The BBC reports today that price of oil is back up to over $70 a barrel following a drop of more than $1.50 following news yesterday that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had written Bush a personal letter. This was initially considered a remarkable overture, unprecedented since the US cut off relations with Iran in 1979, and was thought to signal a thaw in the nuclear crisis. No such luck. The contents of the letter were leaked today, and poured cold water on any hopes for de-escalation. Instead, Ahmadinejad lambasts the Iraq occupation, questions the Holocaust, loans credence to 9-11 conspiracy theory and attacks the legtimacy of the Israeli state. The letter may be addressed to the White House, but it is clearly playing to a very different audience, trying to win global sympathy in what is obviously regarded by both Tehran and Washington as the prelude to an invetiable war. And showing greater strategic savvy than the White House, Ahmadinejad makes clear he is not only playing to the Islamic world, but also Latin America and Africa.

As we have noted, more sophisticated minds have questioned his math. From AFP, May 6:

WASHINGTON: United States President George W Bush has said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of World War III.

The conservative Baptist Press News (May 5) chalks this up (pretty damn blatantly) as a victory for a gringo pressure campaign. That spin will not serve Fox well, as a sudden upsurge of peasant and labor unrest is sending Mexico into crisis.

MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Vincente Fox, in a surprise reversal, announced he will not sign a drug bill legalizing possession of illicit drugs passed by Mexico's Congress five days earlier.

Gee, what an astonishing success the Global War on Terrorism has been. From the LA Times, April 29:

U.S. Reports a Surge in Global Terrorism
The count has soared since the Iraq invasion, but only now are attacks there being included.

WASHINGTON — The State Department's annual report on global terrorism, released Friday, concludes that the number of reported terrorist incidents and deaths has increased exponentially in the three years since the United States invaded Iraq, largely because of Iraq itself.

We noted nearly a year ago that the US was seeking permanent military bases in Bulgaria, a former Warsaw Pact member strategically located on the Black Sea—just north of the Bosphorus-Dardanelles choke-point, perfect for either policing a US-controlled pipeline for Caspian oil, or (in a military pinch) for cutting off a Russian-controlled one. The restive Caucasus, through which any Caspian route to the West must pass, lies just across the sea to the east; the none-too-stable ex-Yugoslavia lies just to the west. Bulgaria's national elite likely view their country's colonization by the Pentagon as a symbolic entry to Europe and the West, whereas Washington views it is a part of the Great Game for Central Asia. The bases may also build on the secret torture archipelago the CIA is said to maintain in post-communist Europe. Bulgaria's parliament must still approve the deal. But sadly, as throughout the Balkans (and nearly all the post-communist world), any leftist analysis is tainted by association with the old oppressive regime—and therefore the only significant opposition to US military designs is coming from the neo-fascist right. From Reuters, April 28:

We wish we were joking. What a shame nobody noticed this—the little note in the second section about the Halliburton contract (emphasis added) should have been front-page news in every paper in the country. Back on Feb. 23, Nat Perry of Consortium News wrote for AlterNet:

A good thing we all know global warming is only a myth. From MSNBC, May 2:

BEIJING — Glaciers covering China's Qinghai-Tibet plateau are shrinking by 7 percent a year due to global warming and the environmental consequences may be dire, the government-run Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday.

From AP, May 3:

Sonar tied to deaths of 400 dolphins?
Zanzibar scientists look for clues; U.S. Navy task force in area
ZANZIBAR - Scientists are studying the remains of some of the 400 dolphins that washed up dead on a beach popular with tourists on the northern coast of Zanzibar.