Nepal's Maoist rebels agreed June 16 to lay down arms and join the government, ending the 10-year guerilla insurgency. The accord, announced following a daylong meeting between Maoist leader Prachanda ("the fierce one") and interim prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, calls for the elected Parliament to be dissolved pending a new constitution and for the guerillas to dismantle their parallel government in the countryside. The guerillas will not disarm until after until after a vote is held for a constituent assembly to draft the new constitution. As interim measures, hundreds of guerilla fighters have been released from prison, the word "royal" has been officially dropped from the name for the country's armed forces, and Nepal (heretofore the world's only Hindu kingdom) has been declared a secular nation. Prachanda is now on a national tour, holding meetings with the leaders of the guerilla "Peoples' Governments" and urging them to join the official political system. (Nepal News, June 18)

It was nice to see this story on the front page of the New York Times, Metro Section June 14. But the Times fails to grasp that this parking lot must be built. It is a moral imperative so that 2,500 US servicemen in Iraq will not have died in vain.

Hospital's Garden of Sobriety May Sprout Rows of Cars

When Charles Flax talks about the small garden tucked just behind the Bellevue Hospital Center, it becomes clear that the space is more than a few vegetable beds and a tool shed.

It is one place where, Mr. Flax, 60, said, he has restored his dignity. "You're working from the ground up with people who respect you, who share knowledge with you, and they trust you," Mr. Flax said. "You're with people who believe in growth."

The US military has flown in two forensic specialists to examine the body of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "to see how he actually died," a US general said. The autopsy was ordered after it was made public that he survived an air strike June 7 that killed five others, including a man identified as his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul-Rahman. (Irish Examiner, June 10) Meanwhile, Iraqi eyewitnesses accused the US forces of having beaten to death the badly-injured al-Qaeda leader after he survived the air strike on his hideout, an accusation immediately denied by the US. (Islam Online, June 11)

Since then, statements have been published on Islamist Web sites naming Abu Hamza al-Muhajer as the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Analysts suggested that al-Muhajer, meaning "the immigrant" in Arabic, is a foreigner like the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi. US military officials say they're convinced al-Muhajer is actually Abu Ayyub al-Masri, an Egyptian associate of al-Zarqawi who has trained in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda operational leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. (CNN, June 14)

Zapatista leader Subcommander Marcos told the Spanish TV show "El Loco de la Colina" in a special broadcast Mexico City that it is "possible to build another Latin America" based in popular movements and new political actors emerging in the region, especially "those lead by indigenous peoples, as is the case in Bolivia and Ecuador."

The dust is being blown off one of the more bizarre schemes to emerge from Washington's so-called "War on Drugs"—which is really a war on plants, on biotic life. Jeremy Bigwood writes for In These Times, June 6:

On April 16, the New York Times ran a full-page ad from contact lens producer Bausch and Lomb, announcing the recall of its "ReNu with MoistureLoc" rewetting solution, and warning the 30 million American wearers of soft contact lenses about Fusarium keratitis. This infection, first detected in Asia, has rapidly spread across the United States. It is caused by a mold-like fungus that can penetrate the cornea of soft contact lens wearers, causing redness and pain that can lead to blindness—requiring a corneal replacement.

The Iraqi "resistance" strikes another heroic blow...against Shi'ite civilians. From Australia's Special Broadcasting Service:

A suspected shoe bomber targeting a Shi'ite imam who criticised Abu Musab al Zarqawi has blown himself up inside one of Baghdad's most prominent Shi'ite mosques, killing at least 13 people and wounding nearly 30.

The New York Daily News (June 16) can make fun of the "pants-less pervert" all it wants. But the fact is that our heroic men and women in uniform are in the killing fields of Iraq to protect the American way of life that allows such behavior. A case can be made that we have a responsibility to act like morons on the streets and highways of America, so that 2,500 servicemen will not have died in vain.

The Brooklyn cab driver killed when a pants-less pervert rammed a van into his taxi had only worked the late shift once before Wednesday night's fatal wreck, his family said yesterday.

Reporters Without Borders is protesting the Pentagon's move to ban journalists from Guantanamo Bay, an ostensibly temporary measure. (Washington Post, June 15) The move comes on the heel of the suicide of three detainees at the prison camp, who the Administration says were "enemy combatants." Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the camp's commander, went so far as to call the suicides an "act of war" against America. Said of Harris: "They are smart, they are creative, they are committed... They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own. And I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us." (UK Telegraph, June 11) Conservative pundits are echoing the line that the detainees were not driven to suicide through desperation, but were using suicide as a "political weapon" against America—a neat reversal of victims and oppressors. (eg William Buckley, June 16) Now, al-Qaeda training manuals probably do call for using suicide and allegations of torture as a political weapon for captured militants. But it isn't like the Pentagon has not openly admitted to engaging in similar "back propaganda" stunts. (BBC, Feb. 20, 2002) So when the water is this muddy, who ya gonna believe? Meanwhile, one of the fathers of the victims is denying his son killed himself at all—raising the possibility of murder. From al-Jazeera, June 14: