China's currency could be eventually used as an alternative to the U.S. dollar and Euro by southeast Asian countries, experts said. - Phathanaphong Phusuwan, a senior official of the Bank of Thailand, said in a seminar on Thai-Chinese trade, investment and finance relations on Saturday that the yuan would likely be used more between China and ASEAN member states in the long run. In the panel discussion co-hosted by the National Research Council of Thailand, Huaqiao University and the Thai-Chinese Culture & Economy Association here, the official of the Thai central bank commented the Chinese currency could possibly replace the U.S. dollar and Euro when it comes to trade, financial and money-exchange dealings throughout the ASEAN community, due in part to the unresolved economic and financial problems in the United States and the European Union.

Two activists of the Pussy Riot punk rock group who are being sought by Russian police have fled the country, the band's Twitter account says. - Three members of the group were jailed this month for staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. The pair who fled have not been named but the husband of one of the jailed women said the duo had taken part in the cathedral protest in February. Many in the West condemned the Pussy Riot sentences as disproportionate. However, the Kremlin has rejected accusations by musicians and some governments that the case was politically motivated. Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich were found guilty of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and jailed for two years.

Almost a decade after their daughter was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she tried to block its path in a Gaza Strip conflict zone, Rachel Corrie's parents are preparing for a judge's ruling in their high-profile civil lawsuit against the military. - They hope Tuesday's court decision will conclude a case that's turned their daughter into a rallying cry for pro-Palestinian activists, taken years of their life and drained their savings. "We are here with a great deal of anticipation for Tuesday," said Corrie's mother, Cindy, 64, a homemaker and musician from Olympia, Washington. "We are hoping for some accountability here for what happened to Rachel." Corrie, a pro-Palestinian activist, was 23 when she was killed in March 2003 while she and other activists sought to block an Israeli military bulldozer they believed was about to demolish Palestinian homes in the Gaza border town of Rafah. The driver has said he didn't see Corrie, and the death was accidental.

Desert Peace: RACHEL CORRIE’S LAST MOMENTS CAPTURED ON FILM - Video
The Guardian: Rachel Corrie's family claim Israeli military withheld vital video evidence
Jonathan Cook: Rachel Corrie family finally puts Israel in dock

Israeli veterans have spoken out, describing a degrading culture of abuse and harassment of Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza. A report containing 30 veterans’ testimonies details numerous cases of violence committed by Israeli soldiers.

The report was released to world media on Saturday by Breaking the Silence, an organization made up of Israeli army veterans formed in 2004. They compiled more than 850 accounts from current and former Israeli soldiers describing abuses they committed or witnessed. The investigation seeks to serve as “a witness to the ongoing decline of the military system into increasing immorality."

A first sergeant in an armored corps unit described his job as “population control,” in a testimony entitled "What is that job, really?" His unit would enter Palestinian villages on a daily basis to “make their presence felt” and to show the local residents that the area did not belong to them. “A patrol goes in, or two patrols, two Hummers secured by a jeep, and raise hell inside the villages. A whole company may be sent in on foot in two lines like a military parade in the streets, provoking riots, provoking children,” said the first sergeant. He said that his commander’s aim was to “grind the population down” so that they would not even think of throwing stones at their occupiers.

An Israeli bus driver refused to take Palestinian passengers on board, was ordered to do so by police, and took his revenge by forcing them off the bus at the entrance to a settlement. The bus company: “The driver acted exactly as expected of him.” - Tel Aviv Central Bus Station, Thursday, two weeks ago: a bus driver on the 286 line that goes to the settlement of Ariel refused to allow a group of Palestinian workers on board who wanted to get back home to the West Bank. After a short argument the driver called the police, asking for the Palestinians to be escorted away from the door of the bus. A policewoman who arrived shortly after talked to the would-be passengers, and then told the driver the Palestinians all had valid permits to be in Israel, all went through security checks at the entrance to the station, and that he therefore must allow them on the bus.

Legal expert Ove Bring says to Radio Sweden that it is now "too late" for Swedish prosecutors to question Julian Assange in London. It has become a "matter of prestige" to not give the Wikileaks founder "special treatment." But he also says that if Assange did come back to Sweden the most likely scenario is that he would be questioned, and then released.

The values that distinguished countries from each other could be grouped statistically into four clusters. These four groups became the Hofstede dimensions of national culture:

■ Power Distance (PDI)
■ Individualism versus Collectivism (IDV)
■ Masculinity versus Femininity (MAS)
■ Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI)

Professor Geert Hofstede conducted one of the most comprehensive studies of how values in the workplace are influenced by culture. He analyzed a large data base of employee values scores collected by IBM between 1967 and 1973 covering more than 70 countries, from which he first used the 40 largest only and afterwards extended the analysis to 50 countries and 3 regions. Subsequent studies validating the earlier results have included commercial airline pilots and students in 23 countries, civil service managers in 14 counties, 'up-market' consumers in 15 countries and 'elites' in 19 countries.
In the 2010 edition of the book “Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind”, scores on the dimensions are listed for 76 countries, partly based on replications and extensions of the IBM study on different international populations.

Lance Corporal Buckley became the 1,990th American service member to die in the war when, on Aug. 10, he and two other Marines were shot inside their base in Helmand Province by a man who appears to have been a member of the Afghan forces they were training. A week later, with the death of Specialist James A. Justice of the Army at a military hospital in Germany, the United States military reached 2,000 dead in the nearly 11-year-old conflict, based on an analysis by The New York Times of Department of Defense records. The calculation by The Times includes deaths not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan and other nations where American forces are directly involved in aiding the war. Nearly nine years passed before American forces reached their first 1,000 dead in the war. The second 1,000 came just 27 months later, a testament to the intensity of fighting prompted by President Obama’s decision to send 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2010, a policy known as the surge.

The prospect of a major storm blowing through the Gulf of Mexico toward New Orleans upset the tight choreography of the Republican convention on Sunday, straining the party’s highly scripted plans for showcasing Mitt Romney and raising the possibility that news media attention could shift elsewhere. - With the Tropical Storm Isaac now forecast to roar northwest past Tampa on Monday and Tuesday, officials scrambled to reconfigure what had been a four-night schedule into three and to make contingency plans for further changes. But even if the storm largely bypasses this region, it holds the risk of creating an uncomfortable split-screen image, especially if it continues barreling toward New Orleans. The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama declared states of emergency in anticipation of the storm. Republicans were wary of the optics of television coverage split between the revelry and partisanship surrounding Mr. Romney’s nomination and the threat of the storm making landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi seven years to the week after Hurricane Katrina left an American city in ruins. At the very least, Mr. Romney’s image makers were coming to terms with sharing the news spotlight with the storm just as they were hoping their gathering would give their candidate the exposure he needs to surge ahead of President Obama.

Tropical Storm Isaac has lashed the Florida Keys and South Florida with wind and rain, but may become an even stronger hurricane as it makes its way toward the northern Gulf Coast. - Isaac is expected to make landfall somewhere along the Gulf Coast by Tuesday or Wednesday — the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. That storm caused disastrous flooding all along the coast. A hurricane hasn't hit the Gulf Coast since Ike in 2008. Most of the damage down by Isaac so far has been in the Caribbean. At least eight people were killed by flooding in Haiti, including in tent cities filled with earthquake victims, and two others in the Dominican Republic. Isaac scraped Cuba, downing power lines and trees. As of Sunday night, the storm had hit the Florida Keys with wind and rain, doing little damage aside from scattered power outages.

Christian Science Monitor: Isaac lashes Florida Keys: Is New Orleans next?
Post-Gazette: Gulf Coast braces for intensified storm
Wikipedia: Tropical Storm Isaac (2012)