By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer, Army Times, Sep 14, 2012
Top military investigators downplayed warnings about the alleged shooter in the November 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, and opted not to interview him before the tragedy because they feared casting suspicion upon him would harm his Army career, experts told lawmakers Friday.
By Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei, Politico.com Sepetember 16, 2012
Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s top strategist, knew his candidate’s convention speech needed a memorable mix of loft and grace if he was going to bound out of Tampa with an authentic chance to win the presidency. So Stevens, bypassing the speechwriting staff at the campaign’s Boston headquarters, assigned the sensitive task of drafting it to Peter Wehner, a veteran of the last three Republican White Houses and one of the party’s smarter wordsmiths.
By Tan Ee Lyn and Hui Li, Reuters, September 16, 2012
GUANGZHOU/BEIJING - Beijing is struggling to deal with an increasingly violent flashpoint of social unrest in its healthcare system, as its latest bid to cut costs is failing to ease tensions among millions of people who cannot afford basic treatment.
By Julie Pace, Associated Press, September 16, 2012
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will launch a new trade enforcement case against China Monday, using the power of incumbency to counter Republican Mitt Romney's criticism that he is ceding American jobs to the Asian power.
By Alissa J Rubin, New York Times, September 16/17, 2012 (Matthew Rosenberg and Habib Zahori contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan.)
KABUL, Afghanistan — An audacious Taliban attack on a heavily fortified base in southern Afghanistan did far more damage than initially reported, destroying or severely damaging eight attack jets in the most destructive single strike on Western matériel in the 11-year war, military officials said Sunday.
DIYARBAKIR - Turkish armed forces have killed 75 Kurdish militants near the border with Iran and Iraq over the past week, a provincial governor said on Friday, as a major offensive involving air strikes and several thousand ground troops intensifies.
A Panasonic Corp. factory and a Toyota Motor Corp. dealership in China were damaged by fire as demonstrations over a territorial dispute with Japan widened, prompting Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to urge the Chinese government to ensure the safety of its citizens.
By Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Observer, 15 September 2012
In Iran, the country I was born in and where I lived until three years ago, public hanging is a horrific but familiar scene for many, at least for those living close to city centres and public squares. Once as a child, on my way to school, I became an inadvertent spectator of an execution, my eyes shocked at seeing the guards draping a rope around the neck of a convict. The sight has haunted me ever since.
By Erika Solomon and Tom Heneghan in Beirut, Reuters, September 16, 2012
Pope Benedict urged Middle Eastern Christians on Sunday to work for peace and against "the grim trail of death and destruction" in the world, in a sermon delivered in Lebanon as civil war raged in neighboring Syria.
Benedict was speaking at an open-air Mass on Beirut's Mediterranean seafront attended by 350,000 worshippers, according to the organizers' estimate, and leaders of Lebanon's Christian and Muslim communities including from militant Shi'ite group Hezbollah [....]
Associated Press in Washington, September 16, 2012
The US state department has ordered non-essential staff from its embassies in Sudan and Tunisia to leave with their families and warned its citizens against travelling to the two countries owing to concerns over rising anti-American violence.
[....] The closure of the airport prompted speculation that the United States was deploying special forces in preparation for an attack against the militants who were involved in the attack.
By David D Kirkpatrick, Helene Cooper and Mark Landler, New York Times, September 13/14, 2012
CAIRO — Following a blunt phone call from President Obama, Egyptian leaders scrambled Thursday to try to repair the country’s alliance with Washington, tacitly acknowledging that they erred in their response to the attack on the United States Embassy by seeking to first appease anti-American domestic opinion without offering a robust condemnation of the violence [....]
By Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, CNN, September 13, 2012
The latest in a flurry of messages from al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri shows his growing interest in exploiting violence in Syria. In a 35-minute audio address posted on jihadist forums on Wednesday, Zawahiri claimed the United States was actually supporting the Assad regime to prevent an Islamist state from taking its place.
By Rory Carroll in Los Angeles, guardian.co.uk, 12 September 2012
The hunt for the maker of the anti-Islamic video that inflamed mayhem in Egypt and Libya and triggered a diplomatic crisis has led to a Californian Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes.
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives outside Los Angeles, confirmed on Wednesday he managed and provided logistics for The Innocence of Muslims.
By Salman Masood, Zia ur-Rehman and Declan Walsh, New York Times,
September 12, 2012
KARACHI, Pakistan — Fire ravaged a textile factory complex in the commercial hub of Karachi early Wednesday, killing almost 300 workers trapped behind locked doors and raising questions about the woeful lack of regulation in a vital sector of Pakistan’s faltering economy.
By Rich Morin and Seth Motel, Pew Research Center, Sept. 10, 2012
The percentage of Americans who say they are in the lower-middle or lower class has risen from a quarter of the adult population to about a third in the past four years, according to a national survey of 2,508 adults by the Pew Research Center.
By Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine, September 7, 2012
[....] Romney is targeting eight states: Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. No Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania. This is surely not because Romney is husbanding scarce cash [....]
