There was a powerful explosion outside the emergencies ministry in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, June 13. Vehicles were damaged in the blast, and the ministry's windows blown out, but no casualties were reported. "I do not exclude that this was a terrorist act," Interior Minister Khumdin Sharipov told reporters. Earlier this year, a car bomb outside the same ministry killed the driver and injured three people. No-one claimed responsibility for that blast. Sharipov said this time the explosive was planted in a wheelbarrow. He said three people had been detained in connection with the attack, but gave no further details. Tajikistan suffered a five-year civil war from 1992-97, following the break-up of the former Soviet Union, and remains volatile. (BBC, June 13)

Burma's military continues to kill, rape and conscript impoverished ethnic Karen villagers as it drives thousands from their homes in its campaign against insurgents, Human Rights Watch said in a new statement this month. The New York-based group urged the junta to allow humanitarian agencies unfettered access to villagers who have been forced to flee by troops pursuing rebels through the jungles of eastern Karen State, which borders Thailand.

Perhaps embarrassed by outgoing chief Tom Ridge's admission that the color coded terror alert was raised for political reasons (USA Today, May 10), the Homeland Security Department appears to be slowing in some of its most egregious (or ambitious) new programs. Plans to require 27 allied countries to issue new passports with chips encoded with biometric data have been put off for a year, although by this October they will have to start issuing passports with tamperproof digitized photos. Allied governments had protested the chip-embedded passports, and Homeland Security may be rethinking the idea. (AP, June 16)

Police arrested 11 men June 15 on charges of belonging to a Syrian-based group that recruits suicide bombers to attack U.S. troops in Iraq. Authorities said the recruiting network has ties to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. More than 500 heavily-armed police held predawn raids in six cities to grab the men.

A militant group in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta kidnapped two German and four Nigerian workers of Bilfinger Berger Gas & Oil Services, a contractor firm for Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell June 15. The workers were abducted around Warri by a group calling itself Iju-Warri, to press demands for social services such as water, roads and schools. (AFP, June 16)

The conspiranoiacs are going to be salivating over this one. For all their relentless insistence that the entire government is controlled by The Conspiracy, nothing makes them giddier than a whiff of vindication from The Establishment. Too bad the poorly-named "9-11 skeptics" will never exhibit any skepticism over these claims...

Even as the White House is opposing measures to reduce emissions in the new energy bill (NYT, June 15) and stands accused of cooking science on global warming, comes this comforting news:

'Record Volume Rise' in World Energy Consumption
By Thomas Catan
Financial Times.com

Tuesday 14 June 2005

World energy consumption surged 4.3 per cent last year, the biggest percentage rise since 1984 and the largest volume increase ever, according to new figures from BP, the oil company.

The Mexican daily El Norte reports June 15 that drug gangs in army-occupied Nuevo Laredo swapped insults this week with rival gangs and federal authorities over the police VHF channel. Hundreds of soldiers and federal police agents took over the town and suspended the local police force June 12 to curb a drug war between the local Gulf Cartel and foes from the state of Sinaloa. "We're going to kick shit out of all the stupid feds and the Sinaloans," said a voice on the radio reported to be that of a member of the Zetas, a band of renegade elite army troops turned Gulf cartel enforcers. Other voices, reportedly those of Sinaloan enforcers, dubbed the Zetas "sons of whores" and called federal agents "idiots." The foul-mouthed banter prompted one federal agent to chide the cartels for fighting among themselves "like kids." They snapped back with a torrent of abuse and told him to "get back to work," according to the report.