The Dalai Lama announced on March 10 that he will step down as political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile based in Dharamsala, India. "As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," he said in a prepared speech. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect." At present, the 14th Dalai Lama has a dual political and spiritual role. He will now retire as political leader, while retaining his function as the head of the Gelup School of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet's spiritual leader. The announcement came on the 52nd anniversary of the Tibetan National Uprising.

We noted two days ago that Moammar Qaddafi is simultaneously playing the al-Qaeda card to rally US imperialism to his side and playing the US imperialism card to rally the Libyan people to his side. On March 9, he was so indiscreet as to do both in the same breath! "If al-Qaeda manages to seize Libya, then the entire region, up to Israel, will be at the prey of chaos," he told Turkey's TRT television. "The international community is now beginning to understand that we have to prevent Osama bin Laden from taking control of Libya and Africa." Instead of leaving it at that, he went on to say that he welcomes Western plans for a no-fly zone because it would allow "Libyans to see through the real intentions—to seize our oil—and then they would take up arms" to defend the country.

Moammar Qaddafi's forces gained ground against rebels in the battle over the oil port of Ras Lanuf on March 7, with his fighter jets targeting rebel defenses on the edge of town. Fierce fighting was also reported in the western city of Misrata, with the UN demanding urgent access to scores of "injured and dying." (Middle East Online, March 7)

From the New York Post, March 4:

Woman knocked into coma in parking fight
She was only trying to save a parking spot—and now doctors are trying to save her life.

Oil prices rose past $104 a barrel on March 4, marking a two-and-a-half-year high and sending stocks sharply lower on Wall Street, as fighting in Libya and unrest in the Arab world intensified. As a result of the unrest, Libya's production halved, forcing Saudi Arabia to hike output to make up for the resulting shortfall. Libya has Africa's largest oil reserves and contributed about 2% of global production before the crisis broke out. The spread of unrest to Saudi Arabia, the world's number one exporter, helped further drive up prices. (AP, Proactive Investors, The Street, March 5)

An interesting juxtaposition of news clips concerning lefty icon Julian Assange. First, from the New York Times, March 1:

Assange Complains of Jewish Smear Campaign
A report published by a British magazine on Tuesday said the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, suggested that British journalists, including the editor of The Guardian, were engaged in a Jewish-led conspiracy to smear his organization.

As thousands marched in Yemen's capital Sanaa in a massive anti-regime rally March 1, President Ali Abdullah Saleh blamed the US and Israel for the wave of popular revolution now sweeping the Arab world. "The events from Tunisia to Oman are a storm orchestrated from Tel Aviv and and under Washington's supervision," said Saleh, whose supporters staged their own counter-demonstration at the central Tahrir Square. "Every day we hear a statement by Obama... Egypt don't do this, Tunisia don’t do that... What does Obama have to do with Oman, what does he have to do with Egypt? You are the US president." He added that the protesters are "led from outside" and are in the pay of "Zionists." (AFP, March 2)

The sexual abuse of reporter Lara Logan in Cairo's Tahrir square was certainly worthy of all the worldwide media coverage it has received, and raises disturbing questions about misogynist and xenophobic elements in the Egyptian revolutionary movement. But the incident's propagandistic exploitation by Islamophobes to discredit the Egyptian revolution altogether has also been a lugubrious spectacle. By way of contrast, there has been no global media outcry over the killing of a young Palestinian man in Jerusalem, apparently at the hands of a Jewish mob in an anti-Arab frenzy sparked in reaction to the revolutionary rising in Egypt. Joseph Dana noted on his +972 blog Feb. 23: