By Joby Warrick, Washington Post, October 20, 2011, 9:00am EDT
KABUL — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Pakistan on Thursday to eradicate terrorist safe havens inside its borders, saying there would be a “very big price” for inaction against militant groups staging attacks in Afghanistan.
The horrors of the story out of Philadelphia, of the gang who imprisoned and tortured developmentally disabled people in dungeons in order to collect their SSI checks, just keep coming and coming. It could encompass as many as 50 victims over 5 states, and past deaths.
A highly sophisticated computer worm which has many of the same characteristics of the virus used to attack Iran's nuclear programme has been discovered targeting companies in Europe
Although the virus appears to have been spying on the systems it infiltrates - rather than attempting to vandalise them - experts say its code is so similar to the Stuxnet worm that attacked Iran, that it may have been engineered by the same people.
Turkish commandos supported by bombers and helicopter gunships have crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas who killed 26 soldiers and wounded at least 18 others in co-ordinated attacks on military outposts.
Fifteen militants from the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' party) were killed when Turkish troops advanced about two miles into Iraqi territory, in Turkey's first major ground offensive in the region since 2008.
Iran’s nuclear program, which stumbled badly after a reported cyber attack last year, appears beset by poorly performing equipment, shortages of parts and other woes as global sanctions exert a mounting toll, Western diplomats and nuclear experts say.....
Although Iran continues to stockpile enriched uranium in defiance of U.N. resolutions, two new reports portray the country’s nuclear program as riddled with problems as scientists struggle to keep older equipment working.
By C. J. Chivers, New York Times, October 16/17, 2011
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHARANA, Afghanistan — American and Afghan soldiers near the border with Pakistan have faced a sharply increased volume of rocket fire from Pakistani territory in the past six months, putting them at greater risk even as worries over the disintegrating relationship between the United States and Pakistan constrain how they can strike back.
the link, provided by the current state.gov home page, starts here:
QUESTION: On Pakistan, please. I’m looking for State Department reaction on the Pakistan Government recommendation of treason charges against the doctor who is suspected of assisting the United States in targeting Usama bin Ladin.
MS. NULAND: I’m not going to have any comment on that issue.
QUESTION: Have there been conversations between the United States and Pakistan about the detention of the doctor?
By Brian Bennett, Los Angeles Times, October 11, 2011
An elaborate Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States was disrupted by FBI and DEA agents, officials said Tuesday.
Members of an elite Iranian security force planned to detonate a bomb at a busy Washington, D.C. restaurant, killing Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and possibly over one hundred bystanders, according to court documents filed in the Southern District of New York.....
By Nikloaus von Twickle, The Moscow Times, October 9, 2010
...for the prime minister's 59th birthday — ...the biggest surprise came from Twitter when a hashtag went viral.
#СПАСИБОПУТИНУЗАЭТО, or "Thanks to Putin for that," sparked a storm after United Russia activist Vladimir Burmatov tweeted on Friday morning: "It's warm and sunny in Moscow — summer! #SPASIBOPUTINUZAETO."....
By Noah Schachtman, Danger Room @ wired.com, October 7, 2011
A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.
By Floyd Norris, New York Times, October 7/8, 2011
Two months ago, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the bond rating of the United States government. So far, at least, the move has done wonders for investors in the very bonds that the rating agency disparaged.
By Kirk Johnson, New York Times, October 5/6, 2011
OLATHE, Colo. — How can there be a labor shortage when nearly one out of every 11 people in the nation are unemployed? That’s the question John Harold asked himself last winter when he was trying to figure out how much help he would need to harvest the corn and onions on his 1,000-acre farm here in western Colorado.
