Juan Cole

Scientific American summarizes two new studies giving evidence that the earth’s climate is highly sensitive to the amount of carbon dioxide in it. One is a a Science article by Aradhna K. Tripati, Christopher D. Roberts, and Robert A. Eagle. David Biello writes: ‘ “Modern-day levels of carbon dioxide were last reached about 15 million […]

A suicide bomber targeted a Pakistani military convoy in the town of Alpuri in Shangala district northeast of Peshawar on Monday, killing 41 persons and wounding 60. The bombing may have come as revenge by the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban Movement) for the killing of their leader, Baitullah Mahsud. Aljazeera English has video on […]

The USG Open Source Center Translates the Taliban reaction to President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. Afghan Taleban ‘strongly’ condemn Obama peace prize – agencyAfghan Islamic PressFriday, October 9, 2009 Document Type: OSC Translated Text Afghan Taleban “strongly” condemn Obama peace prize – agencyText of report by private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agencyKabul, 9 […]

Liz Sly reports from Baghdad on the three bombings that shook Ramadi, capital of al-Anbar Province, to its core on Sunday and left at least 26 dead and a hundred wounded. The first two bombings occurred outside the Governor’s mansion where delegates from the Shiite-dominated government of PM Nuri al-Maliki were meeting with Sunni tribal […]

A hostage standoff at Pakistani military HQ in Rawalpindi ended violently on Sunday morning when Pakistani troops stormed the compound where the militants had holed up with 25 hostages. Three of the hostages were killed in the course of the assault, along with two army troops and four militants. Earlier the militants, some dressed in […]

I was listening to National Public Radio on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama, and they brought on some nonentity from one of Rupert Murdoch’s faux “magazines,” who delivered himself of the remark that when he heard the news, he broke out laughing. He laughed at Obama. He is being […]

According to this Persian site, the old Taliban of Mulla Omar have issued a communique that holds out a promise and a threat. They said that if the outside Powers want to transform the proud, pious Afghan people into a colony, they were steadfast and ready to fight a very long war against this effort. […]

CNN reports that nearly one in four human beings is Muslim, based on a new extensive survey by the Pew Forum for Religion in Public Life. The number of Muslims they estimate, about 1.5 billion, is the one I have been using for some time based on my own back of the napkin calculations, but […]

Another big explosion has rocked Kabul, killing several persons and wounding more. I don’t know if Peter Galbraith still has a job at the United Nations after he went public with charges that the Electoral Complaints Commission, mainly appointed by the UN, was ignoring large-scale fraud in the August 20 presidential elections, fraud that mainly […]