U.S. pushing harder on beef rules (The Japan Times) Washington has requested that Japan soften its age restriction on U.S. beef under a concrete deadline, sources well-versed in the trans-Pacific relationship said Sunday. Read more ... [News Source]

Why Old Britain’s Time is Up (Time Magazine) There's stiff competition — the handling of mad cow disease, the royal family's years of dysfunction — but it is hard to think of anything in modern times that has held Britain up to such, and such richly deserved, international contempt as the case of the 15 captured mariners in the Shatt al Arab. There was the original sin; messing about in lightly armed little boats in a waterway contested by ... [News Source]