The Rundown -- August 7

RFE/RL in the Media

# Balkan Insight reports on the threat of closure for RFE/RL Balkans language services

Middle East

# Is Al-Qaeda Yemen plot just a way for Ayman al-Zawahri to reassert authority?

# Huffington Post on why McClatchy reported on Zawahri intercept and "The New York Times" didn't

# Ryan Crocker: Assad will Prevail "Yard by Bloody Yard"

# How coup verdicts in Turkey may deepen political divide - "Time"

# "Erdogan Silences Dissent in Divided Turkey" - Hasnain Kazim, "Spiegel"

# Criticism of Hezbollah inside Lebanon "increasingly bold" over Assad support

Iran

# "Iran's Leader Reaches Out to U.S., Vows to Resolve Nuclear Row" - Marcus George and Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters

# "Mr. Rouhani, You’re No Gorbachev" - Ben Cohen, Slate

# "Iran’s Homegrown Oil Tankers" - Medium

# Musavi, 2009 opposition presidential candidate, out of hospital, still under house arrest

Iraq

# "Baghdad's Man Inside the Beltway" - Josh Rogin, "Foreign Policy"

Afghanistan/Pakistan

# Attack last night after soccer match kills 11 children as violence puts Pakistan government "on defensive"

# 13 people pulled off bus and shot dead in southwest Pakistan

# Musharraf a no-show at indictment for Bhutto murder

# "The Enduring Art of Afghanistan" - Kevin Sites, Vice

Russia

# "4 Reasons Why Miriam Elder is Wrong about Putin and Gays" - Kevin Rothrock, Russia! (in reference to this piece)

# Obama tells Leno he has "no tolerance" for anti-gay laws, but says "Russia is not unique"

# Moscow's "contradictory contempt of migrants"

# Inside a migrant detention camp

# "The New York Times" tracks Navalny's campaign

Ukraine

# Anna Nemtsova interviews Ukraine's "real life Barbie"

# Ukrainian far-right group "cake attacks" Russian bank over Roshen chocolate row

Central Asia

# Riots "spoil summer tourist season in Kyrgyzstan"

# In Alatau, Kazakhstan, a tour of a modernized Soviet-era nuclear reactor

Of Interest

# "Why Drones Fail" - Audrey Kurth Cronin, "Foreign Affairs"

# How to buy fake protesters

# "Boston Bombing Suspect Was Steeped in Conspiracies" - Allan Cullison, "The Wall Street Journal"

# Video: With "Washington Post" sold to Jeff Bezos, was this 1981 report a harbinger of things to come?