The Zapatista communities in Chiapas are beginning to return to normal, as the rebels' "red alert" has been lifted. The rebels say they are about to commence work on the new political initiative—still somewhat vaguely defined—which they agreed upon in the "consulta" they held in their communities during the alert. These two recent communiques state their purposes. First this one, on the new initiative, online in translation at the Chiapas95 archive:

The general who "Gitmoized" Abu Ghraib briefed Rumsefled's top aides, it is now revealed—contradicting his own earlier testimony. From the Chicago Tribune July 15 via TruthOut:

General Contradicted Abu Ghraib Testimony
Transcripts reveal he briefed top officials.
Washington - An Army general who has been criticized for his role in the treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has contradicted his sworn congressional testimony about contacts with senior Pentagon officials.

And, really, we could have done without this one. From the New York Times, July 15 via TruthOut:

Chinese General Threatens Use of A-Bombs if US Intrudes
Beijing - China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan, a senior Chinese military official said Thursday.

Jeez, will people please stop blowing other people up already? This is really getting old.

Minibus Explosion in Turkey Leaves 5 Dead
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A bomb tore apart a minibus in a popular Aegean beach resort town Saturday, killing at least five people, including two foreigners, the second explosion in a week aimed at Turkey's vital tourism industry.

We have noted before that the world-shaking London attacks took a toll equivalent to the average bad day in Iraq. Well, Iraq is having another bad day. From Reuters:

Suicide bomber truck kills 55 in Iraq
Sat. July 16

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber in a fuel truck killed 55 people in a town south of Baghdad on Sunday, the latest in a series of spectacular guerrilla attacks to rattle Iraq.

The bomb, which police said exploded near a Shi'ite mosque and market, also wounded 82 people. It followed several attacks which killed at least 16 people, including three British soldiers, on Saturday.

This July 14 commentary from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty provides some long-overdue real analysis on the Iraqi insurgency. While the anti-war movement either ignores or glorifies the blood-drenched and reactionary "resistance" in Iraq, RFE/RL, funded by the State Department (which, unlike the anti-war forces, actually has something invested in the outcome in Iraq), at least looks at the question squarely. We cannot share their call "for Arab states to take action against insurgent Islamist groups"—if the death-squad regime in Iraq is a template for fighting Islamist resistance throughout the Arab world, we are looking at a future nearly too horrible to contemplate. But anti-war activists who are serious about actually understanding what is going on in Iraq would do well to read—and grapple with—this analysis.

"Twenty years ago this summer," the vile Otto Reich writes for the July 18 National Review, "Washington’s hottest debate centered on the Contras’ war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua — and how to keep the nations of Central America from falling into the hands of Marxist terrorists or right-wing death squads. It was the equivalent of today’s Iraq debate. The eventual victory of freedom in Nicaragua came at a cost of tens of thousands of lives — and it is now in jeopardy. The hard Left in Latin America has learned its lessons: It is no longer trying to gain power by force, because it fears (with just cause) the unmatched power of the United States and the willingness of recent Republican presidents to use it in the defense of freedom; it is therefore resorting to political warfare to regain power, and one of its battlefields is again Nicaragua."

We recently noted the new rapprochement between India and Burma, traditional rivals, which has worked to the detriment of indigenous groups in the remote rainforest straddling the border, heretofore able to play the two powers off against each other to win some local autonomy. Now it seems, as usual, the international reconciliation is lubricated with hydrocarbons. Despite an international boycott, India is hoping to build a pipeline to import Burmese natural gas. Bangladesh is exploiting its position between the two countries to try to wrest trade concessions in exchange for allowing the pipeline to cross its territory. This AFP story (online at the Democratic Voice of Burma website) doesn't say so, but what makes the Bangladesh route so essential is that the only alternative would be through the remote jungle border to the north, the domain of armed indigenous separatist movements which would be certain to impede construction...