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BBC: Arctic ice is at a ‘tipping point’. Watch for yourself on google earth: “This animation in Google Earth shows satellite data of Arctic sea ice concentration from May 25 to August 21, 2008. Note how the decline rate speeds up during August, with strong losses north of Siberia.” – The more drilling and use […]

Pakistan has had to impose trading limits to stop the slide in its stock market coming off the end of the coalition government. Investors have been worried about the withdrawal of the Muslim League (N) from the parliamentary coalition with the Pakistan People’s Party. Meanwhile, Switzerland has dropped its money-laundering investigation of Asaf Ali Zardari, […]

Iraqi politicians greeted the the selection of Joe Biden as the Democratic vice presidential candidate with dismay because they oppose his soft partition plan for Iraq, an affront to Iraqi conceptions of national unity. In contrast, the Sulaymaniya newspaper Kirkuk ran an article by Zana Galali, that, according to BBC Monitoring, “Says that the US […]

Bush is trying to permanently widen FBI prerogatives in opening investigations of US citizens before leaving office. His new guidelines would allow an investigation to begin on the basis of data-mining and profiling, with no evidence of suspected wrong-doing. See my Salon.com article on this issue. This, at a time when the British MI-5 is […]

A warm congratulations to Senator Joe Biden on his VP candidate position on the Democratic ticket! Sen. Biden called me to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq in April 2004, when there was heavy fighting between the Mahdi Army and the US military. He did so on the basis of a journal […]

Muthanna Dulaimi was caught while planting a roadside bomb! The son of the leader of the Iraqi Accord Front, which has cabinet seats in the government of PM Nuri al-Maliki and from which one vice president derives, appears to be an active terrorist! Questions have swirled for some time about Adnan Dulaimi and his sons’ […]

The Tehrik-i Taliban responded to Pakistani military operations against it at Bajaur by sending a suicide bomber to attack workers leaving a munitions factory. Some 57 are dead and 70 wounded. The Pakistan People’s Party, the largest party in parliament, has reportedly decided to seek to get its de facto leader, Asaf Ali Zardari, elected […]

The raid by a special forces operation on the governor’s HQ in Diyala province is being denounced as a rogue operation by the US military. Sunni figures have recently been targeted, raising suspicions that the Badr Corps paramilitary of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq was cleaning house, and suspected someone in the provincial government […]

Zogby News Release reprinted by permission at IC: Released: August 20, 2008 Reuters/Zogby Poll: McCain Makes a Move, Takes 5-Point Lead Over Obama Obama loses ground among Dems, women, Catholics & even younger voters UTICA, New York – As Russian tanks rolled into the Republic of Georgia and the presidential candidates met over the weekend […]