First in Sudan, now Belarus. From Amnesty International, Aug. 14:

Photos of Teddy Bears Land Belarus Student Behind Bars
Anton Surapin did what millions do every day: he posted photos of something interesting online. But he lives in ex-Soviet Belarus, the most authoritarian state in Europe, and the photographs in question were of teddy bears that had just parachuted out of the sky carrying a pro-human rights message.

What great timing. On Aug. 16, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to reporters at the Pentagon about a new report from the Congressional Research Service entitled "Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues" (online as a PDF at the Federation of American Scientists). Panetta said: "The great danger we've always feared is that if terrorism is not controlled in their country then those nuclear weapons could fall into the wrong hands." That same day, militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan attacked Minhas Air Force Base near Kamra, outside Islamabad—a site where aviation research takes place, and is believed to be closely linked to Pakistan's nuclear program. Nine attackers and one guard were killed, a senior officer injured, and a surveillance plane damaged. It was the fourth and most audacious attack on the base. Pakistan Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for the death of leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in 2009, and the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden last year.

On Aug. 15—not coincidentally, the 67th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II—a group of Chinese activists who had sailed from Hong Kong landed on Uotsurijima, one of the contested Senkaku Islands, and were promptly arrested by Japanese Coast Guard troops and Okinawa prefectural police. They succeeded in planting a Chinese flag on the island before five were arrested; another two managed to return to their fishing vessel and escaped. Japanese authorities say they will determine whether the detained men, now being held in Okinawa, will be prosecuted or deported back to Hong Kong. This was the first such incident since March 2004. But since 2009, the Hong Kong government has on six occasions stopped protest vessels from going to the contested islands. (Daily Yomiuri, Aug. 16; Xinhua, Japan Times, Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 16

Well, if you thought that France getting a new Socialist president, François Hollande, was going to mean a retreat from the Franco-dystopia that unfolded under his reactionary predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy—time to think again. Sarkozy's election in 2007 saw the outburst of an intifada by North African immigrant youth in the Parisian suburbs, followed by the unleashing of police repression. Not much later, Sarkozy instated a harsh crackdown on the Roma, ordering police to break up their camps, sparking more protests and an official censure of France by the European Commission. So what a sense of deja vu... Hollande now says his government will use "all means" necessary to restore peace after a new uprising by immigrant youth—this time centered around the northern city of Amiens—left more than a dozen police officers injured and several buildings damaged or destroyed. (LAT, Aug. 15)

It hasn't won the merest fraction of the coverage enjoyed by the London Olympics, but last week's massive Chevron oil refinery fire in Richmond, Calif., sent hundreds of people rushing to hospitals, darkened the skies over East Bay, and has gasoline prices headed back up towards $4 a gallon. AP notes this "was just the latest pollution incident at the facility that records show has increasingly violated air quality rules over the past five years. The refinery is one of three such facilities near San Francisco that rank among the state's top 10 emitters of toxic chemicals, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release Inventory. Chevron's Richmond refinery...has been cited by San Francisco Bay area regulators for violating air regulations 93 times in the past five years."

China's move to set up a military garrison at Sansha on disputed Yongxing Island (also known as Woody Island) in the Xisha chain (claimed by the Philippines as the Paracels), along with creating a city administration for the island which has heretofore had few permanent inhabitants, is escalating tensions in the South China Sea (or, as Manila has it, the West Philippine Sea)—the key theater in Washington's new cold war with Beijing. On Aug. 4, Beijing summoned a senior US diplomat, the embassy's deputy chief of mission Robert Wang, over State Department criticism of the move. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in a statement the day before that the US is "concerned by the increase in tensions in the West Philippine Sea and [we] are monitoring the situation closely."

We've warned before that if Israel continues on its accelerating trajectory deeper into Jewish chauvinism and monocultural supremacy, it may have to forfeit its long-touted claim to the title of the "Middle East's only democracy." (Especially given that Israel is ironically fast becoming a more closed society simultaneous with the unprecedented political opening in the Arab world.) We've also warned that one way this chauvinism is manifesting is in the Judaization of geography in Jerusalem, and censoring of old Arab place names by municipal authorities. Now a similar controversy emerges from Tel Aviv. From Ha'aretz, Aug. 10:

OK readers, we have finally unveiled our long-awaited redesign. Now we need to pay for it. We want to hear from you with your feedback. And we also urgently need your support. To get out of debt, we need to raise at least $1,000 dollars. The sooner we can pay it off, the sooner we can put funds toward journalism—more first-hand reports from the frontlines of the indigenous struggle in Andes, and our planned excursion to North Africa and Western Sahara. The kind of reportage on forgotten struggles for land and autonomy around the world that you can only find on World War 4 Report. $1,000 isn't very much—far less than what most alternative websites ask of their readers. Do we have 50 readers that we can count on to give just $20 each? If you value World War 4 Report's work, and want us to be there to continue bringing you news from the Fourth World across Planet Earth, please get the ball rolling on this urgent fund appeal—now, while you are thinking about it!