Brazil will build a two million dollar wall on its border with Paraguay. Reports say that the government of Brazil contracted the construction of the 3 kilometer wall to begin at the end of March and end within six months. The government stated that the barrier is intended to obstruct the Paraguay-Brazil smuggling industry, which traffics cigarettes and appliances. The wall will be built in the tri-border area where Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) meets Foz de Iguacu (Brazil) and the nearby Argentine city of Puerto Iguazu.

Australia's military adventure in East Timor is starting to smell more like a small counterinsurgency war than a "peacekeeping" mission—if the world were paying any attention. From Catholic News, March 14:

Timor priest accuses Aussie troops
As fugitive Timorese rebel leader Major Alfredo Reinado calls for mediation by the Church, an East Timor priest has accused Australian troops of terrifying local villagers after a raid by the soldiers left a number of houses in ruins.

From the Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network, March 14 (as is):

Iranian teachers' leader arrested!
According to the latest news from the trade union activists of Tehran province, in the earlier today the security forces arrested a large number of teachers. Mr Baghani, the General Secretary of the Tehran Teachers' Association, is among those arrested. The activists have also lost control of the Teachers' Association's weblog.

As we have argued, Washington has its own overriding imperatives for a war drive against Iran, which have to do with the global struggle for control of oil and maintaining US global hegemony. But, once again, the indefagitable if myopic AIPAC sets itself up to take the hit—thereby playing its assigned role in the dominant propaganda system of Jewish scapegoating. From the JTA, March 13:

Given all the reactionary prattle we have seen in the New York Times lead op-ed slot of late, it was quite a breath of fresh air to read something downright progressive and courageously iconoclastic: "Whose Oil is It, Anyway?" by Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International and author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. We have felt like we're spitting in the wind when we have attacked the bogus arguments of those who claim the Iraq adventure is not about oil, or that oil privatization is good for Iraq. It is vindicating to see someone with a much bigger soapbox and mainstream creds leading the charge against these rascals—for a change. From the New York Times, March 13:

What does this mean? No extradition from Dubai? From the BBC, March 9:

Halliburton, the oil services company formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, is moving its headquarters from Texas to Dubai.

Hey, fuck the polar bears. If they don't have what it takes to survive in an unregulated free-market economy, why does the world owe them a living?* From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 9:

U.S. accused of silencing experts on polar bears, climate change
The federal agency responsible for protecting Arctic polar bears has barred two Alaska scientists from speaking about polar bears, climate change or sea ice at international meetings in the next few weeks, a move that environmentalists say is censorship.

A monument to the 191 victims of the March 11, 2004 terror attack has just been unveiled in Madrid. (AP) But that is not what's dominating the headlines from Spain. Did the huge protest over the release of an ETA militant spontaneoulsy "overshadow" the 3-11 commemoration—or was it consciously designed to exploit it, just as José Maria Aznar initially sought to use al-Qaeda's attack as propaganda ammo against ETA? From the London Times, March 12, emphasis added: