From the AP, Aug. 30:

DAMASCUS, Syria — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome in Syria, where he said Wednesday that the two countries will "build a new world" free of U.S. domination and vowed to one day "dig the grave of U.S. imperialism."

From the New York Times, Aug. 30:

Hit and Runs Leave 1 Dead and 13 Injured

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 — A hit-and-run driver careered through San Francisco and nearby Fremont on Tuesday, mowing down pedestrians and bicyclists, leaving at least one person dead and injuring more than a dozen, some seriously.

The below Aug. 30 AP account notes the growing use of the term "Islamic fascism" by the Bush administration and its amen chorus in recent days. The response has been predictable in the extreme, with lefties (e.g. The Huffington Post) calling it a "false historical analogy", and righties (e.g. the neo-interventionist William Shawcross on the website of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council) insisting "Yes, the Problem is 'Islamic Fascism'." Both, we fear, are missing the point. We've noted before the western left's unseemly illusions about Islamic extremism, and we don't think the term "Islamic fascism" is necessarily all that inaccurate. We just think it is hilariously ironic coming from Bush.

While highly dubious supposed terror plots in the US and UK continue to dominate the headlines, the Real McCoy in Afghanistan generates barely a flick of interest these days. This was buried in the inner pages of the New York Times, Aug. 29:

Can somebody explain to us why this is legal? US citizens, who have not been charged with any crime, are denied entry into the US. Why should submitting to an FBI interrogation abroad be a prerequisite for being allowed back into their own country? If the US has evidence they forfeited their citizenship by taking military training at a camp in Pakistan, then they can, conceivably, be legally barred. But lacking such evidence, this is just arbitrary abuse of power. Where is the outrcy over this? From the San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 26:

On Aug. 14, four Iranian immigrant brothers filed a lawsuit in US District Court in Los Angeles against former attorney general John Ashcroft, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller III, FBI Agent Christopher Castillo and other officials, charging that the government detained them illegally for nearly four years to punish them for refusing to work as informants.

Note that these two articles take seemingly opposite tacks. The first, from the UN's news agency, raises fears that Chad's move against Exxon and Chevron is aimed at weaseling out of World Bank-imposed commitments to put oil proceeds into social development, and quotes Oxfam on the matter. The second, from a Johannesburg business journal, merely raises the specter of oil nationalism, as if "gaining greater control of the country's strategic oil resources" was necessarily a bad thing. Is there a unity of these opposites? Is the World Bank deal just a stratagem to prevent the developing world from seizing control of its destiny and keeping it dependent on the likes of Exxon? The problem is that while more legitimate oil nationalists, such as Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, are ploughing petro-dollars into social programs without World Bank prodding, Chad's Idriss Deby really does seem intent on putting guns before butter. Of course the guerilla war which serves to justify this is a result of his embroilment in the Darfur conflict, at the presumed behest of the United States... First, from IRIN, Aug. 29 via AllAfrica.com:

A big step closer to the destabilization of Pakistan. From Reuters, Aug. 29:

QUETTA, Pakistan - Security forces and gunmen clashed on Tuesday in Pakistan's Baluchistan province after prayers for a slain rebel leader and one policeman was killed, while a blast elsewhere killed three people, police said.