The Beeb's backgrounder on Central Asia's 'stans' -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, and my personal favourite -- Turkmenistan! (there's also a complete Central Asia indepth page.)

I would like to visit Turkmenistan and North Korea back-to-back, just to see which one is the weirder cult-of-personality state.

This BBC interactive is predicated on the fact that 12 Latin American countries will be having elections between November and the end of 2006.

Find it here.

The European Union's top justice official has issued a warning that any member state found to be hosting a secret CIA jail could lose its voting rights.

Opposition MPs, mainly the Bloc Quebecois, have been pestering the government about possible CIA-linked flights in Canada.

Haroon Siddiqui, the Toronto Star's editorial page editor emeritus, has a somewhat different perspective on Robert Fisk than does the Globe's Marcus Gee.

Journalist John Pilger trumpets the success of some alternative media outlets in forcing stories like the use of white phosphorus onto the agenda.

Just when I'm thinking I don't post enough right-wing stuff, along comes a juicy morsel like this, from Daniel Johnson of the New York Sun.

David Ludwig stands accused of shooting his 14-year-old girlfriend's parents to death. He's also a huge Christian rock fan, particularly of the group Pillar, described in a Salon article as playing "rap-core, a furiously propulsive mash-up of hard rock and rap."

This puts the Christian culture community in a bit of a bind, writes Daniel Radosh in Salon.

Some U.S. soldiers who've lost limbs in Iraq, or suffered other horrible wounds, say they've emerged from their travails as better people.

This NYT story is based on a series of 75 cross-country interviews with people who voted for Dubya in 2004. They generally don't feel their man is doing the job.

Last week, the U.S. Senate shot down a motion proposing to congratulate Bruce Springsteen on the 30th anniversary of his Born to Run album, one of the great records of the 1970s or rock history, for that matter.

It's really no suprise why.

It's nice to know that even Richard Nixon and Henry Kissingers, otherwise fairly amoral practitioners of realpolitik, were queasy about the thought of all-out nuclear war.

The New York Observer blurb: Where Was the Media Between Invasion and Murtha? Networks Gave Vietnam War Twice the Minutes Iraq Gets; Baghdad Bureaus Cut Back; Amanpour: ‘Patronizing’

The musicians who made up New Orleans' unique musical culture are scattered to the four winds, with no place to live and no place to play. Lovers of Nawlins music wonder if they'll ever make it home -- and what will happen if they don't.

Artists from filmmakers to rappers warned of a coming storm among the neglected people of the banlieues, but French politicians apparently don't go to movies or listen to rap.

Update: A French MP has accused French rappers of inciting the violence, according to this BBC story.

"Exit with honour" is becoming a new buzzword as the Bush administration realizes it doesn't have support for an open-ended commitment to keeping large numbers of troops on the ground in Iraq.

This BBC story wonders what the U.S. has to show for its four-year-old occupation of Afghanistan -- one that Canadian troops are involved in.

U.S. Veep Dick Cheney ripped those who dared accuse the Bush administration of hyping pre-war intel on Iraq's WMDs -- but still has a kind word for a Congressman and retired Marine colonel who thinks the U.S. should pull its troops out of Iraq now.

Democracy Now! talks with investigative journalist James Bamford about his Rolling Stone article on the Rendon Group, headed by John Rendon, and its role in selling the Iraq War.

Montana's Gov. Brian Schweitzer sees energy salvation for America -- and economic rejuvenation for the dying small towns in his state's eastern half -- in converting coal into liquid energy.