After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead BY ALAN S. BLINDER. Penguin Press, 2013, 476 pp. $29.95.

Alan Blinder is only the most recent in a series of prominent economists who have produced

Article source: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139464/j-bradford-delong/the-second-great-depression?cid=rss-rss_xml-the_second_great_depression-000000

In the the July/August 2013 issue:

Daniel Byman, a professor at Georgetown University, and Audrey Kurth Cronin, a professor at George Mason University, debate whether drones are worth it.

Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, speaks with Foreign Affairs about the mistakes he made in his first term, Abenomics, Japan’s wartime record, and the bitter Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute with China.

Scott Borgerson, managing

Article source: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/news-and-events/whats-inside-the-julyaugust-2013-issue?cid=rss-rss_xml-whats_inside_the_julyaugust_is-000000

The UNHCR said in a report Wednesday that war and other crises last year forced one person from his or her home every 4.1 seconds.

The agency’s annual Global Trends report said more than 45.2 million people were displaced in 2012 compared to 42.5 million in 2011.

Antonio Guterres, head of UNHCR, said the numbers “reflect individual suffering on a huge scale.”

The report says war is the main reason for displacement with more than 55 percent of all refugees

Article source: http://www.voanews.com/content/global-forced-displacement-at-18-year-high/1684711.html

Talking to media on Tuesday, Shaukat Yousuf Zai, information minister of the country’s northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in which Mardan is a district, said that a suicide bomber walked into the funeral of a local business man and exploded himself near a local lawmaker, killing himself and 14 others right on the spot and injuring dozens.

The injured people were shifted to Mardan Medical Complex where 15 people

Article source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-06/19/c_132468444.htm

The suspects, including 20 members of soccer team
Besiktas’s fan club, known as Carsi, face charges of organizing
acts of violence and inciting illegal protests, state-run TRT
television said. Some members of Carsi were spotted in clashes
with police in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, the center of the
demonstrations, and near Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
office in Besiktas district, it said.

The biggest street demonstrations against

Article source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-19/turkey-protesters-face-criminal-charges-as-silent-vigils-spread.html

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Article source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/06/19/karzai-suspends-talks-with-us-over-taliban-move/2437123/

America will engage in its first formal direct talks with the Taliban on Thursday, after dropping its long-standing demand that the movement renounce ties with al-Qaeda in order for them to progress.

The US will engage in its first formal direct talks with the Taliban on Thursday, according to officials, in a milestone on the road to peace after more than a decade of war.

The first meeting will take place in Doha, the Qatari capital, after the Taliban opened their first official overseas office and Washington dropped its long-standing demand that the movement renounce ties

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WarNewsUpdates/~3/O6I0Hsvg23s/the-us-will-drop-its-demand-that.html

Lost in last week’s news that the Obama administration would begin to provide direct military aid to the Syrian opposition was the fact that about half of the non-lethal aid promised months ago has still not arrived.

That’s raised some question as to how long it will take any new military aid to reach the fractured country.

Administration officials acknowledge that only some of the aid promised the Syrian opposition this spring has arrived in the country. They cite Congressional notifications, the need to vet recipients on the other end, and the more mundane necessity to

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WarNewsUpdates/~3/afoLiuipgU4/how-can-us-supply-syrias-rebels-with.html

The bold journalist died in a car accident in Los Angeles

Michael Hastings, the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, Rolling Stone has learned. He was 33.

Hastings’ unvarnished 2010 profile of McChrystal in the pages of Rolling Stone, “The Runaway General,” captured the then-supreme commander of the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian commanders in the White House. The maelstrom sparked by its publication concluded with President Obama recalling

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WarNewsUpdates/~3/3T4XcTyakIE/rolling-stone-contributor-and-war.html

WNU Editor: More pics and info here. This pic reminds me of what this man did in China 24 years ago.

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WarNewsUpdates/~3/t6RNCCHG_JQ/the-standing-man-of-istanbul.html

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will make the case for a new phase in nuclear-weapons reductions that would reduce arsenals by another one-third in a major foreign-policy speech in Berlin on Wednesday, a senior Obama administration official said.

Despite mounting tensions with Cold War adversary Russia over the Syrian civil war and missile defense, Mr. Obama is expected in the speech to say the U.S. and Russia can significantly reduce their arsenals beyond the cuts mandated under the 2010 New Start, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, without undercutting deterrence or capabilities, the officials said.

A one-third cut would

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WarNewsUpdates/~3/dpYBAwNjn7Y/military-and-intelligence-news-briefs_19.html

The Samaria Residents’ Council has filed a police complaint against the group.

Machsom Watch sends activists to watch IDF soldiers at checkpoints in Judea and Samaria. The group has been accused of harassing soldiers and of valuing convenience for Arab residents of Judea and Samaria over preventing terrorism. In one incident, Machsom Watch activists told soldiers to release an Arab teen who turned out to be an armed terrorist.

The group has a website on which it publishes daily

Article source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169100

Rabbi Avraham Isaacs, who witnessed the events, denied that the four had prostrated themselves on the Mount.

The young men had obeyed police orders and stayed in a group, he said. At a certain point, they encountered a large group of Muslim men, who began yelling, “Allahu Akbar” at them.

The police officer who had accompanied them grew nervous and urged them to move on, Rabbi Isaacs said. He said the visit continued normally

Article source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169098

The Sunni Islamist rebel group claimed the victims were Shi’ite members of the Hizbullah terrorist organization now fighting alongside loyalists defending Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

It is not clear which “Mujahedeen” unit posted the video, but most of those which use the title are affiliated with the Jabhat al-Nusra – the Al Nusra Front terrorist organization,

Article source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169102

Schools will be able to open textbook-lending programs only if at least 60 percent of parents express interest.

“Let’s talk about textbooks. They’re too expensive,” Piron wrote on his Facebook page.

“In general, the cost of education in Israel is expensive, too expensive,” he continued. “I am committed to work to make education free, to the greatest extent possible.”

“It won’t happen in a single day. But it has to happen, because it is

Article source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169095