Globe Trot 07.09

Torrential monsoon rains in eastern India have left 95 dead and more than 2 million homeless. Almost half a million people in Assam state are living in relief camps. I know I should be upset about the one dozen endangered one-horned rhinos killed in the flooding, the story that's topping Google News from India, but I mention it only as a minor footnote to the human tragedy.

In Russia, 171 people died in weekend flooding in Krymsk, 750 miles south of Moscow, where residents were not warned of impending floods after nearly a foot of rain fell late Friday and early Saturday. Russian President Vladimir Putin, long criticized for failures over disaster preparedness, ordered a probe of possible negligence.

A Taliban bomb blast in eastern Afghanistan has killed six U.S. troops. U.S. combat deaths in Afghanistan have been in decline, with casualties down about 20 percent over last year.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has said he will reopen the Islamist-dominated parliament at noon on Tuesday, in defiance of military leaders and courts that disbanded the parliament a month ago. Today the Supreme Constitutional court warned Morsi that the ruling against the parliament was "final and binding." With a showdown potentially 16 hours away, the Muslim Brotherhood is calling for Egyptians to return to the streets. Which makes you wonder, what was all the fuss over democracy and elections about? For a return to mobocracy?

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