Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the US and British conduct of the war April 25, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions. He reiterated claims that Afghan villagers were bearing the brunt of US-led attacks, while the Taliban/al-Qaeda were actually based across the border in US ally Pakistan. (NYT, April 26) Two days later, Karzai narrowly escaped death when assailants opened fire on his entourage in an Afghan National Day parade, celebrating 16 years since the overthrow of the country's Soviet-backed rule. Three people were killed and some 10 injured in the attack. An MP and a 10-year-old child were among the dead, officials said. Some of the assailants have been arrested, according to authorities. (BBC, April 28; Press TV, Iran, April 27)

Talk about chutzpah. The right-wing blogosphere is ballistic over Barack Obama's rather tenuous ties to a former member of the Weather Underground. It was Hillary Clinton who first made an issue of the fact that Obama once served on the board of Chicago's progressive Woods Fund with ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers. Hillary later pleaded ignorance when reminded that her husband pardoned one member of the Weather Underground and commuted the sentence of another. (Huffington Post, April 17) Particularly hot under the collar about the fact that Ayers has any place at all in respectable American society is Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. After running down a litany of Ayers' and Bernardine Dohrn's rioting, bombing, travels to Cuba, juvenile rhetoric about killing your parents, etc., he fumes:

We've always maintained that anti-Semitism and anti-Arab racism are genetically linked phenomena. A lovely illustration is provided by Joseph E. DiGenova, the prosecutor in the Jonathan Pollard case, following the latest bust in the endless Israeli spy scandal—of octogenarian former US Army mechanical engineer Ben-Ami Kadish, for crimes supposedly committed back in the '80s. DiGenova uses precisely the same lurid phraseology employed against supposed Arab and Muslim terrorists. From YNet, April 24 (emphasis added):

A cocaine trafficking case against Colombian rebel leader Ricardo Palmera (AKA Simón Trinidad) ended in a mistrial April 21—the second time a jury has deadlocked in a trial the US hoped would provide a symbolic victory against the FARC guerillas. A first trial ended last year with a jury deadlocked at 7-5 favoring acquittal. Palmera—who became the first FARC member to be extradited in 2004—is already serving a 60-year term on a hostage-taking charge. It is unclear whether the government will bring the drug case to trial for a third time. (AP, April 21)

Gee, good thinking, science geeks. There's too much junk in the atmosphere...so let's throw even more junk into the atmosphere. Anything to avoid fat Americans having to give up their precious automobiles. From AP, April 24:

Using chemicals to cut global warming may damage ozone layer
WASHINGTON — The rule of unintended consequences threatens to strike again. Some researchers have suggested that injecting sulfur compounds into the atmosphere might help ease global warming by increasing clouds and haze that would reflect sunlight.

Thousands marched in Yerevan April 24, the 93rd anniversary of the start of the mass killing campaign of at least 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire. More than 10,000, mostly youths and students, carried torches and candles, demanding Turkey join several other countries around the world in officially recognizing the massacres as genocide. After burning a Turkish flag in Yerevan's Freedom Square, participants marched to a monument to the victims of the genocide, where they laid wreaths and flowers. Many carried flags of the 23 countries whose governments or parliaments have recognized the killings as genocide, including Canada, France, Switzerland and Poland.

Officials in Georgia are seeking to use the alleged downing of a Georgian reconnaissance drone by a Russian warplane to build international support for reducing the Kremlin's "peacekeeping" role in the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia's Foreign Ministry asserts that a Russian MIG-29 shot down the Georgian Interior Ministry drone off the Black Sea coastline of Abkhazia April 20. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says the drone's final video footage provides "clear proof" of a Russian violation of Georgian airspace.

Spain is sending frigate to the coast of Somalia following the seizure of a Spanish tuna fishing boat, the Playa de Bakio, by pirates. Some 26 people were aboard, including 13 Spaniards and a crew of various African nationals. The Dubai-flagged Al-Khaleej, was carrying food for sale in Somalia, was also hijacked seven kilometers off the northeastern Somali port of Bosasso, and pirates reportedly fired on a Japanese-flagged chemical carrier off Yemen.