. >> harold schmidt has said that he will not resign, despite being stripped of his university doctorate amidst accusations of plagiarism. he told the hungarian television that he can meet current academic standards. the university withdrew his doctorate on thursday when the committee found he had copied large parts of his thesis. credit-card companies mastercard and visa are investigating a security breach in the united states that may have released the details of millions of customers. the customers -- the company says that a third-party vendor is at fault. the numbers from 10 million accounts may have been stolen when customers use their cards in new york. military and diplomatic pressure is growing. rebels in the north of mali have seized a town and troops have abandoned their positions. the leader of the coup has made an appeal for outside help in preserving their territorial integrity. >> they condemned the government handling of the conflict in the north, but taking power has not helped to solve the problem. instead the rebels have found a benefit. the military junta is beginning

we also have msnbc political analysts harold ford jr. and steve schmidt with afghanistan. a united states army sergeant is being detained after american officials say he went on a nighttime massacre over the weekend, killing 16 afghan civilians as they slept in their homes. a coalition spokesman says the rogue shooter abandoned his host at a military base and walked to a nearby village. there, he allegedly opened fire inside three separate homes, killing as many as nine children. five other civilians were reported injured. president obama, who was attending his daughter's basketball game in maryland personally called afghan president hamid karzai. in a statement, he offered his condolences with the victims' families and said the incident does not represent the u.s. military. but afghan president hamid karzai is demanding answers from the u.s. government, saying, quote, this is an assassination, an intentional killing of innocent civilians and cannot be forgiven. we're going to talk to our panel and start with nbc chief pentagon correspondent jim miklashev