Two Czech commanders from the elite Fourth Brigade of the Rapid Reaction Forces who have just returned from Afghanistan wore the shield designs of Nazi SS brigades and divisions on their helmets for almost their entire tour of duty in Logar province, according to a Nov. 9 report in the Prague daily Mladá fronta Dnes (MfD). The report notes that these same commanders were decorated days earlier in a ceremony in Žatec for their model fulfillment of the Afghan mission by Czech Defense Minister Martin Barták and Chief of General Staff Vlastimil Picek. MfD reports there is no evidence that Barták and Picek were aware of the two elite soldiers' Nazi sympathies. The helmets of company lieutenant Jan Čermák and warrant officer Hynek Matonoha were "decorated" with the shields of the SS Hohenstaufen and Dirlewanger brigades.

Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the presumed gunman in the deadly Fort Hood shootings, worshipped at Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, VA, led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the apparent 9-11 hijackers—two of whom attended the mosque at the same time as Hasan, the UK's Sunday Telegraph reported Nov. 7. The funeral of Hasan's mother was held there in May of the same year, 2001. The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link this August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organizations.

The media coverage of the Chongqing corruption trial is focusing on the salacious details of the city's reigning crime queen, Xie Caiping, the sister-in-law of the deputy police chief, who is accused of running 20 illegal gambling halls (and notoriously kept a private entourage of 16 young lovers). Six gang members have been sentenced to death for crimes including murder and blackmail, the first among hundreds expected to go on trial—including 14 high-ranking officials. Reading past the headlines reveals that the crime machine served as local enforcers for post-socialist China's new landed oligarchy.

Noam Chomsky will speak at Queen's University in Belfast tonight as this year's guest for the annual Amnesty International lecture. In comments to students ahead of his lecture, Chomsky warned of the dangers of resurgent right-wing extremism in the wake of Obama's election: "The far-right is providing answers that are completely crazy: that rich liberals are giving their hard-earned money away to illegal immigrants and the shiftless poor. A common reaction in elite educated circles and much of the left is to ridicule the right-wing protesters, but that is a serious error... If the protesters are getting crazy answers from the hard-line right-wing extreme, the proper reaction is to provide the right answers..." (Belfast Telegraph, Oct. 30)

Specious terrorism busts in which a close reading of news accounts reveals that the supposed plot actually originated with police or FBI infiltrators continue to be alarmingly common, despite the change of administration in Washington. The headlines continue to imply that there was a real threat in these cases, while the actual text indicates otherwise. Here's the latest example, with the phrases that let slip the bogus nature of the pseudo-plot in bold. From AP, Oct. 26:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a suspected player in the country's booming opium trade, has received regular payments from the CIA for much of the past eight years, according to a front-page New York Times account Oct. 28. The report claims the agency pays Karzai for "a variety of services," including helping to recruit a CIA-directed paramilitary group called the Kandahar Strike Force.

Although still blind to the related human rights violations, the scientific community finally acknowledges that "biofuels" fuel deforestation—and thereby result in a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Here's the abstract of the story that appears in the Oct. 22 edition of Science, "Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error":

Santiago Alvarez, underwriter of accused right-wing Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles and himself convicted in weapons stockpiling for a supposed terror plot, was released from US immigration custody in Georgia Oct. 22. Alvarez pleaded guilty in 2006 to weapons charges related to what the government called a scheme to overthrow Fidel Castro. His sentence was reduced from four years to 11 months for voluntarily handing over a hidden arms cache. Alvarez, a Miami developer, then got more time for refusing to testify against Posada in an immigration fraud case. Prosecutors said Alvarez was on a boat that secretly ferried Posada from Mexico to Miami in 2005. A US resident, Alvarez was eligible for deportation, but the US doesn't generally deport Cubans; he therefore remained in immigration custody after his release from prison in November 2008. The 2006 bust yielded 30 automatic rifles, a rocket launcher, several grenades, over 200 pounds of dynamite, and 14 pounds of C-4 explosives. (Havana Times, Oct. 23; AP, UPI, Oct. 22)