Tokyo’s notoriously nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara is pushing a plan for the metropolitan government to purchase and annex the China-claimed Senkaku Islands in the hydrocarbon-rich East China Sea—without consulting local Okinawa officials.
The official US hand-wringing is all for public consumption. On June 4, 1989, China’s rulers proved to the world that they were willing to slaughter their own citizens in the interests of “stability.” They were rewarded with massive investment.
The deal between Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the jihadi faction Ansar Dine for creation of an “Islamic state” in Mali’s northern breakaway region has reportedly collapsed.
Amid a wave of anti-immigrant protests and harsh new laws, Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishaii complains that most of the “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.”
The Tuareg rebels of the MNLA announced that they are merging with the most significant of the jihadist factions operating in northern Mali, Ansar Dine, to form the Transitional Council of the Islamic State of Azawad.
Egypt’s secular progressives see a choice between “Islamic fascist” Mohammed Mursi and “military fascist” Ahmed Shafiq in next month’s run-off. Washington connived in isolation of the secularists, because this bloc includes socialists and Nasserists.
As the Assad regime is accused of a new horrific massacre, Damascus and Moscow charge that the US and NATO are backing the uprising. And as harsh repression continues in US-backed Bahrain, the monarchy makes identical charges against Iran.
John McCain’s demand that Pakistan pardon Dr. Shakeel Afridi, convicted of treason for helping the CIA locate Osama bin Laden, may not even be possible. Afridi was tried by a tribal court where Islamabad is constitutionally barred from interfering.
As NATO chiefs in Chicago broached negotiations with the Taliban, Amnesty International convened a “Shadow Summit” where women’s groups rejected the idea—while supporting the US/NATO occupation that collaborates with fundamentalist warlords.
Two anti-NATO protesters in Chicago are slapped with terrorism-related charges—days after Human Rights Watch issued a report calling for an investigation into possible war crimes by NATO in last year’s air campaign in Libya.
An exorbitantly priced “Citibike” bicycle-sharing program named and colonized by Citibank is unveiled in New York—a perverse betrayal of the legacy of Amsterdam’s radical Provos, who pioneered the first bike-sharing initiative in 1967.
A federal judge strikes down provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act in a legal challenge by Chris Hedges. But does the ruling protect journalists, while legitimizing indefinite detention of “advocates of violence”?
