When signs of a severe economic downfall emerged more than two years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama was quick to point a finger at the man he hoped to replace. Seventeen months into his administration, the message is often the same, and Republicans say it's time for him to drop the Bush bashing and take ownership of the problem. "Nothing makes a president look weaker than pointing the finger at past administrations," said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean. "By blaming somebody, it looks like you are playing politics and people just want jobs. They don't care about whose fault it is. Playing the blame game only boomerangs on yourself." Obama repeated that message this week when talking about the still-sputtering economy, twice reminding those at a town-hall meeting in Wisconsin that he "inherited" the economic mess. It's a familiar message ...

Indian Kashmir is on the boil again: this time over the killing of eight young Kashmiris in less than three weeks allegedly at the hands of Indian security forces, report agencies. The deaths have brought thousands of war-weary residents out onto the streets chanting "Blood for Blood!" and "Freedom for Kashmir!". Authorities have responded with bullets, tear gas, curfews and arrests. The latest wave of unrest started on June 11 when a 17-year old student died after being hit by a teargas shell fired by police during an anti-India demonstration in Srinagar, Indian Kashmir''s summer capital. Tufail Matoo was not part of the protest and was carrying his school bag when he was hit, his family said. Since then seven other young Kashmiris have been killed during protests and another has died from serious skull injuries after being allegedly beaten-up by paramilitary soldiers. The strikes, protests ...

Allegations that 11 people acted as Russian agents in a long-term mission in the United States have again shone a light on the murky world of espionage. Some of the suspects adopted phony identities, including those of dead Americans, and posed as married couples, according to New York court documents. The suspects engaged in secret communications including exchanges of bags, money drops and use of invisible ink, as well as using more modern touches such as wireless computer networks between specific laptops, the documents said. The alleged plot could have come straight from a Frederick Forsyth or John Le Carre novel and revived memories of 2006 allegations by Russia that a fake rock found on a Moscow street was being used by British diplomats to transmit classified data back home. But analysts said the new case -- if true -- really exposed the incompetence of the alleged Russian spies while highlighting the age-old problem for undercover agents of how to communicate with their bosses. "It's just bad tradecraft. If they ...

"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.