Our last issue featured the story "9-11 at Nine: The Conspiracy Industry and the Lure of Fascism" by World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, calling out the growing embrace of right-wing and virulently anti-Semitic conspiracy theory by the left-wing blogosphere and alternative media. Weinberg also had to issue a statement dissenting from the right-wing conspiranoid drift at New York's non-commercial WBAI Radio, where his program, the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, has been exiled to 2 AM and stripped by 30 minutes as a punitive measure in response to his protests. Our September Exit Poll was: "Is World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg an agent of the Illuminati, pawn of the Bilderbergs, Mossad operative and/or shape-shifting reptilian?" We finally received the following responses:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a decree Dec. 26 allowing the country's Supreme Court to go forward with its plan to set up a tribunal to hear complaints of fraud during the September parliamentary elections. The tribunal brings doubt over the legitimacy of the elections, already tainted by irregularities that forced authorities to invalidate a significant number of votes and disqualify candidates. The decision comes less than a month before the 249-seat parliament is set to convene on Jan. 20, but officials say Karzai is committed to inaugurating the parliament by then.

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights announced Dec. 28 that the US government has refused to provide legal cooperation to Polish prosecutors investigating whether Saudi terror suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was tortured in a secret CIA prison in Poland. According to the letter sent by Polish prosecutors to the Helsinki Foundation, the US government denied the March 2009 request on the basis of a bilateral agreement on the protection of state interests.

From War Resisters League, Dec. 17:

Whose stories are we telling about the war in Afghanistan?
On the day following the White House report on the war in Afghanistan that names the war as a qualified success and calls for the US to "stay the course," we must lift up the alternative stories and reports of this near-decade of occupation, including yesterday's Veterans for Peace action at the White House.

Detainees will continue to be held at the detention center at Guantánamo Bay for the foreseeable future, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs acknowledged Dec. 26 on CNN's "State of the Union." The statement comes almost one year after the Obama administration missed its self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close the facility. Gibbs also stated that in addition to the use of civilian courts and military commissions, some detainees would have to be indefinitely detained:

Violence has rocked the Nigerian city of Jos since a wave of bombings Dec. 24 left 32 dead and some 100 wounded. Riots have pitted Christians against Muslims, with both churches and mosques vandalized, and an estimated 50 more killed. The bombings targeted a Christian market, but also a road leading to a major mosque. Supposed Islamist militants also killed six Christian worshippers in the nearby town of Maiduguri that day. The Joint Military/Police Task Force is patrolling the streets, and is appealing to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and Jama'atul Nasril Islam (JNI) to call off their angry youths.

We are probably risking getting our website sabotaged by saying it, but the unthinking cult of personality that has swelled around WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is appalling on several counts. For those who can see past the groupthink glorification, it reveals another example of the dissident space traditionally held by the left being assumed by the populist right—a frightening and growing phenomenon. We will make this case primarily in the words of Assange himself, and his supporters. So, as the ubiquitous catch-phrase in his defense goes, "Don't shoot the messenger"...

Hundreds of Iraqi Christians are fleeing to the northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region and particularly the town of Ankawa, which has become a safe haven for the country's Christians, thanks to its special status and privileges granted by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Ankawa, near Erbil, KRG's capital, has a predominantly Christian population and administration, several churches and distinct Assyrian language.