Did anyone catch this one? The headline from Canada's Global National reads "Protecting Canada's Arctic sovereignty." Protecting it from whom? Well, it turns out Washington was peeved by Ottawa's highly symbolic dispatchal of armed icebreakers up to the Northwest Passage, because even token policing of these waters is an expression of at least the theoretical potential for denial of access to US nuclear submarines, which routinely violate Canadian sovereignty there. Canada has troops in Afghanistan (under NATO rubric), but has declined to join Washington's "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. This assertion of national rights over the passage is meant to send a message to the White House that Canada is not a mere political and military appendage of the US – and is, perhaps, now closer to "Old Europe" than to its largest trading partner, the hegemon to the south...

Pretty funny to see George Bush accusing the liberal Democrats of racism and Hillary Clinton playing the xenophobe. Is there really any reason to be wary of the port management contract being turned over to a firm from the United Arab Emirates? Predictably, the most salient point in this Feb. 23 New York Times account—Dubai's role in nuclear proliferation—is buried towards the very end. Note highlighted passage:

From AP, Feb. 23:

"We want the correspondent!" shouted two gunmen who pulled up in a pickup truck, fired into the air and then killed the Al-Arabiya newswoman and two of her colleagues.

Gee, that didn't take long, did it? From AKI, Feb. 22:

Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has announced a week of mourning following the attack Wednesday morning on one of the holiest Shiite shrines at Samarra in Iraq, and accused the Americans and Israelis of responsibility. In a statement, the Iranian leader says those behind the attack were "the occupation forces and Zionism, which seeing their plans for Iraq dissolve, have planned this atrocity to sew hate between Muslims and fuel divisions between Sunnis and Shiites". In Iran, where 90 per cent of the population is Shiite, the attack against the shrine has caused disgust and consternation.

Well, it sure looks like whoever it is who is trying to plunge Iraq into all-out civil war have finally acheived their aim. Much chance of pulling this one back from the brink? A round-up from the Muslim American Society's MASNET service, Feb. 23, commentary inserted:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani warned that widespread rebellion could engulf his war-torn country, as sectarian bloodshed over the past two days have claimed the lives of more than 130 people.

It's about defending our way of life, remember? From Long Island Newsday, Feb. 21:

DEADLY HIT-AND-RUN SPREE
Cops: Man drove recklessly, hitting several cars before a crash that killed other driver in Massapequa

A Coram man who had low blood sugar drove his green Infiniti with his two children inside wildly for several miles along Sunrise Highway yesterday afternoon, banging into at least four vehicles before killing a driver in Massapequa, Nassau police said. "He was driving really reckless," one witness told a friend.

In October 2004, we reported on the struggle of traditional Palestinian cave-dwellers in the South Hebron region to maintain their lands from Israeli settler theft and encroachment. An update is now provided by Neve Gordon, who witnessed an inspiring joint action by the cave-dwellers and Israeli solidarity activists to plant trees as a means of claiming the cave community's traditional lands, as well as recognizing coinciding Islamic and Jewish religious festivals that honor trees. Unfortunately, the settlers wasted no time in fencing off the trees after they were planted, appropriating the reclaimed lands—with the connivance of the occupation forces. A Feb. 20 account on the alternative media website Press Action:

How frustrating that a secular anti-imperialist perspective which has been virtually purged from the so-called "alternative media" finds its way onto the front page of the New York Times Metro Section. Peter Applebombe in his "Our Towns" column features a profile of Shemeem Burney Abbas, a professor at Westchester County's Purchase College and author of works such as The Female Voice in Sufi Ritual: Devotional Practices of Pakistan and India. The profile is aptly entitled "Lecturing on a World She Cannot Lecture In." Prof. Abbas has been effectively censored in her native Pakistan. Excerpts, links and emphasis added: