Now that it has pretty much been confirmed that North Korea did explode a nuclear bomb, if a very small one, comes the news that it may be ready to repeat the feat on short order. Yes, this is deeply disturbing, but Selig Harrison (who has a penchant for saying things the Washington elite doesn't want to hear) warned weeks before the blast that it was coming, and that it would be a tactic by Pyongyang to press Washington for direct negotiations—another possibility we have noted before. If this is true, Bush's intransigence essentially prompted North Korea to cross the nuclear threshold. From AlJazeera, Sept. 23:

From UPI, Oct. 17:

Hit-and-run deaths at 10-year high

WASHINGTON, DC -- Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington show that hit-and-run pedestrian deaths have risen 20 percent since 2000.

From the New York Times, Oct. 17:

BAGHDAD -- The blackened shells of five cars still sit in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary here, stark reminders of a bomb blast that killed two people after a recent Sunday Mass.

This seems like a worthy cause, but how much is the American Jewish Committee actually hurting Choudhury's chances of acquittal or clemency by campaigning on his behalf?

A suicide bomber crashed a truck full of explosives into a convoy of buses carrying unarmed navy personnel going on leave in Sri Lanka Oct. 16, killing at least 94 and wounding 150. The explosion, at Habarana about 100 miles northeast of the capital, was one of the deadliest attacks since a 2002 cease-fire between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government blamed the LTTE for the attack, a charge the group neither confirmed nor denied. The vast majority of the casualties were sailors, but a military spokesman said some civilians were caught in the explosion.

Once again--which is more appalling? This isn't the first time that clueless or insensitive art geeks have staged bogus bombings on New York's subways, only to face criminal charges from an NYPD which is equally clueless about the first amendment. From AP, Oct. 14:

Portions of an article on torture in Chechnya written by murdered reporter Anna Politkovskaya before her death were published Oct. 12 by the Novaya Gazeta. The report detailed allegations of abuse, including an account by one man who said he was hung from a ceiling and beaten by security officials. Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov denies involvement in Politkovskaya's murder, but her death is a suspected political assassination. Politkovskaya was found shot dead Oct. 7 in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block. Days earlier she said in a radio interview that she was working on a story about torture by Chechen forces with ties to Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to bring Politkovskaya's killers to justice. (Jurist, Oct. 12) Simultaenously, however, Russian federal authorities appear to be acting like they have something to hide. From the AP, Oct. 14:

Georgia officially charged four Russian servicemen with espionage last month, spurring new tensions between the two countries over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. (RIA-Novosti, Sept. 29) In a counterintuitive development, Russia is backing the predominantly Muslim Abkhaz separatists to weaken Georgia, which is seen as dangerously close to the West, especially since the December 2003 Rose Revolution. Now, Abkhaz "nongovernmental organizations" have announced they will urge Abkhazia's parliament and President Sergei Bagapsh to start talks with Russia on Abkhazia’s recognition as an independent state and on establishing long-term relations. The appeal states that Russia and Abkhazia must start talks “on the formation of a military-political union, and on the coordination of Abkhazia’s foreign, defense and security policies with those of Russia.”