The anarchist blog Three-Way Fight wants to know (despite leaving the question marks off their questions):

Why does the media - CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC, Harretz, etc - spend today going over and over again, with lots of video footage, of the bust of a supposed neo-Nazi group in Israel that beat up people and vandalized synagogues. [Sic] The group, made up of Russian emigres who had at least some direct relative who had been of Jewish religious/cultural descent, were videoed attacking people and sieg heiling in front of a German flag.

The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed responsibility for Sept. 10 attacks on Pemex oil pipelines in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz. Authorities say an inscription in red on a section of pipeline read: "They were taken alive, we want them alive—EPR-PDPR." This seems to be a reference to recently "disappeared" militants associated with the Popular Democratic Revolutionary Party (PDPR), the EPR's political wing.

Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin accused Norway of supporting "terrorist groups" based in Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan. "Norway tries to build a peace-keeping image, but cannot do so at the expense of the peace on the Horn of Africa," Mesfin told the Norwegian daily Aftenposten. "The soldiers in Eritrea are financed in full by Norway. By supporting those who destroy peace processes in our neighboring countries, Norway undermines the Ethiopian government’s peace work." Parliamentary Secretary Raymond Johansen in the Norwegian Foreign Ministry denied the Ethiopian Minister’s allegations. "Nothing he says is correct," Johansen said.

Tens of thousands packed Addis Ababa's main square for millennium festivities Sept. 11 that Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said should mark a new beginning for Ethiopia. Meles said the occasion heralded a "glorious new page" in the country's history. "A thousand years from now, when Ethiopians gather to welcome the fourth millennium, they shall say the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the end of the dark ages in Ethiopia. They shall say that the eve of the third millennium was the beginning of the Ethiopian renaissance."

Japan's outgoing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he resigned to break a deadlock in parliament over Japan's support for US-led operations in Afghanistan. Former foreign minister Taro Aso, who shares Abe's pro-remilitarization agenda, is considered the frontrunner to take over as party leader and, consequently, prime minister. Under the proposed plan, the Air Self-Defense Forces would provide airlift support for NATO's ISAF mission in Afghanistan, a provision of a new law planned to replace the current counter-terrorism law that expires Nov. 1. The new legislation would also continue and expand the Maritime Self-Defense Force's NATO-linked refueling mission in the Indian Ocean. (Euronews, Sept. 12; Japan Times, Sept. 9)

The game of bait-and-switch goes on, without anyone seeming to notice. Following the Congressional testimony of his commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, Bush has reportedly embraced his recommendation that the US withdraw 30,000 troops—by next summer. Bizarrely, this is being portrayed as a de-escalation—even though it will leave 130,000 troops in Iraq. In other words, around the same as before the "surge." Also around the same as in May 2003 when Bush declared an end to "major combat operations"—at which time troop levels were ostensibly slated to be reduced by 100,000 over the next four months. (They now stand at 168,000.)

Everyone is talking about Robert Fisk's Sept. 11 column in The Independent, but nobody is noting what a cynical, disingenuous piece of self-serving propaganda it is. The most sickening thing about it is that he feels obliged to start out with a ritual put-down of the conspiracy vampires—and then goes on to legitimize their transparent claptrap. Here it is—with our corrections and deconstructions of Fisk's bunk interjected:

Politicians and labor leaders held a rally at Ground Zero Sept. 8 in support of efforts to get federal funding for first responders, construction workers, volunteers, residents, and students exposed to health risks in the 9-11 attacks and their aftermath. On the sixth anniversary of that day, three New York Congressman––Democrats Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, and Republican Vito Fossella––are to introduce the 9-11 Health and Compensation Act, which would provide healthcare and monitoring to all those exposed to the environment of downtown Manhattan after the attacks.