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The Missing Issues in the Presidential Campaign
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The Missing Issues in the Presidential Campaign

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If you're frustrated by the limited number of issues in this year's presidential campaign, you are not alone. Do voters know what either candidate wants to do about climate change, Mexico's drug wars, the Eurozone or gun control? Are increasingly polarized voters making their choices on party lines without knowing where their own candidates really stand? Also, the Syrian army agrees to temporary truce, though no one knows how long it will last. On Reporter's Notebook, 3-D printers produce industrial objects. We hear about plans for making it possible to download a gun.

Banner image: Cory Brown of Sunburst Dairy drives a feeder tractor past some corn at their dairy farm near Belleville, Wisconsin, September 6, 2012. Crops have been stunted by withering heat across the US heartland, with corn and soybean yields hit hard. Photo by Darren Hauck/Reuters

Making News

Syrian Army Agrees to Temporary Truce, but How Long Will It Last? ()

Syria's military regime has declared a ceasefire for the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins tomorrow. Rebels have reportedly advanced in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, and the government warns that it will respond to attacks, efforts at reinforcement or infiltration from neighboring countries. Rania Abouzeid is a correspondent for Time magazine who's reported on the Free Syrian Army.

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Main Topic

The Missing Issues in the Presidential Campaign ()

No campaign has ever touched on all the important issues, but who decides what's worth discussing and when? For the first time since the election of 1988, the issue of climate change – a subject even the Pentagon says could be crucial to America's future -- was not raised in any of this year's presidential or vice presidential debates Both presidential candidates are being accused of "climate silence." Drug wars, just across the Mexican border, have killed 60,000 people, twice the number in Syria's civil war. What about the Eurozone and gun control? Do the media provide all the ideas? Are the candidates trapped by partisan polarization?  We hear a range of opinions.

 

 

 

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Reporter's Notebook

3D Printing and DIY Guns ()

Three-D printers produce objects by spraying thin layers of plastic, metal or ceramics that build into shapes. Industrial companies use them to make parts. Gun components have been made that way and used in guns that successfully fire bullets. Now a law student in Texas has set off a raging controversy with plans to completely print a functional weapon and release the specifications free on the Internet. The Wiki Weapon project raises the possibility of a convicted felon making a gun without needing a permit or a kid in the bedroom making a gun while parents think he or she is "playing video games on line." John Biggs is East Coast Editor of Tech Crunch.

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