Six In The Morning

At NATO summit, warm welcome for most leaders, but not Pakistan's

　President Obama won't meet with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. U.S. officials are furious over Pakistan's refusal to reopen supply routes to Afghanistan.

By David S. Cloud and Kathleen Hennessey, Los Angeles Times
As thousands of protesters marched in the streets, President Obama welcomed more than 60 world leaders to his heavily guarded hometown for a NATO summit that will start the clock for America and its allies to begin pulling combat troops from Afghanistan. The two-day summit, the largest in the 63-year history of the military alliance, came as White House officials made it clear they were furious overPakistan's continued refusal to reopen ground routes used to move fuel and other war supplies into Afghanistan, a six-month standoff that the White House had hoped to resolve before Obama arrived in Chicago.

Rising violence threatens Nato's Afghan exit strategy
While Western leaders discuss withdrawal, Kim Sengupta reports in Kabul on the forces determined to shoot down peace

Kabul Monday 21 May 201
The two men both suffered the savage violence visited on many who seek to bring peace to Afghanistan. Salahuddin Rabbani's father was murdered by a suicide bomber in the room where he was now sitting with Massoon Stanekzai, who was severely injured in the blast. Both were recently discovered once again to be targets; another one named on the same death list was killed earlier this week. "Reconciliation" with the insurgency is a key component of the West's exit strategy from this long, costly and brutal war. But, as the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of the Afghan government's negotiating body showed, there are murderous forces who are determined to sabotage any ceasefire. Their interest, it is claimed, is to maintain a state of instability.

Hollande to press Merkel over German veto on eurobonds
The Irish Times - Monday, May 21, 2012

ARTHUR BEESLEY in Brussels, DEREK SCALLY in Berlin, and MARY MINIHAN
FRANCE WILL press Germany at a European summit this week to back jointly issued eurobonds in a drastic bid to assert control over the expanding debt crisis. At his first EU meeting in Brussels, newly elected French president François Hollande will ask German chancellor Angela Merkel to withdraw her veto over eurobonds. The proposal, supported by Ireland, is seen as a potential remedy to the debt debacle as it would provide a common euro zone guarantee to member states when they borrow on the open market.

Brotherhood whips up democratic fervour ahead of Egypt polls
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has rallied support with campaign events throughout the nation in a final push ahead of Wednesday's presidential elections.

21 May 2012 07:14 - Reuters
Well-known Islamic preachers and soccer celebrities took to the podium in Cairo to endorse Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Mursi, a relative latecomer to the race. His main rivals include Islamists and ex-officials of former President Hosni Mubarak. With official campaigning ending on Sunday, fireworks cracked in the night air and flames flared from the front of the stage as Mursi arrived to address the audience of several thousand gathered in central Cairo, outside Abdeen palace. One poll published last week in al-Masry al-Youm newspaper put Mursi behind three other front-runners but also said 37% of those surveyed had not made up their minds.

Iran nuclear talks gaining traction


By M K Bhadrakumar
When Iran proposed and the P5+1 accepted at the Istanbul meet last month that their next round of talks could be scheduled for May 23 in Baghdad, Western observers - not even the vigilant Israelis, ironically - didn't notice the significance of the date. May 23 is a memorable day in the folklore of the Iranian revolution. That was the day the tide of the war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq turned exactly 30 years ago in 1982 when Iran's revolutionary forces "liberated" the port city of Khorramshahr and registered their first victory on the battlefield.

The US love affair with British pop
In 2007, British music accounted for 7% of all records sold in the US. Now it's almost double that. What has changed?

By Mark Savage BBC News entertainment reporter
In March, One Direction made music industry history, by becoming the first British group to enter the US album chart at number one. "It was quite surreal," says band member Liam Payne, who at the tender age of 19, has achieved something The Beatles never did. "I still can't really believe it. We didn't even get a number one in the UK. " The X Factor graduates aren't the only British boy band making waves in the States. The Wanted recently scored a top three hit with their single Glad You Came - while their new EP peaked at seven in the Billboard charts.