We sure hope this is Jewish paranoia! From the Jerusalem Post, Sept. 19 (emphasis added):

Venezuelan Jews fear Chavez-Iran ties

On the day that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived for a 30-hour visit, it seemed appropriate that Venezuela's Jewish community should organize a conference on the Middle East conflict and its local repercussions.

From Newsday, Sept. 19 (emphasis added):

BLOCK 7, AYACUCHO PETROLEUM FIELD, Venezuela -- The Islamic world may be roiling over remarks by the pope, but in this remote patch of eastern Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez suggested yesterday that a little revolutionary fervor -- and perhaps a lot of oil -- is all it takes to unite Christians and Muslims.

From Indian Country Today, Sept. 19:

NEW YORK - Tribal leaders and the Aymaran president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, held a historic meeting September 18 before Morales' speech at the United Nations, where they discussed the dangers facing the natural world as well as human rights issues for Native peoples.

Sarah Ferguson writes for the Village Voice, Sept. 19:

Anti-War Crowd Dogs Bush at the U.N.

Protesters swamped Dag Hammarskjold Plaza opposite the United Nations Tuesday as President Bush was inside pledging to deliver "democracy" to the Middle East.

We'll have a clearer idea of what is going on here when the dust settles, but two things are worth noting about the Sept. 19 coup d'etat in Thailand. First, the coup leader Gen. Sonthi Boonyaratglin is the first Muslim to head the nation's armed forces, and was apparently appointed in an effort to win hearts and minds in the Islamist insurgency in the country's south. Secondly, the coup comes days after Thailand was implicated as possible host of one of the now-acknowledged secret CIA prisons established after 9-11 for the Global War on Terrorism.

More evidence that Pakistan, the USA's closest ally in the region, is ironically serving as a staging ground for the destabilization of US-occupied Afghanistan. First this, from The Guardian, Sept. 19:

A chain of suicide bombings killed 19 people, including four Canadian soldiers, across Afghanistan yesterday, in guerrilla violence bearing an increasing resemblance to the conflict in Iraq. The blasts came a day after Nato claimed it had scored a victory after killing more than 500 insurgents in two weeks of fighting in the Taliban's southern heartland.

We warned even before the US invasion that the northern city of Kirkuk—contested by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen—was Iraq's most likely flashpoint for civil war. Up until now, it has (comparatively speaking) been spared embroilment in the sectarian warfare tearing the country apart. That changed Sept. 17, when seven coordinated suicide car bombs and explosions left over 25 dead and nearly 100 wounded around the city. The bombs mostly targeted police partols and headquarters, although one exploded outside the home of Sheik Wassfy al-Assy, described as a "tribal leader" who had vocally opposed the Saddam dictatorship. (WP, Sept. 18) Days before the attacks, Al-Jazeera had warned that tensions in Kirkuk were reaching an explosive point—especially given an approaching referendum to decide the city's future. Via KurdishMedia, Sept. 15:

As suicide bombings and other random carnage become a daily affair in Iraq, a Baghdad book-sellers' enclave which had been something of an intellectual autonomous zone even under the Saddam dictatorship is effectively shut down. Freedom's on the march. From MSNBC, Sept. 18: