Syria's Wounded.. Crazy NKorea Threats.. Best 2014 Reads

WHO: One Million People Wounded In Syria One million people have been wounded during Syria's civil war and diseases are spreading as regular supplies of medicine fail to reach patients, the World Health Organization's Syria representative said. 2014's Best Reads Piano For Peace

8 Children Killed At Home In Australia Eight children have been killed and a woman who was mother to seven of them was injured in the northern Australian city of Cairns, police said on Friday, in what several media outlets reported was a mass stabbing. Continue reading Turkey Issues Arrest Warrant For Muslim Cleric Gulen Turkey has issued an arrest warrant for U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who President Tayyip Erdogan accuses of seeking to overthrow him, state broadcaster TRT Haber reported on Friday. Continue reading

	The Man Behind The Brutal School Attack In Pakistan The most hated man in Pakistan is a 36-year-old father of three and volleyball enthusiast nicknamed "Slim." Continue reading

	China Arrests American Christian Aid Worker Near NKorean Border China arrested on Friday a Korean American Christian aid worker who was being held near the country's border with North Korea, signaling a toughening crackdown on Christian activists in the sensitive region. Continue reading

	North Korea Threatens Film Studios With Obliteration.. And Other Crazy Warnings North Korea's culture and film minister weighed in on the controversy surrounding Sony Pictures' new movie, "The Interview," this week, calling on film studios in Japan and the United States to show more respect for his country, "or face obliteration." Continue reading

On The Blog: Even Russians Are Running From The Ruble In recent weeks, the fall in the Russian ruble and Russian stock markets closely tracked the declines in global oil prices. But everything changed on Dec. 15. The oil price remained stable, but the ruble and the stock price indexes lost 30 percent from Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon. An unprecedented effort by Russia's Central Bank in the wee hours of Dec. 16 to stabilize the ruble, by hiking the interest rate from 10.5 percent to 17 percent, proved useless. Continue reading