This is pretty Orwellian. The government says it has the right to hold accused "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla without charge as an "enemy combatant" for the "duration of the conflict." The "conflict" in question is a completely open-ended undeclared war which the administration says could last generations. And the "battlefield" in question is defined as the entire United States. Padilla's lawyer is actually in the ironic position of demanding that his client be indicted! Now, nobody is supposed to care about this because Padilla is just a jihad freak. But your habeas corpus rights are evidently not worth the paper they're written on anymore. From Bloomberg, July 19:

Shades of Soylent Green. "The plankton is dying!" From AP July 14, via TruthOut:

Scientists Raise Alarm about Ocean Health
SEATTLE - With a record number of dead seabirds washing up on West Coast beaches from Central California to British Columbia, marine biologists are raising the alarm about rising ocean temperatures and dwindling plankton populations.

A report in today's Newsday tells of a meeting at London's Finsbury Park mosque, where prominent Muslim leaders signed a statement condemning the 7-7 attacks, under a banner reading "A New Beginning." But there was also a sign at the mosque warning gatherers that they were under government surveillance, and rather than a new beginning it looks more like the same old pattern is becoming more entrenched. The government is considering draconian "anti-terror" legislation, while Islamist hardliners gain legitimacy in reaction...

Another factory forced to halt operation by heroic Chinese peasants protecting their lands from the industrial onslaught. We question how "violent" it is to tear down a security fence. In contrast, the security forces' response to the rising tide of peasant protest seems to be quite genuinely violent. From AP, July 19:

Violent protest by Chinese farmers forces shutdown of chemical plant
SHANGHAI, China – Farmers angered by toxic factory discharge they blame for destroying crops have attacked a pharmaceutical plant in eastern China, officials said Tuesday, the latest rural clash sparked corruption, pollution and other problems.

Well, the pending US nuclear aid to India is now official, with India hailed as a beacon of "responsible" nuclear development (which we argue is as oxymoronic as "authentic reproduction," "corporate responsibility," "military music," etc.). This despite the fact that India, unlike "irresponsible" Iran, already has nuclear weapons, and so does its arch-rival Pakistan, and the brief 1999 war between the two regional powers almost went nuclear. This report from Bloomberg:

From Reuters, July 19:

UK court convicts Afghan warlord

LONDON: A British court has convicted Faryadai Sarwar Zardad, a former Afghan warlord, of torturing and terrorising civilians in his homeland for four years in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind the world.

A private army loyal to Zardad (42), including a ‘‘human dog’’ that ate a victim’s testicles, brutalised Afghans in the Sarobi district East of Kabul which he commanded in the 1990s before he was ousted by the Taliban.

Saddam Hussein has finally been indicted by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, for a July 1982 massacre of some 150 Shi'ites at Dujail, a town north of Baghdad. But the ex-dictator's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano is demanding that the trial be relocated from Baghdad to another country. "Baghdad couldn't even prevent the recent kidnapping and killing of the Egyptian ambassador. There are also many Iraqis who want to see Saddam executed and many others who want to see him freed. That means the defense and prosecution would both be in danger there," di Stefano said. He also said the fact that Saddam has been held in custody for 548 days without being formally charged is a violation of international law. "The whole point of the Iraq war was replace Saddam and everything he stood for. But there is a total disregard of the law there now," he said. (UK Guardian, July 18)

The Project on Defense Alternatives sends the following press release:

New proposal outlines "near-total" troop withdrawal by September 2006;
Early exit from Iraq depends on political compromise

The United States could safely withdraw almost all its forces from Iraq within a year or so without further destabilizing the country, according to a 19 July proposal by the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), a US-based think-tank. Progress toward that end requires a significant political compromise with the Sunni community and with Iraq's neighbors, however.