Agence France Presse, 1 hour ago

DHAKA — Hundreds of thousands of Islamists demanding a new blasphemy law on Sunday blocked highways and fought running battles with police, leaving 10 people dead and hundreds injured in the Bangladeshi capital.

By James Meek from Cyprus, London Review of Books, May 2013 issue

Ahvaz, May 4, IRNA – Iran on Saturday expressed outrage at desecration of Islamic sanctities by terrorist groups in Syria.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned desecration of sanctities and exhuming of Prophet Mohammadˈs disciple, Hojr ibn Uday, by the Wahhabi terrorist groups in Syria.

By David Rohde, The Atlantic, May 4, 2013

The world, and particularly the Middle East, are changing. But Washington is not. From Kabul in 2001 to Tunis today, Washington has struggled to identify, work with and strengthen local moderates, and has done a poor job of implementing its policies and promises.

This article is adapted from David Rohde's new book, Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East.

By Tim Arango in Amara, Iraq, New York Times, May 3, 2013

Photo shows Gov. Dwai Clad in his trademark blue auto mechanic’s outfit. Credit: Adam Ferguson for the NYT.