Archives for August 2009

A suicide bomber penetrated several rings of security in Kabul and detonated his payload outside NATO headquarters next to the American Embassy, killing 7 persons and wounding 91. Police and a parliamentarian are among the wounded. AFP reports that as many as 10 percent of voting places may be closed on election day, out of […]

I am sure they are smart people, but every once in a while the journalists working for the mainstream media deliver themselves of the opinion that exercise does not help you lose weight, or that, indeed, there is no way to lose weight. This article in Time says that the reporter’s friends removed the benefit […]

Two suicide bombers hit a cafe in the Yazidi town of Sinjar, Iraq, on Thursday, killing at least 21 persons and wounded many more. The Yazidis are a religious group among the Kurds who are considered heretics by hard line Muslims, since their religion mixes old pre-Islamic Iranian motifs with Sufi mystical terminology. This operation […]

Former VP Richard Bruce Cheney says he will air his dissatisfactions with George W. Bush’s policies, especially in the second term when Cheney feels he yielded to politics as usual. Cheney believes in elective dictatorship. He thinks democracy and elections are just the way a ruler gets in power. After he is elected, he may […]

Four NATO troops, including one American and three Britons, were killed in Afghanistan on Thursday. The American was killed by small arms fire. The three British soldiers fell victim to a roadside bomb. Nearly 200 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan, and 706 Americans. Pashtun guerrillas attempted to kill former president Burhanuddin Rabbani in […]

Pakistani Taliban loyal to slain leader Baitullah Mahsud attacked the forces of Baitullah’s former supporter turned enemy, Turkistan Bhittani in the frontier region of Jandola. Some 70 fighters perished in the battles, and 33 homes were torched by the Baitullah faction, which had earlier been expelled from Jandola and the city of Tank. Bhittani, who […]

The Real News Network asks and answers the question of who, exactly, benefits economically from the Israeli colonization of the West Bank. See also Lamia Khatib’s account of life in the Occupied West Bank. End/ (Not Continued)

10 Iraqis were killed in political violence on Wednesday, including Brig. Gen. Abdulhameed Khalaf Asfoor of troubled Ninevah Province. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that that January 15 will probably be the day on which Iraqi voters decide the shape of Iraq’s next parliament and decide on two national referendum questions. They are approval of the […]

Bombings killed 8 and wounded 50 in Iraq on Tuesday. There were two bombings in eastern Shiite neighborhoods in the capital. A boy and two soldiers were wounded near Baqubah. These attacks are likely to go on for a while. But despite what a lot of commentators imply, the recent bombings have almost nothing to […]