By Taimoor Shah and Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, June 6, 2012
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Two blasts, at least one of which was set off by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle, killed more than 20 people on Wednesday near a large military installation in southern Afghanistan, according to witnesses and Afghan government officials.
By Siobhan Gordon and Adam Entous, Wall Street Journal, June 5, 2012
The Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to cut its presence in Iraq to less than half of wartime levels, according to U.S. officials familiar with the planning, a move that is largely a result of challenges the CIA faces operating in a country that no longer welcomes a major U.S. presence.
By Elisabeth Rosenthal, M.D., New York Times Sunday Review, June 2/3, 2012
[....] why do Americans, nearly alone on the planet, remain so devoted to the ritual physical exam and to all of these tests, and why do so many doctors continue to provide them? Indeed, the last decade has seen a boom in what hospitals and health care companies call “executive physicals” — batteries of screening exams for apparently healthy people, purporting to ferret out hidden disease with the zeal of Homeland Security officers searching for terrorists.
By Tim Arango and Clifford Krauss, New York Times, June 2/3, 2012
BAGHDAD — Despite sectarian bombings and political gridlock, Iraq’s crude oil production is soaring, providing a singular bright spot for the nation’s future and relief for global oil markets as the West tightens sanctions on Iranian exports.
The increased flow and vital port improvements have produced a 20 percent jump in exports this year [....]
By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2012
BEIJING — China has arrested an employee of the Ministry of State Security on suspicion of spying for the United States, Hong Kong media reported Friday [....]
The employee is said to be a 38-year-old man who was a secretary to Qiu Jin, the deputy minister of state security. He is alleged to have been recruited and trained by the CIA and was arrested sometime this year [....]
By Ed Pilkington in New York, Guardian.co.uk, June 2, 2012
The UN's special rapporteur on torture has made a formal approach to the US government over a special-needs school near Boston that inflicts electric shocks on autistic children as a form of behavioural control.
Juan Mendez has told the Guardian that he has opened discussions with the US mission to the UN in Geneva as a first step towards investigating the school.
As Greece prepares for a June 17 election that may determine whether it exits the euro, the attention has shifted to Spain, where the problems are different—and much larger. Greece’s troubles stem from excessive government borrowing; Spain suffers from a property bust and its banks remain crippled by an estimated €184 billion ($230 billion) in troubled real estate assets. The government is struggling to devise a rescue plan as the country grapples with a deepening recession and 24 percent unemployment.
By David E. Sanger, New York Times, June 1/2, 2012
WASHINGTON — From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.
In the 1990s, the term “digital divide” emerged to describe technology’s haves and have-nots. It inspired many efforts to get the latest computing tools into the hands of all Americans, particularly low-income families.
Those efforts have indeed shrunk the divide. But they have created an unintended side effect [.....]
By Marlisle Simons and J. David Goodman, New York Times, May 30/31, 2012
LEIDSCHENDAM, Netherlands — Charles G. Taylor, the former president of Liberia and a once-powerful warlord, was sentenced on Wednesday to 50 years in prison over his role in atrocities committed in Sierra Leone during its civil war in the 1990s.
By Keith Bradsher, New York Times Business, May 29/30, 2012
HONG KONG — Four years ago, the BYD Company promoted the electric battery technology it was developing as a way to help China transform the automobile. No less an investor than Warren E. Buffett, one of the world’s richest men, boasted about the company’s prospects and bought a 10 percent stake.
Security software company Symantec (SYMC) has released its Internet Security Threat report for 2011, and it is packed with interesting information about the relative risks of online activity [....]
In a ceremony honoring 2012 recipients of the Medal of Freedom, President Obama on Tuesday said he was "extremely grateful" to be able to personally thank the honorees "for the great work they have done" in America and worldwide. In remarks at the White House, the president celebrated each honoree for "the incredible impact they have had on so many people, not in short, blinding bursts, but steadily over the course of a lifetime." [.....]
The Syrian infection is spreading. Whether Lebanon will be fully set aflame by the violence in its northern neighbor is as difficult to answer as who precisely started the clashes which engulfed at least two Lebanese cities over the past week.
Regardless, the chaos in both countries is growing, and the United Nations peace plan for Syria (dubbed the "Kofi Annan plan" after the former UN secretary general who spearheads the initiative) has practically collapsed [....]
By Keith Bradsher, New York Times, May 24/25, 2012
XI’AN, China — A nationwide real estate downturn, stalling exports and declining consumer confidence have produced what a Chinese cabinet adviser, quoted on the official government Web site on Thursday, characterized as a “sharp slowdown in the economy.”
By Giles Tremlett in Madrid, Guardian.co.uk, May 24, 2012
The spiralling cost of bailing out Spain's fourth largest bank, Bankia, rose further on Thursday night after sources close to the bank said it would ask for more than €15bn (£12bn) from the government on Friday.
Bankia, partially nationalised by the government earlier this month, is the weak spot in Spain's fragile banking system where loan losses stemming from a 2008 property crash threaten to push the country into seeking international assistance [......]
Protests that began in opposition to tuition fees in Canada have exploded into a political crisis with the mass arrest of hundreds of demonstrators amid a backlash against draconian emergency laws.
