Days after a Russian general unsubtly threatened to nuke Poland and the Czech Republic following the announcement that they would host US anti-missile bases, comes the disturbing news that US radar stations related to the missile defense program are slated for the Caucasus. This March 2 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty report indicates the Russians are playing it cool. But this has got to be viewed by the Kremlin as a further US encirclement of the Motherland, even if the ostensible enemy is Iran—which is still years away from a nuclear weapon, recall.

The latest entry in the global wave of anti-Semitism which the left is always trying to tell us is "illusory." This sort of thing seems to be especially popular in Russia of late. From JTA, March 2:

Vandals scrawled swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans on the walls of Vladivostok's main synagogue Friday. It was the second time in less than six months that the building has been defaced, the Associated Press reported.

The potential for Iraqi Kurdistan to be the flashpoint for a wider regional conflict is becoming increasingly clear. On March 1, a former member of the Turkish National Security Council (MGK) weighed in on the brewing crisis in Kirkuk, which is coveted as a capital by Iraq's Kurdish regional government. Former MGK Secretary-General Gen. Tuncer Kilinc said Turkey ceded the Kirkuk region to a united Iraq in the 1920s, and if Iraq is divided then Turkey has territorial rights there.

"Zionists are the true incarnation of Satan," Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced in a lecture to Sudanese officials and intellectuals during his visit to Khartoum March 1. "The Zionist regime is the symbol of hedonism and the incarnation of the soul of the oppressive powers," he added, his comments greeted by shouts of "God is Great!," the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

The Bosnian Serb Republic issued a formal apology Feb. 28 for crimes committed in Bosnia's 1992-5 civil war, and especially the Srebrenica massacre. But the statement stopped short of using the word "genocide." (Jurnalo, Germany, Feb. 28) Meanwhile, Sarajevo Univeristy and the International University of Sarajevo shut their doors in a one-day strike March 2 in protest of the World Court's acquittal of Serbia on genocide charges. International University spokesman Emir Hadzikadunic said the positions of both the World Court and the Serb Republic were hypocritical. "Everyone knows that the Serb Republic is a genocide creation," he said. (Javno, Croatia, March 2)

Pakistan's daily Dawn reports March 2 that the country's security forces have captured Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, deputy to the elusive Taliban chief, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The newspaper cited a government official in Quetta, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Mullah Obaidullah, supposedly arrested Feb. 27, is the most senior Taliban figure captured since the ouster of the militia from power in Afghanistan in November 2001. He served as defense minister in the Taliban regime, and there is a $1 million price on his head. He is on the US "most wanted" list and a member of the 10-man Taliban Leadership Council announced by the Taliban supreme leader in June 2003. His arrest came the day US Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Islamabad, but the official said the action which led to his arrest had been planned in advance. He said that two others captured with Obaidullah "could be" Amir Khan Haqqani, a Taliban commander in Zabul, and Abdul Bari, the former governor of Helmand province.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's new security plan for Baghdad grants military commanders sweeping powers to arrest people and restrict their basic freedoms of speech and association, Human Rights Watch says in a March 2 statement. On Feb. 13, al-Maliki issued martial law powers giving military commanders authority to conduct warrantless arrests, monitor private communications, and restrict civil society groups in Baghdad. Gen. Qanbar Hashim, commander of Baghdad operations, announced the decree as part of the Iraqi government's latest plan to curb the escalating civil war in the country. The decree also grants Gen. Qanbar full control over the Defense and Interior Ministry forces, apparently a move to crack down on sectarian attacks committed by these forces.

On March 2, residents from Um Salamoneh and nearby villages outside Bethlehem joined with international and Israeli supporters in a nonviolent protest against the seizure of Palestinian farmland for construction of Israel's illegal "separation wall." The protesters conducted Friday prayers on the farmland, and then moved to a nearby settler-only road, which they blocked until the Israeli army arrived at the scene and a small scuffle broke out. No injuries were reported.