By SEBNEM ARSU (NYT)

Turkey launched a military offensive in the predominantly Kurdish southeast in retaliation for an ambush by Kurdish separatists that killed 13 soldiers on Thursday.

At least seven people were killed, including a high-ranking security official, in another sign of the breakdown in stability that has been pushing Yemen to the brink of chaos.

Federal health regulators have concerns about bladder and breast cancer seen in patients taking an experimental diabetes pill from Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca.

The Food and Drug Administration says in an online review that there were more cases of cancer among patients taking the company's drug than those taking a dummy pill.

A panel of FDA advisers meets next Tuesday to discuss the drug's safety and effectiveness. Along with cancer, the FDA will also ask the panel to comment on the drug's effects on kidney and liver function. FDA will make the final decision on the drug's approval.

Dapagliflozin is a once-a-day pill designed to help type 2 diabetes patients eliminate excess sugar in their urine. It differs from older drugs that decrease the amount of sugar absorbed from food.

At their last meeting, Federal Reserve officials said they expected the economy would pick up in the second half of the year, but the outlook for employment and inflation were unusually uncertain.

The U.S. trade deficit surged in May
WASHINGTON — The U.S. trade deficit surged in May to the highest level in more than two and a half years, driven wider by a big increase in oil imports and a decline in exports.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the deficit increased 15.1 percent to $50.2 billion in May. That’s the largest imbalance since October 2008.

Opinion: Blogs, An Intellectual Culture Spreading Globally

Gabriel Kazakias 07/11/2011

Amidst the global recession, an unprecedented flowering of intellectual life is underway. This new culture is taking shape throughout the country and online as well. Let’s face it the internet became the home to a new intellectual culture.

This environment found home in what is called “blogs”. These blogs became the place from formal publications to informal presentations and discussions of various topics.

Social life finds a new meaning when a group of people focus on a topic, analyze it and sometimes extend it to the border line of illusion. Political blogs are likely to increase as the 2012 election draws nearer. America is in the midst of the gravest economic and social crisis and a growing number of people recognize that the nation’s future is at stake.

These blogs, not only the politically oriented ones but any blogs or forums that are focused on a specific topic will, I believe, be spreading and sweeping the internet in the years to come. To write and speak are not simply intellectually beneficial but they are personally meaningful and do make a difference.

Opinion: Why is Greece in a financial crisis?

Gabriel Kazakias 7/10/2011

I heard about the Greek Power Summit in 2011 which was held in Athens. The participants were mainly businesspersons and financial executives. Those people manage corporate and financial assets in the billions of dollars. Yet the Greek government acted as if they weren't there. No one from the president's office, the prime minister's office or even the finance ministry came by to welcome them.

Attending this summit was Krzysztof Walenczak, Poland's under secretary of state at the Ministry of Treasury and the man who's been in charge of that country's privatization program for the last two years. Mr Walenczak discussed insights on how Poland has successfully sold off 500 entities, with plans to sell off another 300 fairly soon. After his presentation Mr Walenczak finally asked, "Why isn't there anyone here from the government?"

Then, I hear that Greeks are accused of not paying taxes. The top tax rate in Greece is almost 50%, while in neighboring Bulgaria is 10% (enacted a flat tax), Albania, 10%, Romania, 16%. These countries adopt an easy to collect tax system and they are growing, while Greece is using a complicated tax system and it is contracting.

Austerity alone doesn’t work in economic and political crises and apathy makes them worst. Austerity must be accompanied by tax reforms and tested structural changes to encourage growth and the restructuring of debts.

And that, in a nutshell, is why Greece is in a financial crisis.

Boehner abandoned efforts to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal
House Speaker John A. Boehner abandoned efforts Saturday night to cut a far-reaching debt-reduction deal, telling President Obama that a more modest package offers the only politically realistic path to avoiding a default on the mounting national debt.

On the eve of a critical White House summit on the debt issue, Boehner (R-Ohio) told Obama that their plan to “go big,” in the speaker’s words, and forge a compromise that would save more than $4 trillion over the next decade, was crumbling under Obama’s insistence on significant new tax revenue.

Mullen: China now a world power

The top U.S. military officer declared Sunday that China "has arrived as a world power," and that pr ...

Iraq to decide on U.S. troop presence, Iraq's president says

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