Peter Baker | Moscow | July 3

NYT - The Russian government has agreed to let American troops and weapons bound for Afghanistan fly over Russian territory, officials on both sides said Friday. The arrangement will provide an important new corridor for the United States military as it escalates efforts to win the eight-year war.

BBC - A senior Obama administration official has told the BBC that Russia has agreed to let US troops bound for the war in Afghanistan fly through its airspace. The deal, which opens up an important new corridor for the US military, is to be officially announced when President Barack Obama visits Moscow next week. Speaking separately, a Kremlin official confirmed a deal was on the table but suggested it referred to weapons only. The reported agreement marks a major development in US-Russian relations.

Bill Sizemore | Alexandria, VA | July 2

The Virginia-Pilot - A just-amended lawsuit alleges six additional instances of unprovoked attacks on Iraqi civilians by Blackwater contractors.

Three people, including a 9-year-old boy, are said to have died.

Also added to the suit is a racketeering count accusing Blackwater founder Erik Prince of running an ongoing criminal enterprise involved in, among other things, kidnapping and child prostitution.

Yangon | July 3

AFP - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon prepared Thursday for a risky visit to Myanmar amid warnings that his trip will be a "huge failure" if he fails to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Ban is set to arrive in the military-ruled nation on Friday for a two-day visit that the UN says will focus on pressing the junta to free all political prisoners -- including the opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate who is currently on trial. He is due to meet junta leader Senior General Than Shwe and members of opposition parties including Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), but

George Jahn | July 3

AP - The 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency chose a veteran Japanese diplomat as the agency's next head on Thursday, in a tight vote reflecting stubborn North-South divisions of the U.N. nuclear monitoring organization.
Yukiya Amano collected 23 votes, compared to 11 for Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa, with one abstention, barely giving him the two-thirds majority needed for victory.
Even that tight margin came only after hard-fought preliminary sessions. A March vote between the two men — Amano, backed by the U.S. and like-minded countries, Minty supported by the developing world — was inconclusive, showing the divide separating the two camps.

t r u t h o u t - Jason Leopold on Yoo, Walker, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency, representatives of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and judge advocate generals (JAGs) from all four branches of the military and the process of justifying degrading interrogation tactics in clear violation of the Geneva Convention.

Sue Lannin | July 2

abc.net.au - A leaked report from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) says that nations are throwing up trade barriers in response to the global recession.{snip} WTO director-general Pascal Lamy says the global economy is fragile and that wealthy nations will see exports drop by 14 per cent this year, and that is not going to help the world recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

abc.net.au- Richard Shumack is a postgraduate student at Melbourne University connected to the National Centre for Excellence in Islamic Studies. He is a Fellow of the Centre for Public Christianity. In this oped published at abc.net.au Schumack looks at President Obamas' recent speech in Cairo, and breaks open the penetrating thought of Muslim philosopher Shabbir Akhtar and comments on Akhtars book A Faith for All Seasons: Islam and the Challenge of the Modern World in the context of modern attempts to find common ground between Christianity and Islam.

The new approach to fighting the Taliban calls for building up local Afghan forces – militias and tribal levies. While this is a welcome departure from the neglect and reliance on massive firepower of past years, the approach will face many obstacles.

Local forces, from the Soviet occupation to the present, have not worked well with the Afghan national army. Preferring to remain in their districts, many Afghans choose service in local militaries, presenting personnel problems for the army. Militias are resented for draining military resources better allocated, in the army’s view, to them. Attempts over the years to amalgamate militias and army have met with failure.

Sherwood Ross | Baghdad | June 28

Global Research - The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.

“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he died from asphyxiation after having been hung by his arms, in a hood, and suffering broken ribs,” the magazine’s Jane Mayer writes in the magazine’s June 22nd issue. “Military pathologists classified the case a homicide.” The date of the murder was not given.

Charles Lewis | June 27

National Post - Pope Benedict, whose official pronouncments mostly cover matters or religious faith and sexual behaviour, is about to weigh in on the ills of the economy.

In Charity in Truth, which should be released next week, he is expected to point out the failings of capitalism and lament the world's roiling markets, exploited workers and the harsh disparity between rich and the poor.

"Many conservatives will be shocked and disappointed by the encyclical, which will reflect Benedict's skepticism toward unbridled capitalism based on greed," wrote Father Thomas Reese, an American Jesuit scholar and an expert on the Vatican.

Forty years ago, I travelled to Medellin, Colombia with my father, carrying with me a cassette player and a handful of cassettes. Among them was a Jimi Hendrix tape. Playing it for the kids there, one enthusiastically related; "Ah! Yes! Cha cha cha!" Not even "rock and roll!", but 'cha cha cha'... (??!) That really clued me in on a very unexpectedly wide cultural chasm, albeit bridged nonetheless. Mostly.
    This came to mind as I learned tonight of 'Afghan Star'... -Only I was the one figuratively saying 'Ah! Yes! Cha cha cha!'...

Phil Stewart and Daniel Flynn | TRIESTE, Italy | June 27

Reuters - U.S. reverses Afghan drug policy

Sat Jun 27, 2009 10:44am EDT

By Phil Stewart and Daniel Flynn

TRIESTE, Italy (Reuters) - Washington is to dramatically overhaul its Afghan anti-drug strategy, phasing out opium poppy eradication, the U.S. envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan told allies on Saturday.

Richard Holbrooke, attending a G8 conference on stabilizing Afghanistan, also discussed efforts to support its August 20 election. Washington has nearly doubled its troops to combat a growing Taliban insurgency and provide security for the vote.

June 26

Bloomberg - China’s central bank renewed its call for a new global currency and said the International Monetary Fund should manage more of members’ foreign-exchange reserves, triggering a decline in the U.S. dollar.

“To avoid the inherent deficiencies of using sovereign currencies for reserves, there’s a need to create an international reserve currency that’s delinked from sovereign nations,” the People’s Bank of China said in its 2008 review released today. The IMF should expand the functions of its unit of account, Special Drawing Rights, the report said.

The restatement of Governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s proposal in March added to speculation that China will diversify its currency reserves, the world’s largest at more than $1.95 trillion. Chinese investors, the biggest foreign owners of U.S. Treasuries, reduced holdings by $4.4 billion in April to $763.5 billion after Premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern about the value of dollar assets. That reduction came a month after China boosted its holdings by $23.7 billion to a record.

“Zhou Xiaochuan sees the current international financial system is flawed, putting too much emphasis on the dollar as a reserve currency,” said Kevin Lai, an economist with Daiwa Institute of Research in Hong Kong.

June 26

BBC - Russia's energy giant Gazprom has signed a $2.5bn (£1.53bn) deal with Nigeria's state operated NNPC, to invest in a new joint venture.

The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

Analysts say the move could further strengthen Russia's role in supplying natural gas to Europe.

The agreement comes during a four-day African tour by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

As well as forming Nigaz, Russia is keen on developing a trans-African pipeline to transport Nigerian gas to Europe.

This could further reinforce Gazprom's already-strong influence over Europe's energy supplies.

"Look What You Made Me Do"

Caesar, Hitler, Nixon - War, Racism, Hatred - Alcohol, Mysogyny, Conformity

Seamless trinities...
One needn't ever drink a drop of alcohol to serve in it's churches...
Just as one needn't ever hit women to perpetuate ever worse to them...
Or as one needn't necessarily exit conventional reality to reject the convention.

Seamless subjects. Addiction: money, ego, power, sex, drugs, food, adrenalin, violence, drugs, fear, hatred, guns, vanity, games, the very creative imperative itself -addiction alone makes an endless daisy chain of seamlessly related subjects. They continue on through Blame and Guilt, and Control. Subjects of enthrallment, helpless captivity. It's a necessary convenience to limit the moment's topic. In such isolation, the seamlessness of the chain is not a foregone understanding though, not at all, quite the opposite. It is not a given understanding that to talk of one is to talk of 'them' all... As it should be; that isn't necessarily true, or false.

Daniel Howden | June 25

The Independent - Six years ago, the world came together to stop a trade in gems that was fuelling civil war in Africa. Now the architect of the deal has quit, warning that jewels 'have blood all over them' again

The leading architect of the international system to stop the trade in blood diamonds has warned that the safety net is close to collapse with governments and the industry failing to act against gross violations.

Ian Smillie, the "grandfather" of the landmark Kimberley Process, that was agreed in response to appalling civil wars in Africa fuelled by illegal gems, said he had "stomped out" on his scheme as it was no longer working.

"It isn't regulating the rough diamond trade," the Canadian expert said yesterday. "It is in danger of becoming irrelevant and it's letting all manner of crooks off the hook."

Donna Abu-Nasr | June 24

The Independent - A Saudi woman holding a child checks out lingerie at a store in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A group of Saudi woman launched a campaign aimed at bringing in female sales personnel at lingerie stores. Only men are allowed to sell underwear in almost all stores in this ultraconservative kingdom, making the experience of shopping for intimate apparel for most women embarrassing

Using colorful bras donated by employees at Victoria's Secret, a group of 26 mostly Saudi women completed the first course of its kind to be offered in the kingdom — how to fit, stock and sell underwear — a training organisers hope will help boost a campaign to lift the ban on women selling underwear in the kingdom.

The graduates held a small ceremony at a college in the western seaport of Jiddah yesterday, capping 40 hours of instruction during which they learned to overcome their embarrassment at doing bra fittings, deal with customer complaints and display the stock in an appealing manner.

The 10-day course comes three months after a group of Saudi women launched a campaign to boycott lingerie stores until they employ women. Almost all the stores in the kingdom are staffed by men.

Thalif Deen | United Nations | June 24

IPS -

An international conference on the global financial crisis - hosted by the United Nations - is being marginalised by Western countries which have refused to send any of their political leaders to the meeting.

Of the 126 countries participating in the three-day conference, scheduled to take place Jun. 24-26, there will be two heads of state, four vice presidents, 10 heads of government, three deputy prime ministers and 32 ministers.

But an overwhelming majority of the top level attendees are from the developing world, including Ecuador, Venezuela, Philippines, Brazil, Iran, Gambia, Laos, India, Bangladesh, Honduras, Zimbabwe, China, Russia, Barbados, Malaysia, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The only relatively high level Western representation is a deputy prime minister from Luxembourg and six ministers from Finland, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and Britain.

Asked whether this is an attempt undermine the conference and marginalise the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly Fr. Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann said: "There are countries and institutions that are against this global conversation for obvious reasons."

Gawd, the food sucks in America. My bowels are in an uproar right now. What's a guy gotta do to get vine ripened tomatoes? Fresh cucumbers? Arugala in his salad and decent cheese--and not pay an arm and a leg for it? And don't get me started on bread, mkaay?

Everything I have eaten in the last two days tastes like three day old cardboard and Cheezewiz. This whole food thing is going to be a real adjustment. And it is something I was really unprepared for. I've never been a real food hound, eating what's in front of me just like the rest of us. But after a year of eating local, non-industrialized food I can see why people in the rest of the world shake their heads at us.

I'll be taking what I eat a lot more seriously in the weeks to come.

Brussels | June 19

UPI - Confidential documents written by the EU team investigating last year's Russian-Georgian war assign much of the blame to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili.

A majority of EU experts say the Georgian president, and not the Kremlin, ordered the first military strike against two breakaway provinces, according to the documents obtained by German news magazine Der Spiegel. The Georgian offensive into South Ossetia and Abkhazia escalated into a five-day war with Russia that the powerful neighbor won.

That doesn't mean the Kremlin is entirely innocent. A senior member of the EU experts' commission tasked with probing the conflict, Otto Luchterhandt, a German international law expert, argues the Kremlin was legally entitled to counterattack but violated "the principle of proportionality" with its massive intervention in Georgia. Other commission members are also arguing that Russia is to be blamed.

** Der Speigel:EU Probe Creates Burden for Saakashvili

Nicholas D Kristof | NYT

Growing up on a farm near Yamhill, Ore., I quickly learned to appreciate the difference between fresh, home-grown foods and the commercial versions in the supermarket.

...

I’ve often criticized America’s health care system, and I fervently hope that we’re going to see a public insurance option this year. But one reason for our health problems is our industrialized agriculture system, and that should be under scrutiny as well.

A terrific new documentary, “Food, Inc.,” playing in cinemas nationwide, offers a powerful and largely persuasive diagnosis of American agriculture. Go see it, but be warned that you may not want to eat for a week afterward.

(It was particularly unnerving to see leftover animal bits washed over with ammonia and ground into “hamburger filler.” If you happen to be eating a hamburger as you read this, I apologize.)

William Maclean | London | June 19

Reuters - Under pressure in his Pakistan enclaves, Osama bin Laden is facing a familiar quandary: Where to go next? The answer is unlikely to be Yemen or Somalia, despite their new prominence as regional al Qaeda sanctuaries.

U.S. drone attacks and a looming Pakistan army offensive against one of al Qaeda's main allies in a northwestern tribal area have stirred speculation that bin Laden's men are seeking a less risky refuge for their anti-Western campaign.

But simply leaving Pakistan's remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) could expose the world's most wanted man and his entourage of planners and bodyguards to satellite detection and the curious gaze of a local population of uncertain loyalty.

Related thread: Yemen could be "another Afghanistan" -EU official

Ewen MacAskill | Washington | June 19

The Guardian -

Kang Nam vessel suspected of transporting weapons, a violation of UN sanctions imposed last week

Tension was growing in the Pacific today as the US navy prepared to intercept a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weapons in defiance of a United Nations ban.

The US navy has been tracking the Kang Nam since its left a North Korean port on Wednesday.

It would be the first ship to be intercepted since the UN last week imposed sanctions on North Korea as punishment for conducting an underground nuclear test last month. The sanctions ban the import and export of nuclear material, missiles and all other weapons other than small arms.

A USS destroyer, the John McCain (named after the father of the Republican senator, who was an admiral), was awaiting orders to intercept the ship off the Chinese coast.

The UN sanctions only allow the US to hail a North Korean ship and demand to be allowed to conduct a search, but not forcibly board it. North Korea has said a forcible search would be regarded as an act of war.

This has the ability to tremendously backfire

Stephanie Nebehay | Geneva | June 19

Reuters - The United States on Friday took up its seat for the first time on the U.N. Human Rights Council, vowing to be a strong advocate for people worldwide who suffer abuse and persecution.

In a policy shift, the Obama administration sought and last month won an elected seat at the 47-member Council, which the previous government had shunned over what it called its "rather pathetic record" and frequent scrutiny of U.S. ally Israel.

Washington said it would use its new voting power at the three-year-old body "to be a tireless defender of courageous individuals across the globe who work, often at great personal risk, on behalf of the rights of others."

Alan Cowell | Paris | June 17

NYT - Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, said it was his “gut feeling” that Iran’s leaders wanted the technology to build nuclear weapons “to send a message to their neighbors, to the rest of the world: ‘Don’t mess with us.’ ”

He spoke in a BBC interview broadcast Tuesday and Wednesday as protesters took to the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, demanding that last Friday’s disputed election result be overturned and confronting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with the leadership’s biggest domestic challenge since the Islamic Revolution three decades ago.

Dr. ElBaradei has made similar points in the past, officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which he is director general, said Wednesday, but his latest remarks were less hedged with diplomatic caveats than previously.