"The speed with which Algeria has gone from symbol of revolutionary socialism to Islamic battleground has confounded most observers," states the blurb for The Call From Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution, and the Turn to Islam by Robert Malley (UC, 1996). Remember when Black Panthers like Eldridge Cleaver fled there, and the Algerian revolution's theorist and chronicler Frantz Fanon—who rejected religion as the opiate of the oppressed—was a global icon of anti-colonial struggle? A generation later, the country has embraced a degree of mandatory piety that would make Jerry Falwell blush—largely in response to the jihadi threat. From BBC, Nov. 1:

Noam Chomsky appears to be joining his one-time co-author Edward Herman in loaning legitimacy to denial of (or outright cheerleading for) the genocide in the former Yugoslavia. David Adler notes on his Lerterland blog an Oct. 31 interview with The Chom in the UK Guardian, entitled, with refreshing skepticism, "The Greatest Intellectual?" Writes Adler, in comments bracketing some incriminating, alarmingly stupid quotes from the interview:

Once again, do we want to take bets on whether this will be on the front page of tommorrow's New York Times? Another 20 Shi'ites killed by the glorious Iraqi "resistance," this time in Basra. From the Nov. 1 edition of the UK Independent:

At least 20 people were killed yesterday in a car bomb blast aimed at shoppers in Basra in one of the worst attacks in British-controlled southern Iraq since the war. In Baghdad seven American soldiers were killed, making October the bloodiest month for the US since January.

We always knew the Pentagon had no sense of humor, but this really proves it. This case, reported in Newsday Oct. 31, is truly Orwellian on multiple levels: it reads like a dark political satire, and it concerns two Afghan intellectuals who appear to have been detained at Guantanamo for three years precisely for writing dark political satire!

The young scholars Badr Zaman Badr (who holds a master's degree in English literature) and his brother Abdurrahim Muslim Dost fled into exile in Pakistan with the Soviet occupation of their country in 1980s and joined a Mujahedeen faction, the Jamiat-i-Dawatul—although they just worked as propagandists, and did not return to Afghanistan to fight. Dost became editor of the faction's magazine. After the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the brothers split with Jamiat, partly over its embrace of the extremist Wahhabi sect. Dost wrote lampoons against the group's leader, a cleric named Sami Ullah, portraying him as a corrupt pawn of Pakistan's secret police, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI). In November 2001, as the US was attacking Afghanistan, party leaders warned the brothers they would be imprisoned if they didn't stop their criticisms. Sure enough, ten days later they were arrested by the ISI and dragged off to grimy prison cells. Although it was never clear what charge they were being held on, one midnight in February 2002 they were taken to Peshawar airport and turned over to the US military.

From the Israeli settler news service, Arutz Sheva:

Dichter: Military Action Might Be Necessary to Block Iran Nukes
Sunday, October 30, 2005 / 27 Tishrei 5766

(IsraelNN.com) The former head of the Shin Bet security service told a Los Angeles conference on Sunday that the U.S. might have to attack Iran to prevent further nuclear development.

Avi Dichter told the pro-Israel AIPAC conference attendees that he does not believe Iran will end its nuclear development programs without considerable pressure from the U.S. and other Western nations.

Colombian guerrillas and paramilitary fighters engaged in a bloody gun battle over control of the cocaine trade in western Chocó department, leaving at least 75 fighters dead, the Bogota daily El Tiempo reported. Victor Mosquera, a regional human rights observer, said corpses littered the site of the fighting and that many people were missing. Government troops have been rushed to Chocó.

At least random acts of mass murder still make headlines when they happen in Delhi. In Iraq, it's just considered another slow news day at this point. Nothing about this currently appears on the front page of Google News. Will it be mentioned on the front page of tommorrow's New York Times? From the AP:

BAGHDAD, Iraq Oct 29, 2005 — A bomb hidden in a truck loaded with dates exploded Saturday evening in the center of a Shiite farming village northeast of Baghdad, killing 26 people and injuring at least 34. Three American soldiers died in separate bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq.

Well, India and Pakistan make a courageous and historic decision to open the militarized Line of Control that divides Kashmir in order to allow aid through to remote earthquake-stricken villages (Reuters, Oct. 29). What, putting aside sectarian and geo-political concerns in the interests of humanitarianism? We can't have that! Immediately before the announcement, bombs explode in a crowded market in Delhi... From the BBC:

Delhi on high alert after blasts
India's capital Delhi has been put on high alert after three explosions rocked the city killing at least 55 people and injuring many others. The government has called on people to stay indoors, and armed police have taken up positions outside key buildings and the main public areas.