Trying To Avoid Bailout, Spain Takes On Ailing Banks
Spain nationalized its largest real estate lender Wednesday night, and plans to announce an overhaul of the country’s entire banking system Friday. The country is scrambling to prevent its troubled banks — weighed down by property debts — from sabotaging the whole economy. The Spanish government has only to look northward to Ireland to see [...]
Russian Agency Says It Foiled Potential Attack On Sochi, 2014 Olympics Host City
A Russian anti-terrorism agency says that its secret service agents have thwarted a planned attack on Sochi, the city slated to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Russia’s FSB security service says it found 10 caches of weapons that it believes were meant to be used during either preparations for the Olympics or in an attack [...]
And Now For The Weather, Let’s Go To Prince Charles
In Scotland, viewers of a nightly BBC news program got a surprise Thursday, when Prince Charles stood in front of a weather map to tell them about all the rain and cold they’d soon experience. The heir to Britain’s throne was introduced by anchor Sally Magnusson as “a new member of our weather team.” And [...]
Chinese Activist Tells Of ‘Crazy Retaliation’ Against His Family
Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng says his family is being hounded by local authorities in his Shandong, his home province, with his brother and sister-in-law placed under house arrest and his nephew detained. Chen’s flight last month from house arrest and his request for refuge from U.S. diplomats has caused considerable embarrassment for Chinese authorities and [...]
Putin Cancels Visit To U.S., Meeting With Obama
Russia’s newly reinstalled President Vladimir Putin will be too busy with affairs at home to make a planned visit to the United States this month, where he was to have a high-profile tête-à-tête with President Obama and attend the G8 summit. In his place, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who swapped places with Putin in recent [...]
Syrian Bomb Blasts Kill At Least 50
A pair of powerful explosions ripped through Syria’s capital, killing at least 50 people in the deadliest attack in the country’s 14-month uprising. Some 170 people were wounded, according to state television. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but local TV reports called the attacks “terrorist bombings”. The explosions damaged a military intelligence building [...]
Jihadist Group In Syria Carries Out Violent Attacks
It was Friday, April 27, when a car bomb exploded in the Damascus neighborhood of Midan. Syrian state television showed soldiers and civilians running from the smoke of the explosion under a bridge. Then the camera closed in on streams of blood and body parts. The uprising has gripped the country for more than a [...]
Afghan Goal: Toning Down The Radical Preachers
The ministry that governs religious affairs in Afghanistan has announced what some are calling a “three strikes” policy. It’s a warning directed at Muslim clerics, or imams, accused of inciting violence in their Friday sermons. Imams across the country routinely condemn the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and speak in favor of the Taliban. Despite the [...]
After The Quake, Japanese Shop For Survival
Walk into any large Japanese retailer nowadays, and you might think Japan had become a nation of survivalists. Aeon, a Wal-Mart-like chain of stores, devotes a sizable chunk of floor space to something called bosai-yohin, or “disaster-protection gear.” Naoto Higashi, a manager at one of the Tokyo stores, demonstrates some of their best-sellers, flashlights that [...]
Agent, Double Agent Or Mole? Which Was The Underwear Bomb Character?
Many headlines and stories (including some of ours) have been saying that a “double agent” infiltrated al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and foiled a plot to get another underwear bomb aboard a U.S.-bound passenger jet. But we’ve been looking at definitions of spy terms and think that based on what we have been told so [...]
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