The two countries' divergent views of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, and the Obama administration's efforts to press Pakistan to move against groups that menace Afghanistan have produced strains between the two countries and between Pakistan's civilian government and its powerful military and Inter Services Intelligence agency — and a growing drumbeat of Pakistani allegations about alleged nefarious CIA activities in Pakistan.

CNN en Español has been running a story all afternnon that men dressed as Venezuelan troops blew up two pedestrin bridges over the Santander River on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombian ministers denounced the actions today in both the OAS and the UN. Cnnenespañol.com does not yet have an article on the story. The demolition took place in the early morning hours, and no one was hurt. [Note: to be continued.]

THOSE WHO CLAIM to PROTECT DEMOCRACY MUST READ The settlements within Hebron have been declared illegal by the Geneva conventions. The official city maps, which are the documents used by Israeli courts, are wildly inaccurate. They claim that ghost streets, long sealed off by concrete and metal, are functioning thoroughfares and marketplaces. Walking through the streets of Hebron, you find a city carved up by the violent military presence and constant threat of settler violence. Some roads have a concrete barrier running along the edge, leaving a few feet for Palestinians to walk along while two wide lanes are reserved for settlers. The souks, Old City markets, have wire screens or makeshift netting overhead: insufficient protection for attacks from settlers living on the floors above. The wire screens are heavy with trash, bricks, giant concrete chunks, and exploded plastic bags that contained sewage and urine when they burst onto the people and racks of goods below. Hisham told us one young man was in a coma after a sharpened metal rod came through the screen and penetrated his skull. Now, when you look up, you can see piles of objects that got caught in the screen: crowbars, bricks, stones, chairs. While walking through a market, we saw a settler woman throw sand from her third story apartment down at a crowded market where Palestinians were shopping.

Geithner, like Larry Summers inside the White House, has failed to respond to main street's needs directly and powerfully, and failed to stand up to Wall Street interests when they are inimical to sustained stability.

Tensions between the countries reached a new high after the Colombian military arrested four Venezuelan soldiers, just days after Mr Chavez told his army to "prepare for war" with Colombia. The Venezuelan ambassador to Bogota, Gustavo Marquez, said that the seriousness of the situation could not be overstated and that "there is a pre-war situation in the entire region". Diplomatic relations between the South American neighbours are frozen and on Saturday President Chavez escalated the war of words with President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia by saying there was no chance of dialogue. "Uribe is not a politician, he comes from the world of paramilitaries, of drug trafficking, of shady business deals, and he is capable of anything," the Venezuelan leader said. "He is a very dangerous man as he has no principles or ethics," Mr Chavez added. [Note: Chavez also feels because the US wants their oil reserves that Colombia will be the launch pad for such attacks.]

The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say.

"The collapse of the Palestinian Authority, the result of Israel’s 42-year refusal to implement a two-state solution, leaves the Palestinians no option but to unilaterally declare an independent state. Israel acted unilaterally when it announced independence in 1948. It is the Palestinians’ turn. It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Georgia. And it will work in Palestine. There are 192 member states in the United Nations and as many as 150 would recognize the state of Palestine, creating a diplomatic nightmare for Israel and its lonely ally the United States. Israel will face worldwide censure if it attempts to crush the independent state by force and very likely be subjected to the kind of divestment campaigns and boycotts that brought down the apartheid government of South Africa."

"Tucked into a grimy building in Guangzhou, a small band of Chinese master carvers chip away at ivory tusks with chisels, fashioning them into the sorts of intricate carvings once prized by the Chinese emperors. A passion for ornaments such as these is what helped decimate African and Asian elephant populations until the United Nations Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) banned the ivory trade two decades ago, in 1989. Today, China's economic rise, along with a seemingly insatiable appetite for status symbols among its nouveaux-riches, has spurred the demand for African ivory."

"Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The campaigners believe that either white phosphorus or depleted uranium is a major, if not only, cause of the birth defects."

"Palestinian leaders from President Mahmoud Abbas down have alarmed Israeli ministers by swinging their weight behind a planned effort to secure UN backing for a unilaterally declared independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. In an innovative strategy which would not depend on the success of currently stalled negotiations with Israel, the leaders are preparing a push to secure formal UN Security Council support for a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as a crucial first step towards the formation of a state."

A group of Iraqi and British officials, including the former Iraqi minister for women's affairs, Dr Nawal Majeed a-Sammarai, and the British doctors David Halpin and Chris Burns-Cox, have petitioned the UN general assembly to ask that an independent committee fully investigate the defects and help clean up toxic materials left over decades of war – including the six years since Saddam Hussein was ousted. "We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies," said Falluja general hospital's director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais. "Before 2003 [the start of the war] I was seeing sporadic numbers of deformities in babies. Now the frequency of deformities has increased dramatically."

We need to stop being behind the 8 ball. Not only are we slow in acknowledging, much less opposing Obama's war hype against Iran, we are even further behind recognizing Obama's efforts to prepare for new wars in South America. "When it comes to Latin America, there is a difference between the Obama and Bush administrations. Bush huffed and puff and blustered while committing aggression against Latin neighbors; Obama smiles and mouths words of peace, and then commits much the same crimes. He is preparing Latin America as the next theater of war. ... The “new” face of Barack Obama’s diplomacy in Latin American has become apparent, in the unfolding saga of the coup in Honduras and continuing U.S. militarization of Colombia.... The lesson here is, the U.S. under President Obama is no less determined than President Bush to dominate the peoples of Latin America by brute force. ... In Colombia, which is the fourth biggest recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel, Egypt and Pakistan, the Obama Administration concluded an agreement to allow unfettered freedom of movement of U.S. troops within the country, and to use Colombian military bases to project American power elsewhere in Latin America. In addition to giving the Americans use of seven military bases and access to civilian airports, the agreement gives American troops immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit on Colombian soil. "

On Saturday 7 November the residents of Iraq Burin, a small village outside Nablus, once again had their weekend disrupted by settlers and the Israeli army. During the day settlers from the nearby illegal settlement came down close to the village in a provocative act. The scenario that followed was the same as the previous two Saturdays – settler attack followed by an army invasion. During the invasion that lasted about one hour, the army shot teargas and live ammunition inside the village.

In Iraq, here we are almost seven years after the invasion -- hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and more than 4,000 American lives later -- and the primary remaining "justification" is that we're bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq. Yet the government we helped install and which we empower is becoming increasingly tyrannical, oppressive and brutal. We at least ought to take that strongly into account as we hear government claims that we need to remain, and escalate, in Afghanistan for the good of the people there.

"Soon we’ll know who our new administration has in mind to replace Karzai’s regime. Will it be an insider like our General Wardak? Certainly not impossible. He’s been the man for decades, and they’ve invested a lot in him and his son, and enriched him and his family tremendously. Will it be another puppet just like Karzai but with a new face? Certainly possible. That would mean another group of carpetbagger war profiteers entering the market to grab the pots of gold financed by us, while the Karzais and Wardaks go away and enjoy their hundreds of millions of dollars stashed somewhere."

Washington has been negotiating secret and “highly sensitive understandings” to “provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in case of a crisis,” investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports. “The secrecy surrounding the understandings was important because there is growing antipathy toward America in Pakistan, as well as a history of distrust,” Hersh writes in the November 16th issue of The New Yorker magazine. “Many Pakistanis believe that America’s true goal is not to keep their weapons safe but to diminish or destroy the Pakistani nuclear complex,” he writes. The arsenal is a source of great pride among Pakistanis, “who view the weapons as symbols of their nation’s status and as an essential deterrent against an attack by India.”

The plan is to create a miles-wide array of photovoltaic panels, like the solar panels used on Earth, and place it in a geostationary orbit. - Solar rays are at least five times as powerful in space as they are at ground level, allowing the huge panels to gather vast quantities of energy. -- A report by researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said: "Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming. "The sun's rays abound in space." Once collected, the solar energy would be beamed down to a substation on Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.

"Telling his people, "If you want peace, prepare for war," and accusing the US of secretly plotting to invade and seize Venezuela's oil reserves, Hugo Chavez announced that he intends to send 15,000 troops to his country's border with Colombia." NOTE: I put this up because I hadn't realized that things had ratcheted up so far. I hope to provoke discussion, but also reports on this situation from other sources. Post 'em if you got 'em. This article is pretty slanted by my standards. A disappointment from The Independent.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism. In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well. Most thought regulation and reform of the capitalist system were necessary.

The staples were removed from a list of rationed foods that most Cubans depend on, permitting them to buy as much of the products as they want – at 20 times more than they used to.The move comes amid efforts by Raul Castro's government to scale back Cuba's subsidy-rich, cash-poor economy. Lunches which cost so little they were almost free lunches were eliminated from some state-cafeterias in September. In October, the Communist Party's Granma newspaper published a full-page editorial saying the time had come to do away with the ration books altogether.Authorities say their goal is to encourage more productivity and free the state from a crushing economic burden. Critics – including some on the streets of Havana – argue that the moves break with what had been a sacred covenant of the revolution Fidel Castro led in 1959: that socialism would not make people rich, but would provide all Cubans with at least the basics.