This man did not die in vain. He was a necessary sacrifice, just like the 2,500 servicemen in Iraq. If there is any rethinking whatsoever of our way of life predicated on profligate fossil fuel consumption, the terrorists win. From the New York Daily News, June 19:

Driver fixing bus killed as athletes watch

A group of Long Island Special Olympics athletes watched in horror yesterday as one of their drivers was killed when a truck slammed into their bus, which was stopped on the shoulder of the New York State Thruway, police said.

Another New York Times op-ed piece, "Dealing With the Devil in Darfur" by Julie Flint (IHT, June 17), warns of US support for Minni Arcua Minnawi, leader of the ethnic Zaghawa faction of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), who seems bent on his own campaign of ethnic cleansing. Minnawi's SLA faction even has its own imprisoned dissident, Suliman Gamous. It is predictable that the US has wound up backing the most reactionary faction of the SLA. But Flint, calling for a seat at the peace table for Darfur's Arabs (now officially represented by Sudan's government), has nothing to say about Darfur's majority Fur ethnicity, the Black African people who have now apparently been betrayed by the dominant faction of the SLA. There is the Fur-led SLA faction, as well as the rival (and smaller) Justice & Equality Movement (JEM). But do they speak for the Fur any more than Khartuom speaks for the Darfur Arabs?

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)

Scotland Yard's anti-terror chief is awarded "Commander of the British Empire"—in the wake of a controvesial shooting of a young Muslim man in a police raid that turned up nothing. From The Telegraph, June 17:

There has been a storm of protest after it emerged that a senior police officer involved in a controversial anti-terror raid in which a suspect was shot was to be awarded a CBE.

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.