News reports of the Deep Impact space probe's explosive Independence Day rendezvous with a comet could not have made clearer that the whole affair was barely-disguised patriotic propaganda, very convenient at a time when the Iraq war is turning into a deepening quagmire. Reads a July 5 AP account:

NASA's Deep Impact Web site registered nearly 1 billion hits when the space probe collided with comet Tempel 1 early Monday -- about twice as many hits as the twin Mars rovers got when they parachuted to the Red Planet last year.

The cosmic fireworks from the collision were not red, white and blue and were visible only through telescopes. But the sharp flash of light gave scientists "something to be proud of on America's birthday," said Rick Grammier, the mission's project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

It seems Baghdad's occupiers are emulating those of Palestine. The city now has a "security fence" cordoning off the Green Zone, mirroring Israel's "Apartheid Wall." An excerpt from a story carried by the July 5 New York Times:

Iraqis call it Assur, the Fence. In English everyone calls it the Wall, and in the past two years it has grown and grown until it has become an almost continuous rampart, at least 16km in circumference, around the seat of US power in Baghdad.

India Express reports that authorities on the Indian side of divided Jammu & Kashmir state are on "red alert" as Hindus prepare for protests following yesterday's attack by presumed Islamic militants on Ayodhya, the disputed holy site in Uttar Pradesh. A July 6 report in India Express also notes that Hindus displaced from the Pakistani side of the line, organized in the Panun Kashmir Movement (PKM), are demanding a seat at the dialogue table over the divided region's future. They call themselves the Kashmiri Pandits (pandit literally meaning a scholar of Sanskrit, underscoring their religious identity), and call their homeland (now occupied by Pakistan) Panun Kashmir.

Six were killed today as unidentified militants attacked the bitterly contested holy site of Ayodhya in India's Uttar Pradesh. First, a likely suicide bomber in a jeep blew up an outer security wall; then a group of five others posing as tourists in a taxi stormed the complex, sparking a gunbattle with police in which all the attackers were killed. The site has occasioned much violence in the past, beginning in December 1992, when the Babri mosque that had stood there since the Mogul era was destroyed in a mass action by Hindu militants, who claimed it was built atop an ancient temple marking the birthplace of the god Rama. The question again exploded into violence in February 2002 when a train carrying Hindu militants from the site, where they had rallied for rebuilding the temple, was attacked by Muslim militants in Gujarat state, leaving 59 dead and sparking weeks of retaliatory violence in which over 1,000 Muslims were killed. Excavations are currently underway to determine if in fact the temple had existed, and a makeshift Hindu shrine has been erected there.

Edinburgh's constabulary mixed it up with anarchists at the G8 summit protests in Edinburgh yesterday, resulting in about 100 arrests and 20 injured (including two police) in six hours of street clashes. Stay tuned for more fun, as environmentalist protesters plan to blockade the nearby BP oil refinery at Grangemouth today. Meanwhile, the Scottish countryside seems intensely militarized. Writes CNN:

Al-Qaeda's supposed top man in Saudi Arabia has been killed. Will it mean any de-escalation of violence in the desert kkingdom? Or is this a hydra-headed monster? This July 4 AFP account from Qatar's Gulf Times:

Qaeda chief killed in Riyadh shootout

By Lydia Georgi

RIYADH: Al Qaeda’s suspected frontman in Saudi Arabia was killed in a shootout with security forces in the capital yesterday only five days after authorities put him at the top of a new list of wanted militants.

Claims of civilians wiped out in US air raids, journalists detained by security forces, GIs missing in combat. My, things just look better and better in Afghanistan. Thanks to Lebanon's Daily Star for this report which, while compiled from wire services, is more comprehensive and realistic than most of what we're getting in the US press.

Has anyone noticed the unsubtle political jockeying over which country gets to host the new fusion energy research facility offically known as the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)? It finally went to France, over the predictable objections of Washington. Writes The Economist, June 30: