From CNN, Jan. 5:

Television evangelist Pat Robertson suggested Thursday that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution for the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Robertson opposed.

"He was dividing God's land, and I would say, 'Woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the [European Union], the United Nations or the United States of America,'" Robertson told viewers of his long-running television show, "The 700 Club."

"God says, 'This land belongs to me, and you'd better leave it alone,'" he said.

On Jan. 5 at approximately 4 PM armed “civilians

Following a ruling this week by the Supreme Court, José Padilla has finally appeared before a civilian judge—which means that the high court will likely not have to weigh in any time soon on whether he was held legally as an "enemy combatant" under the US constitution. From the AP, Jan. 5:

The gas pipeline to the Uch power plant in the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan was blown up late Jan. 3, cutting off gas supplies to the plant. The attack came as sporadic rocket and artillery duels continued between Pakistani security forces and Baluch insurgents in the town of Dera Bugti.

From AP via Newsday, Jan. 5:

Taliban militants beheaded a teacher in a central Afghan town while his wife and eight children watched, officials said Wednesday, describing the latest in a string of attacks targeting educators at schools where girls study.

Four men stabbed Malim Abdul Habib eight times late Tuesday before decapitating him in the courtyard of his home in Qalat, said Ali Khail, a spokesman for the provincial government of Zabul, where the attack took place.

The assailants made Habib's wife, four sons and four daughters watch, Khail said. His children were between the ages of 2 and 22. No other family members were hurt.

About 40 people were killed and 50 wounded in an apparent suicide bomb blast in the Iraqi Shi'ite holy city of Karbala Jan. 5. The explosion occurred in an area between the two main Shi'ite shrines in the city. Many of the casualties were street vendors and visitors to the Imam Hussein shrine, one of the holiest for Shi'ite Muslims. Shi'ite pilgrims often make their way to Karbala on Thursdays to be at the holy site for prayers the next day. The last large-scale attack in Karbala occurred in December 2004 when 14 were killed and 57 wounded by a car bomb. (CBC, SBS, Jan. 5) The Iranian official news agency IRNA reports that four Iranian nationals were killed and 13 injured in the Karbala blast.

US pilots targeting a farmhouse in the northern town of Baiji where they apparently believed insurgents had taken shelter killed a family of 12, Iraqi officials said Jan. 3. The dead included women and children whose bodies were recovered in the nightclothes and blankets they had been evidently sleeping in. The Pentagon says that it does not count civilian deaths from US attacks, and that investigating deaths caused by any one strike is impractical in dangerous insurgent areas.

A US military statement said that an unmanned drone detected three men digging a hole in a nearby road. Insurgents regularly bury bombs along roads in the area. The three men were tracked to a building, which US forces then hit with precision-guided missiles, the statement said. (Boston Globe, Jan. 4)

Days after Russia sparked a brief crisis in Europe by cutting off gas to Ukraine (and therefore points west), comes another sign of Moscow using petro-politics in a bid to restore its lost Great Power status. Under the five-year deal that ended the four-day crisis, Ukraine agreed to pay Russia's Gazprom $230 per 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas, as Gazprom had demanded. But Ukraine will end up paying only $95 per 1,000 cubic meters for the gas it receives in total because it will get lower priced gas from Gazprom partners in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. (AFX, Jan. 5) This will, of course, increase the pressure on Moscow to find a new outlet for the Caspian Basin hydrocrabons bypassing both Ukraine and the new West-controlled trans-Caucasus Baku-Ceyhan pipeline. Right on cue, reports appear that Gazprom is seeking a stake in the planned Iran-India gas line, viewing it as a prelude for a new Iranian route from the Caspian to international markets. From India's Business Standard, Dec. 23: