The World
New Threats Follow an Errant Strike
Waving off accusations of "disproportionate" use of force, Israel is answering the Palestinians' persistent rocket attacks from Gaza with a policy of countless eyes for an eye. But after errant Israeli artillery shells killed 18 civilians (including several young children) in a crowded Gaza neighborhood last week, Palestinian threats of reprisal terrorist attacks forced Israeli police onto the highest possible alert. Saying he was "very distressed" by the tragedy, Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, called on the moderate but hapless Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet him urgently to calm the situation.
But after the deaths in the Beit Hanoun neighborhood, the Palestinians' main staging ground for poorly aimed rocket barrages, Abbas couldn't have met with Olmert even if he'd wanted to, which, given his angry charge that "Israel does not want peace ... [and] stability," seemed unlikely. Instead, Abbas began patching up his differences with Hamas's Syria—based political leader, Khaled Meshal. Meshal urged Palestinian guerrillas to punish Israel with "a roaring reaction so that we avenge all those victims," while Hamas's "military wing" called for terrorist strikes on U.S. targets.
It's President Ortega—Again
Former Marxist revolutionary Daniel Ortega, who led Nicaragua's Sandinista regime as it battled the U.S.-backed contra insurgents in the 1980s, tweaked Washington as presidential election returns gave him the winning numbers. In a victory speech, Ortega—who campaigned as a candidate of reconciliation and economic reform—said that he will work closely with the region's other leftist leaders, Cuba's Fidel Castro and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez.
Although U.S. officials openly had hoped to see Ortega lose—even trying to help organize the anti-Ortega opposition—their low-key reaction was to publicly hope for "positive relations" with the new government. Ortega has said that, this time, he wants good relations with Washington—aware of the economic benefits that flow through participation in the U.S.-Central American Free Trade Agreement.
The Name Is Barot, Not Borat. No Joke
His targets allegedly included top London hotels, several London railway stations, and two American financial landmarks, the New York Stock Exchange and the World Bank headquarters in Washington. His computer carried information about dirty bombs concealed in files labeled "radioactive children" and, inexplicably, "Brad Pitt." Last week, Dhiren Barot, 34, a key al Qaeda operative arrested in August 2004, was sentenced in Britain to life in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to commit mass murder. "This was no noble cause," Judge Neil Butterfield said in court. "Your plans were to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed, and butchery, first in Washington, New York, and Newark, and thereafter in the U.K."
Authorities said that Barot, a Muslim convert born in India and raised in Britain, put his U.S. attack plots on hold after 9/11 but was planning strikes in Britain, including a scheme to explode limousines loaded with gas containers near London's Savoy and Ritz hotels.
Meanwhile, the head of Britain's MI5 intelligence agency expressed concern about future Barots, that is, young British citizens "targeted, groomed, radicalized, and set on a path" toward mass murder. Eliza Manningham-Buller said the domestic intelligence agency is now watching 200 groups or networks—some 1,600 people—"actively engaged in plotting or facilitating terrorist acts."
A Brutal Insurgency Comes to an End
As revolutionary communism faded around the globe, the Maoist rebels in Nepal became something of an anomaly by continuing a decade-long armed conflict that has claimed some 14,000 lives. The rebels, loosely modeled on the brutal Shining Path guerrillas in Peru, suspended their fight in April after Nepalese monarch King Gyanendra was forced out of power by mass protests and the nation's seven main political parties formed a new interim government. Last week, a peace deal was wrapped up under which rebels will put weapons under United Nations supervision and join a new interim parliament. Elections are due next year.
A Rising Son Can Watch the Sunset
How does the agriculture minister from an impoverished African nation—his annual government salary is $60,000—afford to buy a $35 million Malibu beachfront mansion that comes with a swimming pool, tennis court, and four-hole golf course? Inquiring minds at the anticorruption watchdog group Global Witness want to know. The minister in question: Teodoro Obiang Nguema, son of the autocratic ruler of Equatorial Guinea. The country is sub-Saharan Africa's No. 3 oil producer, earning about $3.8 billion this year, but most of the population lives in poverty. No comment from Obiang's lawyer, but a source told the Associated Press that he has independent sources of income.
With Larry Derfner in Israel and Associated Press
This story appears in the November 20, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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