All Global News Blog
As South Korea and US end military drills, how will North Korea react?Many Korea watchers speculated that once joint military drills ended, so would increased tensions with North Korea. But at least one analyst says this might be the moment the North lashes out again.
The Paris beat: not all chocolat et fromageEurope bureau chief Sara Llana writes that getting through immigration's bureaucracy in Paris is a lot harder than in her last assignment, Mexico City.
Why the alleged Boston bombers' mom probably won't be extraditedZubeidat Tsarnaeva may stay out of American custody because the US and Russia do not have a bilateral extradition treaty, despite efforts by Moscow to negotiate one.
After Dhaka garment factory collapse, chances for supply chain changes lowA factory collapse in Bangladesh left some 300 dead, and prompted calls for improved regulations of the country's sweatshops. But veteran campaigners to improve factory conditions say pushing for change is harder than ever.
Don't blame Canada: Former ambassador to Iran on Argo, America, and nukesCanada's envoy to Tehran at the time of the Islamic revolution and the US hostage crisis, says Argo disappointed him and that he's worried about where Iran's nuclear program might lead.
Shanghai auto show: where you, too, can buy a machine-gun ready pickupA Chinese company's trucks were a hit among Libyan rebels, and it's now seeking inroads to the lucrative insurgent market. 'The car really proved its launch strength,' wrote one Libyan rebel.
Q&A: Who ultimately bears responsibility for Bangladesh factory disasters?Low wages and lower safety standards have made Bangladesh a major garment producer - and a source of workplace deaths like the more than 200 killed in a Dhaka factory collapse this week.
- Switzerland shuts the door on EU migrants: A new 'us vs. them' in Europe?
News that Switzerland is capping residence permits for Western Europeans reached the Monitor's Europe bureau chief as she was having her own intolerable immigration experience.
Mystery clouds deadly clash in western China with 'suspected terrorists'Some say that Beijing deliberately exaggerates the terrorist threat in order to justify the iron grip it keeps on the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang in western China.
Bill Gates sets South Korea abuzz with 'rude' one-handed shakeBill Gates triggered a media uproar with a 'disrespectful' one-handed shake upon meeting the new South Korean president. What should Bill Gates have done?
China sends largest fleet yet to disputed islandsChina sent a fleet of patrol ships today to the sea area it disputes with Japan, following a controversial visit by Japanese officials to a war shrine. The latest moves are seen as a setback for a diplomatic resolution.
Two arrested in Al Qaeda US-Canada train plot – directed from IranCanadian police thwarted a terrorist attack on a US-Canada train by two men directed by Al Qaeda in Iran. Yes, Al Qaeda in Iran, say police.
- How a Quaker missionary from Philly became India's Johnny Appleseed
Samuel Evans Stokes spent years trying to persuade his neighbors in the Himalayas to grow apples, giving away plants freely until locals took to apple farming and Indians took to Red Delicious.
Fundamentalism and the Chechens' fighting historyThe ancestral home of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has long been a land of fighters, but it took on the character of an Islamic jihad in the 1990s.
Good Reads: China's 'cyber cage,' millennium goals update, toddlers and tech, space divingThe round-up of Good Reads this week includes how the Internet could erode China's authoritarianism, the status of the UN millennium development goals, how parents introduce technology to children, and space-diver Felix Baumgartner's superhero suit.
Pakistan won't have Musharraf to kick around anymoreGeneral Musharraf was a somewhat benign autocrat who wanted to be like Ataturk; but his return from exile to get elected in the top job, smacks of miscalculation.
Was that the president in my Beijing taxi?A rumor that Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled undetected among the commoners of Beijing sparked enormous interest, echoing popular lore of Chinese emperors moving about in disguise.
New Zealand becomes first country in Asia-Pacific to legalize same-sex marriageThe change in New Zealand's law could pressure neighbors such as Australia to consider revising their laws.
Not so KGB cool: Putin blows top at his cabinet in new videoThe Russian president is known for being unflappable, but a leaked video shows him shouting and cursing at his cabinet ministers over their 'extremely low' quality of work.
After shipwreck, Costa Concordia gets the musical treatmentThe 2012 Costa Concordia cruise ship sinking is the loose inspiration for a new Bollywood-style musical to be filmed in Italy this summer.
