Globe Trot: Former PM Nawaz Sharif returns to power in Pakistan

Pakistanis returned to high office Nawaz Sharif, after parliamentary elections this weekend gave his party a commanding new hold on power. Sharif’s win—14 years after he was toppled in a military coup—is said to rest on his pro-business background, but some worry he will be soft on Islamic extremists.

Is Benghazi about more Clintonian fecklessness and GOP defensiveness and overreaction? Not according to Peter Feaver, political science professor at Duke University, who says “there was willful misleading going on in the earliest days.”

Calls for the formation of a congressional select committee on Benghazi mount, as White House spokesman Jay Carney’s claim that officials made “a single adjustment” to prepared talking points after the attack turns out to be at least 12 rewrites. But spin is not the issue, it’s this: “Did the well-known White House desire to retreat from Libya influence the ability and willingness of military officials to respond in real time? The lives of Americans around the world could hang on the answer.”

Dozens of rockets, shells, and mortars exploded near places set aside for a day of prayer in Syria on Saturday, and unsecured roads made it difficult for Christians to travel to the sites set aside for public prayer services. Also, unusual rain, lightening, and a sudden drop in temperature further hampered the events—BUT our sources in Syria tell us that prayer services went forward anyway, and we are awaiting further report.

What a week of groceries looks like around the world. Almost everyone, it seems, eats bananas.

Scientists are finding a way to “engineer” mosquitos to make them resistant to the malaria parasite. The advance could eventually reduce malaria cases in humans.