Mexico
Latin America: cartels build own arms industry
Mexican authorities busted another Zetas "narco-tank factory" in Nuevo Laredo on the Texas border—days after Brazilian police made a similar find in Sao Paulo.
Author: Bill Weinberg
Iran
Netanyahu’s doublethink
Netanyahu's speech before Congress was mostly controversial over its perceived meddling in US politics—not its incessant barrage of lies, distortions and double standards.
Southern Cone
Argentina: golpe or auto-golpe?
As charges were dropped against President Cristina Fernández, the intelligence service dissolved and cabinet purged, opposition lawmakers said a "self-coup" is in the works.
New York City
Brooklyn three: ISIS dupes —or the FBI’s?
Three young immigrants in Brooklyn were arrested and charged with plotting to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. But were the plans invented by an FBI infiltrator?
Palestine
Israel behind Gaza flooding?
Hundreds of Palestinians were evacuated amid Gaza Strip flooding. Hamas authorities say Israel intentionally opened dams to flood the territory. Israel denies the dams exist.
Greater Middle East
Turkish troops in Kobani incursion
Turkish forces crossed into Syria, officially to relocate an Ottoman historic site that had been threatened by ISIS—but also to intimidate the autonomist Kurds in control of the region?
Greater Middle East
ISIS and the neocons: fearful symmetry?
The map that ISIS has drawn up of its proposed "caliphate" has internal borders closely mirroring the new borders that neocons seek to impose on the Middle East.
South Asia
Arunachal Pradesh: pawn in the new Great Game
A new diplomatic flare-up over contested Arunachal Pradesh immediately follows the US-India nuclear deal—seen by China as part of an encirclement strategy.
Southeast Asia
Cartoon wars hit ‘moderate’ (sic) Malaysia
In "moderate" Malaysia, an opposition leader is sent to prison for "sodomy," and when a cartoonist lampooned the sentence, he was arrested for "sedition."
Iraq
ISIS and atrocity pornography: politics of horror
The ISIS immolation video reveals a totalitarian cult, but Jordan and other regimes in the anti-ISIS coalition are also despotic—while Syria's pro-democratic forces are betrayed.
Iraq
Chem-armed ISIS being funded through US?
The conspirosphere is jumping on claims that a Pakistani suspect revealed that ISIS is being funded "through the US." But it's all based on anonymous sources—of course.
Planet Watch
Obama’s new offshore plan: don’t believe the hype
Obama's five-year plan for offshore drilling opens up the Southeast coast and grandfathers Arctic leases—but the industry is still griping because it would keep ANWR off limits.