Hectic diplomacy and preparations for a UN-backed war against a branch of al-Qaeda in the Sahara desert are both proceeding apace [....]
BY THE end of this month an array of Western and African governments and regional bodies is supposed, according to a resolution passed unanimously last month in the UN Security Council, to have drawn up a detailed military plan to save the northern chunk of Mali from a clutch of Islamist rebel groups with ties to al-Qaeda. [....]
By By M K Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline blog @ rediff.com, Nov. 4, 2012
Eyebrows will be raised that Saudi Arabia has resuscitated its ten-year old plan to construct a mosque and education centre in a massive 30-hectre hilltop complex overlooking Kabul, costing $100 million. The project is to be completed at breakneck speed by early 2016, in about an year after the NATO’s withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The move is aimed at bolstering Saudi influence in Afghanistan as the west withdraws.
An estimated 700,000 people gathered around the city's landmark obelisk and other main avenues to march towards the Casa Rosada, the Argentine seat of government.
From Helene Cooper's "Marathon Over, A Quiet Return to the White House," New York Times, Nov. 8/9, 2012
[....] Two days after his re-election, Mr. Obama had made no public remarks outside his victory speech early Wednesday, which many people missed because they had gone to bed.
WASHINGTON — The Army private accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks has notified a court-martial judge that he may plead guilty to at least some of the actions he is accused of, according to David Coombs, his lawyer.
By Thom Shanker & Rick Gladstone, New York Times, Nov. 8/9, 2012
WASHINGTON — Iranian warplanes fired at an unmanned American military surveillance drone in international airspace over the Persian Gulf last week, Pentagon officials disclosed Thursday, saying that while the aircraft was not hit, Washington made a strong protest to Tehran.
A powerful northeaster pushing through the New York area has blanketed the region with a thick layer of snow that is more than seven inches deep in some places.
By Justin Sink, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Nov. 7, 2012
Puerto Rico for the first time Tuesday voted to seek statehood within the United States, passing a nonbinding resolution asking the U.S. Congress to consider changing the status of the Caribbean island.
According to results from The Associated Press, 54 percent of Puerto Ricans said they wanted to change their territorial relationship with the United States while 46 percent preferred the current association with the American government, with 96 percent of precincts reporting.
By Jeff Plungis and Frederic Tomesco, Bloomberg News, November 05, 2012
On top of having to fix damaged tracks and an operations center ruined by floodwaters, New Jersey Transit’s biggest obstacle to restoring full service for 276,000 daily rail commuters may be finding cars and engines.
Apple paid less than 2% corporation tax on its profits outside the US, its filing with US regulators has shown. The company paid $713m (£445m) in the year to 29 September on foreign pre-tax profits of $36.8bn, a rate of 1.9%.
It is the latest company to be identified as paying low rates of overseas tax, following Starbucks, Facebook and Google in recent weeks [....]
All of the companies pay considerable amounts of other taxes in the UK, such as National Insurance, and raise large sums of VAT [....]
Interview by Claudio Gallo, Asia Times Online, Nov. 3, 2012
Home page lede:
It's a commonplace that life is "getting faster", but blaming - or thanking - modern technology is to put the cart before horse, says "social acceleration" specialist Hartmut Rosa. Nor is the "race" any longer about reaching a goal or improving one's position; it is about not falling back, not regressing into chaos and crisis.
Editorial Board, New York Times, November 2/3, 2012
The accusation against two American sailors for the rape of a woman in Okinawa in October has worsened tensions on the island, already inflamed by the recent deployment of the troubled MV-22 Osprey aircraft to the Marine Corps base in the city of Ginowan . Okinawans may be running out of adjectives to express their resentment and anger at being unwilling hosts for more than half of the 50,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan [....]
Cuba has accused the United States of helping Cuban dissidents access the internet as part of a campaign to undermine the communist government. In a foreign ministry statement, Cuba said [....]
The US has said it simply allows Cubans access to computers and free courses on how to use the internet. Access to the internet in Cuba is severely restricted, but some activists have used it to challenge the government. [....]
