Having already dropped the "enemy combatant" nomenclature, the Barack Obama administration has now formally abandoned the Bush-era phrase "Global War on Terrorism." The new term is the dryly clinical and antiseptic "Overseas Contingency Operation." Is this an improvement—or a switch from a hubristic and bellicose rallying cry to an Orwellian euphemism? From the Washington Post, March 25:

President Barack Obama broadcast a speech to the people and leaders of Iran early March 20, offering greetings for a Persian new year holiday of Nowruz, stressing the potential for peaceful cooperation. A video of the speech was distributed to news outlets in the region, subtitled in Farsi:

Protests in China's Tibetan regions continue to be met with harsh repression one year after the Lhasa uprising—now reported on only by the Tibetan exile media. Chinese police in Nyarong County, Sichuan Province, arrested three Tibetans March 12 and paraded them in a marketplace after they pasted protest letters in front of a local government office and hoisting of Tibetan national flag in a school, according to a report on the Tibetan exile government website. (Phayul, March 16)

The Irish Times notes March 14 that when former ambassador Chas Freeman was picked last month to chair the National Intelligence Council (NIC), few US newspapers reported the appointment. Freeman's withdrawal last week was front page news, however—because of his blistering parting shot at the "Israel Lobby" he claimed had brought him down. The case opens a window into the intra-elite paleo-neocon wars still playing themselves out in the Barack Obama administration.

On the eve of the international London Conference on Anti-Semitism, Venezuelan Jewish community leader Sammy Eppel, director of the human rights commission of B'nai B'rith and columnist for the Caracas daily El Universal, accused President Hugo Chávez of leading a state-sanctioned campaign against the country's Jews. Eppel said the campaign of anti-Semitism that hit world headlines with this January's Venezuelan synagogue attack actually began with a raid on a Jewish school in Caracas in 2004. The police were looking for weapons and explosives, but he pointed out that the raid coincided with a high-profile visit to Iran by Chávez. "It was, if you like, a gift for Ahmadinejad, to say that 'this is how I treat my Jews,'" Eppel said.

An analysis this week by the Council for Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), "Venezuelan Synagogue Vandalizing Takes New Turn: The Culmination of a Number of Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Incidents," accuses President Hugo Chávez and his government of creating a climate that fostered the Jan. 31 attack on the Tiferet Israel Sephardic temple in Caracas.

The blog Green is the New Red notes Feb. 5 that environmental activist and mother of two Marie Mason was sentenced to 21 years for her role in an arson attack 10 years ago at a Michigan State University biotech lab—in which nobody was injured. The FBI nonetheless hyped the case as "domestic terrorism." Lansing's WLNS TV reported that the town was on "high alert" following FBI warnings that Animal Liberation Front "terrorists" might attend the sentencing at the federal courthouse. Three days earlier, an FBI press release announced guilty pleas from four young men who carried out racist assauls on New York's Staten Island the night of Barack Obama's election victory. As we noted, one of the victims, a teen-aged Liberian immigrant, had his scalp ripped open with baseball bats. The press release informs us that another, "whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American," was run over with a car and remained in coma for weeks. Three of the men received 10-year terms; a fourth who held out before copping a plea received 12 years. Mason, like the Staten Island thugs, also copped a plea—but on significantly harsher terms.

Venezuelan investigators announced Feb. 8 the arrest of seven police agents and four civilians in connection with the Caracas synagogue attack. The Venezuelan public prosecutor's office said the civilians included at least one security official from the synagogue. "These people were apprehended during raids carried out between Saturday and the early hours of Sunday in different parts of Caracas. They will all be charged by the Public Prosecutor's office," the office said in a statement.