The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) runs a July 13 piece from the Florida Times-Union, "Muslim Leaders Condemning Terror to Deaf?" in which columnist Mark Woods speaks to CAIR's new chairman Parvez Ahmed and finds that such Muslim condemnations are in fact widespread—but never seem to be sufficient:

There are twin moral and intellectual traps most commentators are falling into vis-a-vis the London bombings. The first is the terrifyingly myopic and widespread consensus which is emerging that the attack "wasn't about Iraq." The increasingly predictable Christopher Hitchens writes in "The Anticipated Attack: Don't Blame Iraq for the Bombings" (Slate magazine):

A contributor to the TPMCafe blog offers an interesting commentary on the 7-7 attacks:

Muslim Civil War - Second Front

By thibaud

Overlooked by most media outlets (but not by London bloggers) in the Edgware Road and Aldgate bombings is the very interesting fact that all the bombs were set off in or near the most heavily muslim neighborhoods in the UK -- or in western Europe, for that matter. One can see why the bombers avoided Gleneagles; as to logical London targets, one could conceivably argue that Whitehall or Westminster are too tough to penetrate for even the most ingenious death cultist.

But why on earth would muslims set off so many bombs in their own mini-capital, as it were?

The offices of the Oaxaca daily Noticias continues to be under siege by loyalists of the state's entrenched political machine—yet, amazingly, the paper continues to publish. This July 15 report from Dos Mundos, Kansas City's bilingual newspaper:

Journalists held hostage in Oaxaca

By Mischa Byruck

The employees have been unable to leave the building for twenty days. Reporters without Borders, an international non-profit organization that protects the rights of journalists worldwide, immediately condemned the occupation, stating that the “strike" is “the act of persons external to the paper and is just a means used by the local authority to silence it."

The Zapatista communities in Chiapas are beginning to return to normal, as the rebels' "red alert" has been lifted. The rebels say they are about to commence work on the new political initiative—still somewhat vaguely defined—which they agreed upon in the "consulta" they held in their communities during the alert. These two recent communiques state their purposes. First this one, on the new initiative, online in translation at the Chiapas95 archive:

The general who "Gitmoized" Abu Ghraib briefed Rumsefled's top aides, it is now revealed—contradicting his own earlier testimony. From the Chicago Tribune July 15 via TruthOut:

General Contradicted Abu Ghraib Testimony
Transcripts reveal he briefed top officials.
Washington - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.

And, really, we could have done without this one. From the New York Times, July 15 via TruthOut:

Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if US Intrudes
Beijing - China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said Thursday.

Jeez, will people please stop blowing other people up already? This is really getting old.

Minibus Explosion in Turkey Leaves 5 Dead
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A bomb tore apart a minibus in a popular Aegean beach resort town Saturday, killing at least five people, including two foreigners, the second explosion in a week aimed at Turkey's vital tourism industry.