Globe Trot: Can high-level talks with Iran really bear fruit?

IRAN: The United States and Iran held their highest-level talks in 36 years on Thursday. Secretary of State John Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in the UN Security Council’s consultation chamber, joined by the foreign ministers of the U.K., France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Here’s perhaps the most interesting piece of analysis coming out of the UN General Assembly this week: Hasan Rouhani remains a Holocaust denier, and what that means.

IRAN: Naghmeh Abedini pens her own letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the one-year anniversary of her husband’s imprisonment in Tehran.

Interest in Abedini’s case picked up this week after evangelist Billy Graham released a letter he wrote to Rouhani calling for Abedini’s release.

BANGLADESH: Garment factory workers this week are protesting low wages. Target and other retailers say they expect “minimum impact” to their supply chain heading into the holiday shopping season.

PAKISTAN:Wilson Saraj grew up in All Saints Church and remembers the dead and woundedfrom last Sunday’s bombing there.

MALI is the new terrorist training ground, and a Malian terror attack in Europe is a real possibility.

NIGERIA: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, believed killed in August, appeared in a video this week saying “he could not die except by the will of Allah.” Despite a four-month offensive by the Nigerian military, Boko Haram seems as strong as ever: Yesterday suspected Boko Haram gunmen opened fire on a church in the north, killing the pastor and his two young children.

KENYA: Kenyans today end a blood drive to aid the 175 wounded in last Saturday’s Westgate Mall attack, collecting a record 14,500 pints.

Fred Bosire survived the attack, taking refuge beneath the Nakumatt meat counter, daring to take a call from his wife as gunmen sprayed him and the store with bullets.