UNITED STATES
Tea Party activists: Bring on the defense cuts
Cristina Marcos, The Hill- August 10, 2011
Tea Party activists say the Pentagon should be targeted for cuts by the “supercommittee” created in the debt-ceiling deal.
IRAN
Iran Sanctions E-Z Pass
Wall Street Journal- August 11, 2011
Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani is a dangerous man. A trained nuclear physicist, he was described in a recent report by the Institute for Science and International Security as “a key scientist in the Iranian covert nuclear weapons program” who “personally directed work to calculate the yield of a nuclear weapon as well as work on high energy neutron sources.” In 2007, he was designated by the U.N.’s Security Council, placed under a travel ban and subject to an asset freeze. The European Union has placed him under similar restrictions.
CHINA
China starts aircraft carrier sea trial
Jeremy Page, Wall Street Journal- August 11, 2011
China sent its first aircraft carrier to sea, a defining moment in its effort to become a top-tier naval power that seeks to challenge U.S. military supremacy in Asia and protect Chinese economic interests that now span the globe.
Afghanistan
Afghan fighters who attacked cops are killed, U.S. says
Tom Shanker and Ray Rivera, New York Times- August 10, 2011
An American airstrike has killed the Taliban fighters believed responsible for shooting down a Chinook helicopter and killing 38 people aboard, including 30 American military personnel, the senior American commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday.
Five NATO troops die in Afghan blast
Sayed Salahuddin and Joshua Partlow. Washington Post- August 11, 2011
A roadside bomb killed five soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan on Thursday, officials said, bringing the August toll for the coalition to at least 50, an unusually deadly month.
NORTH KOREA
South Korea dismisses North Korea’s denial of shelling
Park Chan-Kyong, AFP News- August 11, 2011
South Korea on Thursday dismissed a denial by North Korea that it twice carried out shelling along the flashpoint Yellow Sea border, which fueled already high tensions.
PAKISTAN
Pakistan’s biggest threats may not be what you think they are
Michael Kugelman, Huffington Post- August 10, 2011
The most troubling news to emerge from Pakistan in recent days has little to do with militancy or other headline-grabbing scourges that afflict the country.
SOMALIA
U.S. relies on contractors in Somalia conflict
Jeffrey Gettleman, Mark Mazzetti, and Eric Schmitt- August 10, 2011
Richard Rouget, a gun for hire over two decades of bloody African conflict, is the unlikely face of the American campaign against militants in Somalia.
