We have noted the rather hilarious irony that Qaddafi actually tried to play to the West by portraying the rebels as jihadi terrorists—and even claimed the West was supporting him against a jihadist insurgency!—but has recently threatened suicide attacks against European capitals. Today the New York Times reports:

After six months battling a rebellion that his family portrayed as an Islamist conspiracy, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's son and one-time heir apparent said Wednesday that he was reversing course to forge a behind-the-scenes alliance with radical Islamist elements among the Libyan rebels to drive out their more liberal-minded confederates. "The liberals will escape or be killed," the son, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, vowed in an hourlong interview that stretched past midnight. "We will do it together," he added, wearing a newly grown beard and fingering Islamic prayer beads as he reclined on a love seat in a spare office tucked in a nearly deserted downtown hotel. "Libya will look like Saudi Arabia, like Iran. So what?"

Iraqi leaders announced Aug. 3 they had agreed to start negotiations on keeping an American military presence in the country after the current Dec. 31 deadline for a withdrawal of all US troops under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The decision was announced after more than four hours of closed-door talks led by President Jalal Talabani. Deputy Prime Minister Rosh Nuri Shawis said in a statement: "All those present agreed to authorize the government of Iraq to start negotiations with the American side." There are currently 46,000 US troops in Iraq. US officials have broached a number of 10,000 remaining after the deadline. (CSM, Aug. 3)

Violence over the past two days left at least 20 dead in Kashgar, the far western city of China's Xinjiang region, with authorities calling one of the incidents a "premeditated terrorist attack" led by militants trained in Pakistan. Authorities say a "group of terrorists" entered a Kashgar restaurant, knifing the owner, workers and patrons to death before setting fire to the building. Two of those involved were apparently chased down and shot by police in an agricultural area on the outskirts of the city. China's official news agency Xinhua said an "initial police probe" showed that the leaders of the "religious extremists" involved in the attack were trained in bomb-making and firearms at Pakistan camps of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).

Some 150,000 protesters took to the streets in cities across Israel on the night of July 30—the biggest demonstrations the country has seen in decades—to demand action on rising rents, low salaries, and the high cost of living. The demonstrations—held in 12 cities including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa—shows that the popular protest movement that has emerged over the past two weeks is only gaining momentum. Activist Daphni Leef, who initiated the first "tent village" protest in Tel Aviv, told a crowd of some 100,000 outside the city's art museum that "we don't want to replace the government, but to do more than that. We want to change the rules of the game." Noam Shalit, the father of captured soldier Gilad Shalit, also spoke at the rally.

Ollanta Humala was sworn in as Peru's president on July 28—with his populist base and the resource industries both seemingly afraid of being betrayed. "We're worried," said Mario Huaman, head of the General Workers' Confederation of Peru (CGTP), the country's largest labor group, which endorsed Humala in the election. "We’ll listen very carefully to what he says in the coming days and see if he shares our views. Then we'll decide our plan of action, our plan to fight. He promised change." Similar reservations were expressed by Renee Ramirez, general secretary of the Unitary Syndicate of Education Workers in Peru (SUTEP): "The new government has built up such great hopes that if it doesn't follow through there’ll be a big divorce. We’re not going to keep quiet. We threw our weight behind Humala but we didn't write him a blank check."

It appears that the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec have teamed up to issue a call to boycott PayPal, evidently if not quite logically in response to FBI raids in which 14 accused Anonymous members were arrested across the country. The only connection between the raids and the boycott seems to be that the 14 are charged in connection with a "distributed denial of service attack" against PayPal, which took down the company's website for four days in December. Here is the cyber-outlaws' joint communique, with jargon and propaganda words in bold:

Jim Lobe on InterPress Service informs us that Israeli pundit Caroline Glick was among those cited in the manifesto of accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik. Now Glick has a screed in the Jerusalem Post of July 28 with the oxymoronic title "Breivik and totalitarian democrats." In it, she acknowledges that she was cited by Breivik, and frets that this demonstrated commonality of ideas is being used to discredit opponents of multiculturalism:

Forebodings are in the air about tomorrow's Friday demonstration in Cairo's Tahrir Square following two violent clashes between protesters and regime elements in Egypt over the past days. On June 23, knife-wielding thugs—apparently supporters of the ruling military council—set on thousands of activists determined to march on the defense ministry. A day before the march, the military accused the April 6 Movement, one of the youth groups that launched the uprising against Hosni Mubarak, of seeking to turn people against the army. In verbiage redolent of the Mubarak regime, a senior army general was quoted as saying the group had received training abroad to destabilize the state. (Financial Times, July 24) Then, on July 26, clashes broke out between police and workers at an industrial free trade zone in the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, injuring at least 38 people. It was the second day of a strike by the workers, who are demanding a raise in the minimum wage. Suez Canal zone workers have been staging a series of protests and labor actions since the beginning of June. (The National, UAE, July 28)