Authorities announced the arrest of four men in Beirut who they described as members of Fatah al-Islam, a radical Palestinian faction, in connection with the bombing of two minibuses in the city last month that killed three people and wounded 23. Two other members of the group were being sought in the attack, which took place on the eve of the second anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. News reports said the men were detained after explosives were found in an apartment in the Christian neighborhood of Achrafieh. (NYT, March 14)

As we have argued, Washington has its own overriding imperatives for a war drive against Iran, which have to do with the global struggle for control of oil and maintaining US global hegemony. But, once again, the indefagitable if myopic AIPAC sets itself up to take the hit—thereby playing its assigned role in the dominant propaganda system of Jewish scapegoating. From the JTA, March 13:

Given all the reactionary prattle we have seen in the New York Times lead op-ed slot of late, it was quite a breath of fresh air to read something downright progressive and courageously iconoclastic: "Whose Oil is It, Anyway?" by Antonia Juhasz, an analyst with Oil Change International and author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. We have felt like we're spitting in the wind when we have attacked the bogus arguments of those who claim the Iraq adventure is not about oil, or that oil privatization is good for Iraq. It is vindicating to see someone with a much bigger soapbox and mainstream creds leading the charge against these rascals—for a change. From the New York Times, March 13:

What does this mean? No extradition from Dubai? From the BBC, March 9:

Halliburton, the oil services company formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, is moving its headquarters from Texas to Dubai.

Hey, fuck the polar bears. If they don't have what it takes to survive in an unregulated free-market economy, why does the world owe them a living?* From the San Francisco Chronicle, March 9:

U.S. accused of silencing experts on polar bears, climate change
The federal agency responsible for protecting Arctic polar bears has barred two Alaska scientists from speaking about polar bears, climate change or sea ice at international meetings in the next few weeks, a move that environmentalists say is censorship.

A monument to the 191 victims of the March 11, 2004 terror attack has just been unveiled in Madrid. (AP) But that is not what's dominating the headlines from Spain. Did the huge protest over the release of an ETA militant spontaneoulsy "overshadow" the 3-11 commemoration—or was it consciously designed to exploit it, just as José Maria Aznar initially sought to use al-Qaeda's attack as propaganda ammo against ETA? From the London Times, March 12, emphasis added:

From the New York Post, March 12:

Car Kills Woman on Birthday
A Queens woman was struck and killed by a car on her 71st birthday yesterday as she crossed an Upper East Side street on her way to celebrate with her daughter and granddaughter.

The UN Human Rights Council High Level Mission to Sudan has delivered a critical report, accusing the Sudanese government of orchestrating "gross and systematic" human rights abuses in Darfur, and decrying that the international response has been "inadequate and ineffective." The five-member panel also urged that leaders of Sudan's government and militias be charged with war crimes. "The principal pattern is one of a violent counterinsurgency campaign waged by the government...in concert with Janjaweed militia and targeting mostly civilians," the report found. "Rebel forces are also guilty of serious abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law." Khartoum is organizing opposition to the mission's report. The Human Rights Council in Geneva will now consider adopting the report, but Sudan and its allies are trying to thwart it. Khartoum had blocked the team that wrote the report, led by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jody Williams, from visiting Darfur, so the mission had to rely on interviews with refugees across the border in Chad. (UPI, March 12; The Guardian, LAT, March 13)