As the Taliban announce the start of their spring offensive, Obama signs a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Hamid Karzai allowing a major US military presence in Afghanistan beyond the supposed withdrawal deadline of the end of 2014.
The Occupy movement made an impressive return on May Day, with marches held in most cities around the US. But the march in Cleveland was cancelled after five men were arrested by the FBI on charges of plotting to blow up a Route 82 bridge.
As the new World Trade Center tower once again becomes the highest building in New York CIty, the AP account persists in calling it by the abandoned jingoist moniker “Freedom Tower”—and distorts its ranking among the world’s top skyscrapers.
From NY1, April 29: Seven Family Members Die After SUV Plunges From Bronx Parkway Police say seven Bronx family members spanning three generations died Sunday afternoon after the sports utility vehicle they were riding in flipped over a Bronx River… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Mysterious explosions in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk come just as Kiev has announced that it will invest in the trans-Caspian pipeline that by-passes Russian territory—fueling conspiracy theories about a Moscow hand in the blasts.
Supposed ecological crusader and Avatar creator James Cameron, along with Google heavies Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, is among the “investor and advisor group” of Planetary Resources Inc—which aims to start mining the asteroids.
Weeks after Tuareg rebels seized the northern half of the country (with its precious uranium deposits) no move has been made by Mali’s government to try to take it back—a sign that the state has in fact collapsed.
China and Russia team up for joint maneuvers in the East China Sea, while the US and Philippines do the same in the South China Sea. The drills follow confrontations in the South China Sea between Chinese, Philippine and Vietnamese forces.
A protest leader was found dead after overnight clashes between the pro-democracy demonstrators and police in Bahrain, as the Formula One Grand Prix car-racing spectacle is set to open in the conflicted Persian Gulf mini-state.
Contradictory accounts of the Tibetan self-immolations—now numbering over 35—reveal rival conceptions of Tibet’s borders by the Chinese state and the Dalai Lama’s exile government, with control of critical resources in the background.
An April 9 report on WNYC Radio informs us that last year, 21 bicyclists were killed in vehicle crashes in New York City—but only two drivers were arrested. Local district attorneys, when pressed to cite convictions for cyclist deaths, gripe… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Just before last month’s notorious purge of Bo Xilai, populist Chinese Communist Party chief in Chongqing, World Bank President Robert Zoellick lectured the People’s Republic at a Beijing meeting that its economic model is “unsustainable.”
