Like his pal Ahmadinejad in Iran, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez now loans credibility to 9-11 conspiracy theory, if this report is to be trusted. From England's right-wing Daily Mail Sept. 13:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the United States could have orchestrated the September 11 attacks five years ago to justify its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

From APRO, Sept. 14, via Chiapas95 (our translation, link added):

Tuxtla Gutierrez - Hundreds of campesinos from various social organizations, members of the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS), today held 13 intermittent blockades of roads in Chiapas, in support of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO).

On Sept. 11 US magistrate Norbert Garney in El Paso, Tex., ruled that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should release Cuban-born Venezuelan national Luis Posada Carriles under supervision. Garney's decision is a recommendation, and he sent it to district judge Philip Martinez, who can decide to accept or reject the ruling. Posada is a longtime "asset" of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who is wanted in Venezuela for allegedly planning the 1976 bombing of an Cubana de Aviacion airliner, in which 73 people died.

Now that's the way to prove the Pope is wrong and Islam is a religion of peace! Way to go, guys! From Reuters, Sept. 17:

Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children's hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an attack that drew immediate speculation of links to Muslim anger over the Pope's recent remarks on Islam.

Yet more evidence that Central Asia, increasingly wary of US military designs in the region since 9-11, is radically tilting away from Washington. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all opened their territories to US forces after 9-11, and Tajikistan, with its 1,000-mile border with Afghanistan, was particularly critical as a staging ground for the October 2001 offensive against the Taliban. Today only Kyrgyzstan still hosts significant US forces—and Tajikistan is holding joint manoeuvres with China. But also note that despite all the supposed tension between the US and China, the preceived enemy and justification for flexing military muscle in the region is identical: radical Islam. From DPA, Sept. 15:

More grisly news from the amusingly eccentric despotism of Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov. It is good to see the outside world paying attention to what goes on in this hermetically-sealed dictatorship, but this case raises the usual dilemmas. Journalist Ogulsapar Muradova was affiliated with the US-funded Radio Liberty, and Turkmenbashi's defenders will doubtless portray this as being complicit with US designs to destabilize the regime, or at least pry it open for freer corporate access to its formbidable gas and oil resources. But should the penalty for this be death—and, more importantly, what option do independent journalists have in Turkmenistan? Have the Independent Media Centers attempted to give them any support? The IMCs don't appear to have a single outlet in all Central Asia. A search of the main IMC website turns up nothing on Muradova's case, although some affiliates, such Indymedia UK at least noted his arrest. From Al-Jazeera, Sept. 16:

We can feel George Bush cringing. Why did Sacha Baron Cohen have to pick on Kazakhstan of all places, which the US sees as a strategic bulwark against both Russian and Islamist influence in Central Asia, and which Dick Cheney and his pals hope to turn into the next Saudi Arabia? But which, ultimately, is worse: Cohen's politically incorrect humor, or the White House's accomodation of Kazakhstan's sleazy dictatorship? From the UK's Daily Mail, Sept. 12:

Perhaps this was an exercise in surrealist performance art. From RFE/RL, Sept. 13:

International rights organizations are criticizing UNESCO's decision to award Uzbek President Islam Karimov the Borobudur gold medal for "strengthening friendship and cooperation between the nations, development of cultural and religious dialogue, and supporting cultural diversity."