Smart Reads January 10, 2014

♦ Iraq’s prime minister is fighting a fire in Fallujah that he helped to start, says Roula Khalaf.
♦ People who once would have been gangsters can now be found in the darker corners of finance, writes Gary Silverman.
♦ US intelligence experts were worried that Osama bin Laden would be reincarnated in an “immortal” form: as a virtual avatar.
♦ The presence of international observers monitoring Egypt’s constitutional referendum could lend legitimacy to a flawed and undemocratic process, says Michele Dunn, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
♦ A small town near Antwerp has been taking the mentally ill and disabled into their homes and offering an alternative to regular treatment with community care.
♦ The bee shortage is going to become a catastrophe. It hasn’t already because “wild pollinators” have picked up the strain so far.
♦ The Simpsons paid tribute to Hayao Miyazaki, who announced his last feature recently.