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
# 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?