As Christianity and Islam vie for the title of "religion of peace"... From AP, Dec. 21:

THESSALONIKI – Rival groups of monks wielding crowbars and sledgehammers clashed yesterday over control of a thousand-year-old monastery in a community regarded as the cradle of Greek Orthodox Christianity, police said. Seven monks were injured and transported by boat to receive treatment but released after several hours, police said. No one was arrested, but three monks were banned from re-entering the Orthodox sanctuary of Mount Athos, on a self-governing peninsula in northern Greece.

From BBC, Nov. 23:

Drivers who get stopped by the police could have their fingerprints taken at the roadside, under a new plan to help officers check people's identities.

On Oct. 30, activists in Naples rallied at the local Mexican consulate in protest of the repression in Oaxaca, where Mexican President Vicente Fox has sent in a massive force of federal police. (Chiapas IMC) But Naples itself may soon be facing a similar dilemma. Following a crime wave which has left 12 dead over the past ten days, Prime Minister Romano Prodi is under growing pressure to send the army to patrol the southern port city. To his credit, he is thus far resisting the pressure. Meanwhile, the openly chauvinist Northern League frames the problem in its typically helpful and sensitive way. From AGI, Nov. 2:

From AP, Oct. 30:

MARSEILLE -- France's interior minister sent riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille yesterday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, gravely burning a young woman.

Could someone possibly please explain what this one is all about? A rather opinionated report from the right-libertarian Liberty Forum, Oct. 20:

Thessalonica - The Greek Government will move, as early as this weekend, to have armed police forcibly remove the monks of the Holy and Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou from their monastery property. Over 150 police have been deployed on Mt. Athos, an unprecedented number in a community entirely populated by peaceful and defenseless monks.

The political trajectory of Oriana Fallaci speaks to one of the funamental political dilemmas on the planet at this strange juncture. The daughter of an Italian anti-fascist militant, a veteran Vietnam war correspondent, a survivor of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico, longtime lover of a martyred opponent of the Greek military dictatorship—she nonetheless joined the anti-Islam and anti-immigration chorus after 9-11. While large sections of what we call the "idiot left" rush into an "anti-imperialist" alliance with political Islam, others (especially in Europe) rush into the equally unsavory xenophobe and Islamophobe camp in the name of defending secularism and feminism. From The Guardian, Sept. 15:

Here we go again. Israel's envoy to Norway complains that a cartoon goes "beyond free speech." What the hell does that mean? Beyond good taste? Beyond acceptable discourse? Beyond what should be permitted in a free society? Where are these lines to be drawn and by whom? Why can't the offended (Muslim or Israeli) protest offending images without calling for their censorship, either explicitly or (worse, because it is more insidious) implicitly? Maybe this kind of sloppy and censorious speech is worse than hate speech? From BBC News July 26:

The Srebrenica Genocide Blog notes the July 11 ceremony at the Bosnian town to commemorate the mass murder that took place there precisely 11 years ago—an anniversary largely overlooked by the world media, despite some important new developments in the survivors' ongoing search for justice: