By Timothy Williams, New York Times, Feb 2/3, 2012
WIND RIVER INDIAN RESERVATION, Wyo. — [....] The Obama administration, which has made reducing crime a priority in its attempt to improve the quality of life at dozens of Indian reservations plagued by violence, recently ended a two-year crime-fighting initiative at Wind River and three other reservations deemed to be among the country’s most dangerous.
By Leslie Kaufman and Kate Zernike, New York Times, Feb. 3/4, 2012
Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
KITAKYUSHU, Japan — Two years ago, the authorities in this gritty rust-belt region declared war on the yakuza, Japan’s entrenched organized crime syndicates. And that is exactly what they got.
Sources with direct knowledge of the Komen decision-making process said recent policies were adopted specifically to cut funding to Planned Parenthood.
Update: Mollie Williams, the Komen official who resigned to protest the organization's decision to defund Planned Parenthood, sent me a statement, which is reprinted in full at the end of this post [....]
Note: Went there to see what he had to say on the Iran/Israel news; found this instead atop his posts!
By David Ignatius, Washington Post Opinion, Feb. 2, 2012
BRUSSELS – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these days [....] But his biggest worry is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months.
By Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, Feb. 1, 2012
BRUSSELS — In a major milestone toward ending a decade of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that American forces would step back from a combat role there as early as mid-2013, more than a year before all American troops are scheduled to come home.
With photos & CBS News video with Egyptian TV clips.
CAIRO - Soccer fans rushed the field after the home team won an unexpected victory over Egypt's top squad Wednesday, setting off clashes and a stampede that left at least 73 people dead and 1,000 injured in a Mediterranean port city, officials said.
It was the worst incident of soccer violence in Egypt and the deadliest worldwide since 1996 [....]
Document based on interrogations of Taliban and al-Qaida detainees says Pakistan is backing the resurgent movement
[....] The report, The State of the Taliban 2012, is the latest of a series drawn up by aUS special operations taskforce on the basis of interrogations with 4,000 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees.
By Michael Cooper, New York Times, Jan. 30/31, 2012
A year after a coterie of new Republican governors swept into the statehouses and put in place aggressive agendas to cut spending and curb union powers, sparking strong backlashes in many places, many of them are adopting decidedly more moderate tones as they begin their sophomore year in office.
By the New York Times Editorial Board, Jan. 31/Feb. 1, 2012
On Wednesday, Senate Democrats are expected to create legislation that would require million-dollar earners to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. Even if the bill faces a brick wall of Republican opposition, which it will, a vote on this proposal cannot come soon enough.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's re-election campaign identified its top fundraisers on Tuesday, including 61 people who each raised at least half a million dollars. Altogether, the more than 440 fundraisers collected at least $75 million to help Obama win a second term [....]
By Column Lynch, Turtle Bay column @ Foreignpolicy.com, Jan 31, 2012
[...] the findings have become the focus of a diplomatic feud between Russia and the Security Council's main European powers -- which are set to debate taking more forceful position on Syria today [....]
My note: For those of you that don't check out Lynch's PDF of the leaked 18-page doc, I can't let you miss out on the starting invocation:
The Easter referred to in my clip was in 2011 and not 1938:
By Helen Pidd in Gyöngyöspata, Guardian.co.uk, Jan. 27, 2012
[.....] Until last Easter, 31-year-old Váradi had never left Gyöngyöspata, an old village 50 miles north-east of Budapest, which then had a population of about 2,800, including 450 Roma.
By Julian Borger and Charles Arthur, Guardian.co.uk, Jan. 27, 2012
[....] The company was accused of censorship by many users and threatened with a one-day boycott on Saturday after announcing that it could remove tweets in certain countries which have "different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression".
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, Jan. 25 online & Jan. 30, 2012 issue cover story
In a dramatic speech in Berlin this week, the IMF chief warned that the world could soon face another Great Depression, calling for a $1 trillion firewall in lending resources. As the world gathers in Davos to discuss the crisis, Lagarde talks exclusively to Newsweek's Christopher Dickey about her plan.
