Six In The Morning

Cops: Norway gunman claims he acted alone

92 died in Friday attacks by anti-immigration zealot

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

A right-wing zealot who admitted to bomb and gun attacks in Norway that killed 92 people on Friday claims he acted alone, Norway’s police said on Sunday.

“He has admitted to the facts of both the bombing and the shooting, although he’s not admitting criminal guilt,” acting police chief Sveinung Sponheim told a news conference about detained suspect Anders Behring Breivik.

“He says that he was alone but the police must verify everything that he said. Some of the witness statements from the island (shootings) have made us unsure of whether there was one or more shooters.”

Al-Shabaab’s stranglehold on Somalia



JASON STRAZIUSO DADAAB, KENYA – Jul 24 2011  

The needs of those in Somalia’s expanding famine zone are extraordinary, prompting parents to sweep up their small children and start a dangerous walk that can last days or weeks — one that many die on. Livestock have perished, and crops no longer grow after consecutive rains failed to fall in south-central Somalia.

The journey is so long and so perilous that few Somalis are eager to return to their war-torn homeland, a facet of the dual crisis of the Somalia conflict and Horn of Africa famine that has Kenyan officials — who are only reluctantly accepting more refugees — in a bind.

Escape from Azamgarh  

Security agencies call it a “terror hub”. But Azamgarh’s children simply see it as the place they want to leave. Shobhan Saxena travels to the eastern UP town where education is the only way out  

Shobhan Saxena, TNN | Jul 24, 2011  

It’s a sodden morning. As rain comes down in thick sheets, the road quickly turns into a muddy track. Drains clogged with garbage are overflowing on dug-up streets. A bunch of travellers, whose jeep is stuck in mud, sit under a tree for shelter. The town’s bus stand is slowly sinking into a pool of sludge. The sprawling campus of the main college is empty and the schools are shut. The mosques, too, are desolate. The shops are open but there are no customers. In cubbyhole boxes near the bus stand, men sit amid their unsold goods. It seems the whole of Azamgarh has retreated into a shell to save itself from the downpour.

Azamgarh town has a population of two lakh. It has just two main roads, which run parallel to each other and are connected by a maze of narrow alleys and streets.

Germany divided again as Europe grapples with euro bailout plan

Greece has been saved from bankruptcy again but it has brought fears about the cost to European unity and the burden it will place on Germany’s taxpayers.

By Harriet Alexander, in Berlin8:00AM BST 24 Jul 2011

It was a crucial decision for the European Union, desperately needed to stave off once again the complete collapse of confidence in Greece – and with it the ruination of the euro.

In a deal struck privately between Germany and France, and then endorsed by other members of the euro-zone, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed that private sector banks would pick up a share of the cost of the latest Greek bailout – a plan at first hailed in Germany as a triumph for the determined Mrs Merkel.

Unraveling Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel

As drug smugglers from the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico sent a never-ending stream of cocaine across the border and into a vast U.S. distribution web in Los Angeles, DEA agents were watching and listening.

By Richard Marosi

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 24, 2011

Reporting from Calexico, Calif.– Never lose track of the load.

It was drilled into everybody who worked for Carlos “Charlie” Cuevas. His drivers, lookouts, stash house operators, dispatchers — they all knew. When a shipment was on the move, a pair of eyes had to move with it.

Cuevas had just sent a crew of seven men to the border crossing at Calexico, Calif. The load they were tracking was cocaine, concealed in a custom-made compartment inside a blue 2003 Honda Accord.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘last stories’ will appear in English at last

Collection of innovative short stories reveals that the Russian writer was still experimenting in his final years

Dalya Alberge

The Observer, Sunday 24 July 2011  

A collection of nine short stories by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, described by scholars as ranking alongside his best work, is to be published in English for the first time. In one of the publishing events of the autumn, the collection will appear under the title Apricot Jam and Other Stories, fulfilling a long-held desire of the author that the work be available to the English-speaking world.

The collection reveals that Solzhenitsyn was still experimenting with literary form towards the end of his life. Eight of the stories have two parts, which are conceived as pairs. Daniel J. Mahoney, a Solzhenitsyn scholar, said: