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Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan : "If there is an exact location marking the West's failures in Afghanistan, it is the modest police checkpoint that sits on the main highway 20 minutes south of Kabul. The post signals the edge of the capital, a city of spectacular tension, blast walls, and standstill traffic. Beyond this point, Kabul's gritty, low-slung buildings and narrow streets give way to a vast plain of serene farmland hemmed in by sandy mountains. In this valley in Logar province, the American-backed government of Afghanistan no longer exists. Instead of government officials, men in muddied black turbans with assault rifles slung over their shoulders patrol the highway, checking for thieves and "spies". The charred carcass of a tanker, meant to deliver fuel to international forces further south, sits belly up on the roadside. The police say they don't dare enter these districts, especially at night whe...

Making Islamophobia Mainstream : "A remarkable thing happened at the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) nominations in February 2007: The normally highbrow and tolerant group nominated for best book in the field of criticism a work widely viewed as denigrating an entire religion. The nomination of Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West From Within didn’t pass without controversy. Past nominee Eliot Weinberger denounced the book at the NBCC’s annual gathering, calling it “racism as criticism’’ (New York Times, 2/8/07). NBCC board president John Freeman wrote on the group’s blog (Critical Mass, 2/4/07): 'I have never been more embarrassed by a choice than I have been with Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept. . . . Its hyperventilated rhetoric tips from actual critique into Islamophobia.' Though it didn’t ultimately win the award, While Europe Slept’s recognition in the highest literary circles was emblematic of a mainstreaming of Islamophobi...

List of Iraqi academics assassinated in Iraq during the US-led occupation | Pakistan Daily : "The following relation has being created against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq with the information provided by direct Iraqi university sources and international and Arab media. It only includes names and data referred to university academics assassinated during the Occupation period."

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Ethiopia stalls on Somalia pullout : "Ethiopia has announced a possible delay of 'a few days' in its plans to pull its troops out of Somalia by the end of the year and hand over security duties to the African Union Mission in Somalia, known as Amisom. The country's foreign ministry made the announcement on Saturday, a day after Somali witnesses said Ethiopian troops killed at least 16 people in the Somali capital."

allAfrica.com: Somalia: Ethiopian Army Shelling Kills 15 Civilians in Mogadishu (Page 1 of 1) Ethiopian troops in Somalia's capital Mogadishu responded with heavy firepower after suspected insurgents attacked army positions Friday, Radio Garowe reported. At least 15 civilians were killed and 20 others wounded at Mogadishu's main livestock market where "many shells" hit, according to witnesses. "I saw five dead women at the market," said a witness who did not want his name in print. The Ethiopian army shells were preceded by a guerrilla attack staged by Islamist rebels, but locals said the actual fighting lasted for brief minutes. Ethiopia's army did not speak publicly about Friday's shelling of civilian areas. The Ethiopian army has been accused of committing war crimes since invading Somalia two years ago. The shelling comes on the heels of a controversial ceasefire agreement between the Somali interim government and an Islamist-led opposition, alth...

Obama's 'Palestinian friend' laments catastrophic U.S. policy in Mideast - Haaretz - Israel News Do you believe that the current PLO leadership will be able to cut a deal with Israel on a two-state solution that will be accepted by the Palestinian people? "The current PLO leadership does not and will not properly represent the entire Palestinian people until it can achieve a historic compromise with the other wing of the Palestinian national movement, and until a renewed, unified leadership can agree on minimal national goals and a strategy, whatever they are. This requires resisting the internal and external pressures that are intent on keeping the Palestinians divided. Only if they are unified do the Palestinians have a chance of achieving their national goals. Thereafter, to be binding and legitimate, any agreement that might be reached would have to be submitted to a referendum of the entire Palestinian people, inside and outside the country." How do you see t...

Informed Comment: Arguing with Bush One last Time : "Informed Comment has had a few running features, including top ten lists, the Ghoul's Glossary, and 'Arguing with Bush.' With any luck this column will be the last in that dreary series. Readers should remember that back in 2003 and 2004, the Bush administration was denying that there had been extensive looting in Iraq after it overthrew the government, was denying that there was a guerrilla war there, and denied that there was an Iraqi insurgency (they seemed to allege that a Lex Luthor clone with hair named Zarqawi was doing all the violence by himself). The mainstream media tended to play along, and merely disagreeing with Bush about these issues was routinely branded treason or even terrorist-loving by sleazy minions of the Right like Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc., etc., etc. when people seemed actually to pay attention to these nonentities."

20 Million Arrests, and Counting -- In These Times This November, moments before millions of voters flock to the polls to elect America’s 44th president, law enforcement officials will make their 20 millionth marijuana arrest. Yet in the days leading up to this appalling milestone, it’s unlikely either candidate will call for — or even so much as entertain — any change in U.S. pot policies. It’s even less likely the mainstream media will care. Since the early ’90s, the total number of Americans busted annually for pot has nearly tripled. In 1991, police arrested a modern low of 288,000 people for minor marijuana violations in the United States, according to the FBI’s annual Uniform Crime Report. By 2006 (the last year for which data is available), a record 830,000 people were arrested. (Of those arrested, an estimated 90 percent are charged with minor possession — not trafficking, cultivation or sale.) That’s one American arrested for pot every 38 seconds. Yet despite this massive incr...