The US denies it, of course, but the evidence seems pretty convincing. From AP, Feb. 23: BAGHDAD – U.S. troops battled insurgents in fierce fighting that killed at least 12 people in the volatile Sunni city of Ramadi, the military… Read moreIraq: women, children killed in Ramadi fighting
The Taliban is prepared for an ambitious spring offensive, the military leader of the Islamist milita boasted in a new interview with AlJazeera TV. “The attack is imminent,” said Mullah Dadullah. “The number of Taliban mujahedin who are ready to… Read moreAfghanistan: Taliban pledges “imminent” offensive
The New York Times‘ increasingly questionable Michael R. Gordon has yet another report Feb. 23 (with Mark Mazzetti) based largely on anonymous sources. But this one, “U.S. Used Bases in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa,” is just telling… Read moreNYT: Ethiopia waged US-backed “blitzkrieg” in Somalia
We noted that the current (Feb. 22) issue of The Economist has an uncharacteristically favorable article on Eritrea, saying it can “help or hinder progress in the Horn.” The same issue has an equally uncharacteristic slap at the rival Ethiopian… Read moreThe Economist: Should the West back Ethiopia?
Hmmm, Eritrea got a flurry of headlines when Somalia was heating up a couple of months ago—then disappeared. What happened? This telling Feb. 22 story from The Economist, “Eritrea: Still in the Regional Game?,” is reprinted in New Jersey’s Eritrea… Read moreEritrea still in Somalia?
As we noted in a related post on Egypt, Compass Direct News, which monitors global persecution of Christians, likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But this still doesn’t smell very good. From a Feb. 22 report: An Eritrean… Read moreEritrea: persecution of Christians seen
From Compass Direct News, Feb. 22. Compass Direct monitors global persecution of Christians, and likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But nobody else is covering this. Police detained Christian families in Upper Egypt and forced them to deny… Read moreEgypt: growing violence against Copts in south
AlJazeera includes the following interesting passage in its Feb. 22 coverage of the conviction of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman. Now, did “rendition” victim Abu Omar show up to support Soliman, despite his taunts of reactionary Islam on his… Read moreEgypt: “rendition” victim speaks
Wow, like, nostalgia for the ’80s, dude. This should be read to the strains of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Except that now the Russkies are threatening to nuke former Warsaw Pact members—which just indicates how desperate their post-imperial position is,… Read moreNuclear sabre-rattling in Europe
The New York Times informs us Feb. 21 that this still hasn’t been resolved. But here’s an informative overview from the Press Trust of India, Feb. 6. There were five suicide bombings in Pakistan between Jan. 26 and Feb. 6?… Read morePakistan: madrassa students pledge resistance to mosque demolitions
The arrogance of invoking Cuban “sovereignty” to justify this trangression when the Cubans oppose everything Washington is doing at Guantánamo Bay is staggering even by the standards of our deeply cynical age. Oh and by the way, freedom’s on the… Read moreCourt: no habeas corpus for Gitmo detainees
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo stepped down Feb. 19, four days after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of her brother Senator Alvaro Araujo and 12 other legislators for their ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the… Read moreColombia: foreign minister resigns as para scandal heats up
