From the New York Times, Sept. 29: PORTOROZ, Slovenia — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld agreed Thursday to put 12,000 American combat troops in eastern Afghanistan under NATO command, possibly as soon as next month, officials said. The plan approved… Read moreNATO expands Afghanistan role
Are we terrified yet? From AP, Sept. 29, emphasis added: BAGHDAD – Al-Qaida in Iraq’s leader, in a chilling audiotape released Thursday, called for nuclear scientists to join his group’s holy war and urged insurgents to kidnap Westerners so they… Read moreAbu Ayyub al-Masri: let’s go nuclear
Freedom’s on the march in America’s NATO ally and GWOT partner. Perhaps someone will have some well-chosen words for the current US president in the guestbook at Monticello. From the Al-Jazeera, Sept. 27: A Turkish court has fined an elderly… Read moreTurkey: free speech under attack …again
Freedom’s on the march in liberated Iraq. From the New York Times, Sept. 29: BAGHDAD, Iraq – Ahmed al-Karbouli, a reporter for Baghdadiya TV in the violent city of Ramadi, did his best to ignore the death threats, right up… Read moreIraq: journalists under attack
From the Reuters, Sept. 30: BAGHDAD – Iraq’s government shut down the capital with a one-day curfew on Saturday, ordering all cars and pedestrians off the streets and giving no reason for the measure. As dawn broke, streets in the… Read moreBaghdad under curfew again; Sunni mosque shot up
From CBC, Sept. 21: A North American security meeting was secretly held in Banff last week, attracting high-profile officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada. The North American Forum was hosted with the help of the Canada West Foundation… Read moreSecret NAFTA security summit held in Banff
Shops, gas-stations, hotels and restaurants shut down as part of a 48-hour strike seeking to pressure the federal government to intervene in the Oaxaca crisis Sept. 28, triggering long lines as residents stocked up on supplies. Meanwhile, followers of the… Read moreOaxaca crackdown imminent?
Ominous news, and a different perpective from our usual left-wing Mexican sources like La Jornada and APRO. Will the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca be put down by armed force before the December presidential transition? Whatever antipathy may exist between… Read moreOaxaca: People’s Assembly on “red alert”
We again point out the surreal irony that Pakistan, the closest US ally in the region, is serving as a staging ground for the anti-US insurgency in Afghanistan. This report indicates that the actual Taliban leadership which was chased out… Read moreTaliban real power in Pakistan’s border region?
Yeah, except the Cali cartel is old news. Its been dead for almost a decade, and Colombia’s still-booming narco trade has now been effectively taken over by the armed gangs which were the former enforcers for the cartels (in the… Read moreUS boasts “final, fatal blow” to Cali cartel
The Chiapas daily Estesur Sept. 24 noted a “bad weekend for Lopez Obrador,” with PRD founder Cuauhtemoc Cardenas dissenting from his declaration as Mexico’s “legitimate president,” and a tough struggle looming for the PRD candidate in next month’s Tabasco gubernatorial… Read moreLAT op-ed: what’s Mexico hiding?
In a Sept. 18 statement on the Papal controversy, the Islamic Society of North America—which recently made headlines by electing a woman (and Canadian ex-Catholic), Ingrid Mattson, as president (LAT, Sept. 21)—calls out His Holiness on some shabby scholarship. PLAINFIELD,… Read moreIslamic Society of North America accuses Pope of poor scholarship
