Iraq’s largest oil refinery has been shut down following death threats to tanker drivers. The threats followed a steep government-ordered rise in the price of petrol earlier this month. The oil ministry said the shutdown at the Baiji refinery was… Read moreIraq: oil sector crisis deepens, ethnic cleansing continues
A disturbing clip from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: Chavez makes anti-Semitic slur Venezuela’s president said in his Christmas speech that “the descendants of those who crucified Christ” own the riches of the world. “The world offers riches to all. However,… Read moreAnti-Semitism in Venezuela?
From the front page of the New York Times, Dec. 28, via Bellaciao: Defense lawyers in some of the country’s biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps… Read moreNSA spying scandal raises challenge in terror cases
From the Financial Times, Dec. 28: Colombian insurgents have killed 28 soldiers in the deadliest attack on the military since President Alvaro Uribe was elected three years ago, setting the stage for heightened tensions ahead of elections in May. The… Read moreFARC wipes out 28 troops on coca-eradication mission
From the New York Times, Dec. 28, via IHT: A recent series of indictments and revelations about corrupt federal agents has rocked the attorney general’s office here and undermined one of President Vicente Fox’s few solid accomplishments: the creation of… Read moreNarco scandals shake elite Mexican federal police force
From Newsday Dec. 28, via Sikhnews: From Queens to a rural district in his native India, word of the Yellow cab driver’s death spread quickly Tuesday. Gurbaj Singh immigrated five years ago to Richmond Hill, where he lived and died…. Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Tensions are mounting between Russia and Ukraine over the former’s massive hike in the price of natural gas it sells to the latter. Ukraine has until now received cut-price gas in return for allowing Russia to pipe fuel across its… Read moreMoscow-Kiev tensions escalate
A very enlightening piece from the Dec. 28 Christian Science Monitor, “Kremlin reasserts control of oil, gas” by Fred Weir, points to Moscow designs to reassert its power in Eurasia, and possibly eventually on the global stage. This, in turn,… Read moreRussia flexes petro-muscle
From The Scotsman, Dec. 26: French police said about 100 vehicles were burned overnight, which marked an average weekend tally for urban violence and did not signify a flare-up of violence after riots last month. Some French regions have banned… Read moreFrance: car burnings back to “average”
More than 3,500 Congolese soldiers, supported by 600 UN troops and helicopter gunships, launched attacks Dec. 24 on guerillas operating in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sixteen government troops and some 35 guerillas are reported… Read moreUN troops, Congolese forces battle Uganda rebels
One of the real signs of hope in Afghanistan is that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), until recently active only in the refugee camps in Pakistan, has been able to establish an open presence in the… Read moreAfghanistan: fund drive for RAWA orphanages
From AP, Dec. 23: PARIS — A French military tribunal opened an investigation Friday into allegations that French peacekeepers facilitated attacks on ethnic minority Tutsis during the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans, judicial officials said. A… Read moreFrench role in Rwanda genocide probed
