July 20

Trouble may again be brewing in Somalia, where a militia the U.S. government has linked to al-Qaeda is openly threatening to seize a key government base in Baidoa. What happened to Ukraine's 'Orange revolution' in last spring's presidential election? The oligarchs climbed back into the saddle. Here's an article about the methods used by international investors to gauge political instability and risk worldwide. The U.S. Marine Corps equips its personnel with a pocket-sized 'guide for cultural awareness'. The view that Hezbollah's rocket attacks in northern Israel are connected to Iran quickly gained acceptance, but Jim Lobe writes in TomPaine.com that it is a paranoid neo-con fantasy.