As unrest in the Muslim immigrant suburbs of Paris enters its ninth night, violence appears to be spreading to other towns such as Dijon, Marseille and Normandy, and into the capital itself. Trouble has now been reported from almost 90… Read moreParisian Intifada: jihadi conspiracy?
Israel is continuing its collective punishment of the Gaza Strip with sonic booms from low-flying aircraft. Now that there are no longer settlers living in Gaza, this tactic is being used to pressure militants who fire mortars at Israel. The… Read moreUN condemns Israeli use of sonic booms on Gaza
A Kurdish PKK prisoner died on Nov. 1 after what Turkish prison officials claimed was a suicide. Prison officials claimed that the prisoner, Serdar Ari, captured had Antalya in 1998, had set himself on fire. But a delegation of observers… Read moreMysterious death of PKK guerilla in Turkish prison
“The speed with which Algeria has gone from symbol of revolutionary socialism to Islamic battleground has confounded most observers,” states the blurb for The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam by Robert Malley (UC, 1996)…. Read moreAlgerians jailed for eating lunch
Noam Chomsky appears to be joining his one-time co-author Edward Herman in loaning legitimacy to denial of (or outright cheerleading for) the genocide in the former Yugoslavia. David Adler notes on his Lerterland blog an Oct. 31 interview with The… Read moreChomsky jumps on Bosnia revisionism bandwagon
Once again, do we want to take bets on whether this will be on the front page of tommorrow’s New York Times? Another 20 Shi’ites killed by the glorious Iraqi “resistance,” this time in Basra. From the Nov. 1 edition… Read moreAnother slow news day in Iraq
We always knew the Pentagon had no sense of humor, but this really proves it. This case, reported in Newsday Oct. 31, is truly Orwellian on multiple levels: it reads like a dark political satire, and it concerns two Afghan… Read moreAfghan writers sent to Gitmo for satire
From the Israeli settler news service, Arutz Sheva: Dichter: Military Action Might Be Necessary to Block Iran Nukes Sunday, October 30, 2005 / 27 Tishrei 5766 (IsraelNN.com) The former head of the Shin Bet security service told a Los Angeles… Read moreFormer Shin Bet head tells AIPAC: US might have to attack Iran
Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary fighters engaged in a bloody gun battle over control of the cocaine trade in western Chocó department, leaving at least 75 fighters dead, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported. Victor Mosquera, a regional human rights observer,… Read moreColombia: paras, guerillas battle for control of Chocó
At least random acts of mass murder still make headlines when they happen in Delhi. In Iraq, it’s just considered another slow news day at this point. Nothing about this currently appears on the front page of Google News. Will… Read moreMore mass murder in Iraq: who cares?
Well, India and Pakistan make a courageous and historic decision to open the militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir in order to allow aid through to remote earthquake-stricken villages (Reuters, Oct. 29). What, putting aside sectarian and geo-political concerns… Read moreHope in Kashmir, terror in Delhi: unity of opposites?
After centuries of clandestinity, the crypto-Jews or Marranos of the US Southwest are starting to boogie in public, and there are even numerous web pages devoted to them (Marranos, The Secret Jews, Who Are the Crypto-Jews?). You know their moment… Read moreSouthwest crypto-Jews make NY Times; crypto-Muslims still subaltern?
