A terrorist’s decade and a half on the lam comes to an end – A politician is brutally stabbed by the people he was defending – Irish voters defy polls that indicate a major change was ordained on the Emerald Isle.

US Special Forces raided a tiny town on Somalia’s southern coast, searching for an al-Shabab terrorist linked to last month’s deadly siege at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya.  No US forces were hurt, but their target appears to have gotten away.  That person had better not stop looking over his shoulder, because the US never forgets; that was demonstrated in the other raid in Africa.  American commandos captured the al Qaeda leader of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and injured thousands more. 

In the most specific release of information coming from the Nairobi Mall Attack investigation, Kenya has named three suspects killed in the 21 September siege, and partially named a fourth: Abu Baara al-Sudani, Omar Nabhan, Khattab al-Kene, and “Umayr”, all captured on recovered CCTV footage of the attack.  The men are all believed to be from eastern Africa.

An Egyptian politician who has spoken out against the military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood was himself repeatedly stabbed by a Brotherhood member after getting stuck in a street protest.  Khaled Dawoud survived the attack, in which Muslim Brotherhood protesters pulled him from his car, stabbed him, and sawed at his arm to remove his hand.  Video of the politician in the hospital, looking pretty beat up, appeared on Egyptian TV.  He says his position has not changed, but says his attackers fail to understand the lessons of history.

Italy’s Coast Guard is denying accusations it was slow to respond to the immigrant boat disaster off the island of Lampedusa last week.  Fishers claimed the coast guard wasted time by filming footage of rescue efforts, instead of pulling people from the water.  And La Sicilia newspaper says two Italian financial guard vessels stayed in port rather than join the rescue effort.  Some 500 East Africans were crammed on the boat when it capsized and sank; only 155 were rescued.  The rest are dead or missing.

Voters in Ireland narrowly defeated a measure that would have abolished the nation’s Senate, which is made up of undemocratically appointed members, costs more than A$28 Million a year, and has little-to-no power to influence anything other than lunch.  It’s a blow to Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who championed the measure, which polling indicated should have been approved.  At least one senator is calling for Kenny to resign for spending the equivalent of the Senate’s budget in a failed effort to get rid of it.  Other pro-elimination lawmakers are now getting to work on reforming the body to earn its keep.

A major political realignment in Brazil:  Popular former senator and Environment Minister Marina Silva has joined the Socialists, whose presumed Presidential candidate already has high approval ratings.  Silva came up 50 thousand petition signatures short of forming her own new political party, as we expected; now, she brings almost half a million voters to the Brazil Socialist Party and could be the strongest challenger to take on President Dilma Rousseff next year.

A Japanese study says China is polluting Mount Fuji.  The iconic peak is downwind from China’s industrial juggernaut, and the result is 2.8 nanograms of mercury atop Fuji-san, two to three times as much as exists in other pristine places.  It’s way below the threshold for posing a risk to humans.  But the unexpected measurements are likely due to Chinese factories burning coal, which releases mercury and other toxic elements - such as arsenic - which were also elevated on top of Mount Fuji.