Reports the Chinese news agency Xinhua April 6: Saudi Arabia might increase its crude reserves by 200 billion barrels, Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali bin Ibrahim al-Nuaimi was quoted by the SPA news agency as saying on Tuesday. "There… Read moreSaudi petro-producers still can’t get it down
By any objective standard, the wave of deadly gunplay in Saudi Arabia in recent days is an internecine dispute between rival Wahhabi fundamentalist factions—although that is not how it is being portrayed in the media. Today’s claims by Saudi authorities… Read moreInternecine Wahhabi violence in Saudi Arabia
As Kyrgyzstan’s Tulip Revolution is being consolidated, with a modicum of order returning to Bishkek, the capital, ousted president Askar Akayev has emerged in Moscow, and formally resigned–after having pledged from hiding that he wouldn’t. He said that he hopes… Read moreKyrgyzstan: pawn in the new Great Game?
Pope John Paul II, who died April 2, leaves a mixed legacy. In his native Poland, and elsewhere in the Communist world, he was a catalyst of revolutionary change in the ’80s, but this same anti-Communism caused him to ally… Read morePope leaves mixed legacy—will successor be Black?
From the LA Times, April 1: Fred Korematsu, the Japanese-American whose court case over his refusal to be interned during World War II went to the U.S. Supreme Court and became synonymous with this nation’s agonized debate over civil liberties… Read moreFred Korematsu dead at 86
Reads the latest communique from the Biotic Baking Brigade, dated March 30: William Kristol, founder of the Project for the New American Century (a leading neo-con think tank) and a key figure in American foreign policy for over 20 years,… Read morePNAC piggie gets just desserts
Well, all the lefties and Bush-haters are gloating again—this time at the new report from a presidential commission finding that the intelligence the White House received aboout weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was "dead wrong." (AP, March 31) Will… Read moreWMD report: worse than a whitewash
Reads an AFP report that seems to have been picked up exclusively by the Kurdish Media website: A musician from Turkey’s Laz minority group said the country’s public television refused to allow him to perform his songs, claiming that new… Read moreTurkey’s Laz minority face cultural exclusion
What is now being dubbed Kyrgyzstan’s "Tulip Revolution" is starting to look considerably less than velvet. The country remains divided, with ousted president Askar Akayev in hiding but refusing to step down, and some protests and even road blockades reported… Read moreKyrgyzstan: revolution “made in USA”?
Well, it seems workers are battling to contain a large spill of crude-contaminated water—111,300 gallons—at ConocoPhillips’ Kuparuk oil filed on Alaska’s North Slope. State officials are concerned about impacts on the fragile tundra environment. How ironic that this comes days… Read moreOil spill on Alaska’s North Slope
As Bush equivocates, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter states in a commentary for al-Jazeera that he was told by an anonymous "someone close to the Bush administration" that the U.S. military attack on Iran is slated for June 2005…. Read moreRitter predicts: Iran attack in June
The German-based pro-Kurdish Flash-Bulletin website has posted a Feb. 16 letter from a group of Ezidi academics protesting that Ezidi children in eastern Turkey are being forced to study Islam in school by local village authorities—a practice they charge is… Read moreEzidis face “Islamization” in Turkey
