Unlike other retailers who have dabbled in finance, the supermarkets have twigged that customers with shopping in their arms have no desire to talk about mortgages.

ECONOMIST: Supermarket banking

Talk of an arms race is muted.

ECONOMIST: Asian missiles

The assault was delayed for days, first to allow President Hamid Karzai to return from a trip abroad, and then to give Afghan officials time to try to convince tribal elders from Marjah to align themselves with the government and talk the town's young men into putting down their arms.

WSJ: U.S. Starts Afghan Surge

Before talk of a Syrian connection, an article in the March issue of Arms Control Today by Siegfried Hecker and William Liou listed the many ways North Korea's nuclear expertise could be of use to Iran, which also has suspect nuclear ambitions.

ECONOMIST: The devil in the nuclear detail