Three recent New York Times stories note a series of new pipelines either under construction or in planning by Russia, China and Iran—which together point to the emergence of a new Eurasian bloc in opposition to Western designs on the supercontinent's hydrocarbon resources. An Oct. 13 story, "Russia Gas Pipeline Heightens East Europe's Fears," noted that the new Nord Stream pipeline, passing under the Baltic Sea to Germany, will allow Russia to cut off natural gas supplies to its former satellites while still maintaining the flow to Western Europe. "Yesterday tanks, today oil," said Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, former head of Poland's security service.

Barack Obama's move to defer a meeting with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Washington DC is being criticized as a "retreat" on human rights issues, with the president being accused of caving to Chinese pressure ahead of a Sino-US summit in Beijing next month. (India Journal, Oct. 15) Chinese authorities have meanwhile protested a visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to a Himalayan enclave in the state of Arunachal Pradesh claimed as Chinese territory. "China expresses its strong dissatisfaction on the visit by the Indian leader to the disputed area in disregard of China's grave concerns," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu.

Exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer protested death sentences handed down to six Uighur men this week for their role in July's violent unrest in China's Xinjiang region. "Chinese authorities are using these death sentences to send a political message representing brute force, fear and intimidation," she said in a press release. "The trial of these six men occurred in an extremely charged political environment, and the men were not afforded due process as required by Chinese law."

Drought has forced more than 100,000 people in northern Iraq to abandon their homes since 2005, with 36,000 more on the verge of leaving, UNESCO said this week. The four-year drought and excessive well-pumping have led to the collapse of an ancient system of underground aqueducts, or karez. Only 116 of 683 karez systems are currently operational, according to a study by the UN agency. The study finds 70% of active karez have dried up. (AP, Oct. 13)

Iran's parliament this week moved ahead with a bill to sharply slash energy and food subsidies. State radio said one article of a draft law approved by lawmakers would gradually cut energy subsidies over five years, bringing the heavily discounted fuel prices more in line with international prices. "The plan would prevent an important part of excessive consumption" in Iranian society, state-run Press TV quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (AP, Oct. 12)

The Oct. 2 passing of Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, has occasioned respectful but generally sanitized eulogies in the world Jewish press—with few exceptions, neatly avoiding any mention of his anti-Zionist politics. An Oct. 6 remembrance in New York's Jewish Week is typical in dodging the issue entirely.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay endorsed the Goldstone report on alleged war crimes in Gaza at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Oct. 15. Pillay stated that steps to hold war criminals accountable "are not obstacles to peace, but rather the preconditions on which trust and, ultimately, a durable peace can be built."

In an Oct. 15 New York Times story, "Crossroads of Islam, Past and Present," Robert F. Worth reports from Tarim in Yemen's Hadramawt region, where a thriving Sufi school is attempting to reclaim the area's reputation from the media moniker of "the ancestral homeland" of Osama bin Laden. Is this a long-overdue corrective to demonized portrayals of Islam—or more propaganda in an imperial divide-and-conquer ploy to groom Sufis as domesticated "good Muslims"?