Torturing folks is how the US President puts it and other news and views for Saturday 2 August

President Barack Obama meets with National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice and Tony Blinken, Deputy National Security Advisor, in the Oval Office, Aug. 1, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
President Barack Obama meets with National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice and Tony Blinken, Deputy National Security Advisor, in the Oval Office, Aug. 1, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
  • Barack Obama: ‘We Tortured Some Folks’ – “Folks is many a politicians’ favored term for people. It’s class-neutral and gender-neutral. In a country that uses y’all, you guys, youse, and yinz, it is confidently American, but neighborhood-neutral. It is informal. It is cuddly. A politician represents his constituents. He thinks about the people. But he cares for folks — all you folks, including you there in the back. But Barack Obama uses the term so often he sometimes uses it indiscriminately. Take today, when during a press conference he casually mentioned that ‘we tortured some folks”’after the September 11 attacks.”
  • Assets or liabilities? – “Regulators worry that the asset-management industry may spawn the next financial crisis.”
  • Macquarie advisers cheated on competency test and exposed clients
  • What Does It Mean to Be Iraqi Anymore? “Amid ever-bloodier rifts, Iraqis blame the U.S. for a political system based on sectarian and ethnic identity.”
  • Abe hopes to tap women in September reshuffle of Cabinet, LDP leadership – “Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that he plans to reshuffle his Cabinet and Liberal Democratic Party leadership in the first week of September.”
  • Yum, Yum, Yum: Another Food Safety Scandal Rocks Multinationals in China – “It was a bad week for the crown jewels of the U.S. fast food industry. At the end of July, Louisiana-based Yum! Brands, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut, discovered (along with McDonalds, Subway, and Starbucks, among others) that one of their suppliers in China, Shanghai Husi Food Co., a subsidiary of the Chicago-based OSI Group, was supplying them with products using expired or rotten meat. Unfortunately, this was only the latest in a number of food safety scandals that have plagued U.S. fast food companies in China over the past few years.”

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