Yet more evidence that Central Asia, increasingly wary of US military designs in the region since 9-11, is radically tilting away from Washington. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all opened their territories to US forces after 9-11, and Tajikistan, with its… Read moreTajikistan holds military manoeuvres with China
More grisly news from the amusingly eccentric despotism of Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov. It is good to see the outside world paying attention to what goes on in this hermetically-sealed dictatorship, but this case raises the usual dilemmas. Journalist Ogulsapar Muradova… Read moreTurkmenistan: UN scrutiny in journalist’s death
We can feel George Bush cringing. Why did Sacha Baron Cohen have to pick on Kazakhstan of all places, which the US sees as a strategic bulwark against both Russian and Islamist influence in Central Asia, and which Dick Cheney… Read moreKazakhstan: Borat puts Bush in tight spot
Perhaps this was an exercise in surrealist performance art. From RFE/RL, Sept. 13: International rights organizations are criticizing UNESCO’s decision to award Uzbek President Islam Karimov the Borobudur gold medal for “strengthening friendship and cooperation between the nations, development of… Read moreUzbekistan’s murderous dictator gets human rights award
The political trajectory of Oriana Fallaci speaks to one of the funamental political dilemmas on the planet at this strange juncture. The daughter of an Italian anti-fascist militant, a veteran Vietnam war correspondent, a survivor of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre… Read moreOriana Fallaci, exponent of “left” Islamophobia, dies at 77
The website “Haiti Xchange” recalled in September 2001: Long before this year’s tragedy, September 11 was already a date associated with terror for Haitians: on that day in 1988 a group of armed men linked to the military dictatorship attacked… Read moreHaitians remember September 11… 1988
The level of death squad activity in Iraq appears to far outstrip that in El Salvador 20 years ago, from which the so-called “Salvador Option” takes its name. But there was no equivcation about the fact that there was a… Read moreIraq: death squad kill-spree
From the Federation of Worker Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI): 1. On Sunday [Sept. 3], hundreds of health sector workers held a strike in Nasiriyah city, 370 Km south of Baghdad and in Umara city 370 Km South-east of… Read moreStrike wave hits Iraq
From the Federation of Worker Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI): Oil Sector Unionists Meeting in Baghdad 54 trade unionists and worker activist from the central oil sector (Baghdad and vicinity) held a meeting on Monday, September 4th in the… Read moreIraq: oil workers threaten strike
Note that even as he asks Congress to legalize torture, Bush plans to hawk what he calls his “freedom agenda” before the UN next week. The obligatory Orwell reference here would seem almost superfluous. We hope. Sarah Ferguson writes for… Read moreNew Yorkers to protest Bush “freedom agenda”
What’s really terrifying about Bush’s bid for Congress to address the controversy around torture and detainment is that, if lawmakers take the bait, there will cease to be a torture scandal and torture will be normalized. We are approaching a… Read moreBush: ditch Geneva Conventions, habeas corpus
On a visit to his native Germany, Pope Benedict XVI weighed in Sept. 12 before an audience at Regensburg University, where he once taught, on the contentious issue of rapport between Islam and the West. Calling for a “genuine dialogue… Read morePope disses Islam, invokes Byzantine emperor who fought Turks
