Pakistan took out a religious school in Chinagai, on the border with Afghanistan on Monday, hitting it with a missile that killed an estimated 80 people. The institution is reportedly linked both to the Taliban and al Qaeda. The question, however, is why now?

The U.S. military wants to step up its media war efforts, with a special focus on the Internet and 24-hour cable news channels. Hmm, makes this post even more interesting, doncha think? :)

The BBC's David Loyn recently did a story on his travels with the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand province. He did an online Q-and-A with readers.

A new report by the former chief economist of the World Bank puts the cost of unchecked global warming at $7 trillion -- more than the two world wars and the Great Depression combined.

Sir Nicholas Stern recommends devoting one per cent of global GDP to fighting climate change now.

Usually, the Taliban and other Afghan insurgents take a winter break. The Observer reports this winter in Afghanistan will be different: The Taliban are planning a winter assault on Kabul.

From The Observer:

Tony Blair's most trusted military commander yesterday branded as 'cuckoo' the way Britain's overstretched army was sent into Afghanistan.

The remarkable rebuke by General the Lord Guthrie came in an Observer interview, his first since quitting as Chief of the Defence Staff five years ago, in which he made an impassioned plea for more troops, new equipment and more funds for a 'very, very' over-committed army.

The decision by Guthrie, an experienced Whitehall insider and Blair confidant, to go public is likely to alarm Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence more than the recent public criticism by the current army chief Sir Richard Dannatt. 'Anyone who thought this was going to be a picnic in Afghanistan - anyone who had read any history, anyone who knew the Afghans, or had seen the terrain, anyone who had thought about the Taliban resurgence, anyone who understood what was going on across the border in Baluchistan and Waziristan [should have known] - to launch the British army in with the numbers there are, while we're still going on in Iraq is cuckoo,' Guthrie said.

In a unprecedented show of scepticism towards Blair, he said the Prime Minister's promise to give the army 'anything it wants' was unrealistic. 'I'm sure he meant what he said. He is not dishonest. But there is no way you can magic up trained Royal Air Force crews, or trained soldiers, quickly. You can't magic up helicopters, because there aren't any helicopters,' said Guthrie, promoted from chief of army staff to become overall head of the military for Blair's first term of office.

Guthrie said Britain was 'reaping the whirlwind' for assuming too great a 'peace dividend' after the Cold War and risks being ill-equipped for a whole new set of dangers.

Elizabeth Rubin, contributing writer to the New York Times magazine, follows up on last week's excellent article with Taking the fight to the Taliban.

Some tough talk by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney earlier in the week had the White House dancing on Friday.

Some American lefties are screaming about the possibility that Saddam Hussein will be sentenced to death two days before the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 7 -- far ahead of what everyone thought the schedule would be.

Sheikh Taj el-Din el-Hilali, Australia's most senior Muslim cleric, gave a sermon recently in which he essentially said scantily-clad women, out in public without a hijab, invite sexual assault.

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat?" he is reported to have said.

The imam is now engaged in some serious damage control.

There seems to be some confusion on what happened in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province earlier this week.

A Danish judge has denied the libel claim of a group of Muslims, filed over the cartoons published in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten that satirized the Prophet Muhammad.

NATO is investigating claims that clashes between its troops and the Taliban in the volatile Panjwaii district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province claimed at least 60 civilian lives.

The British Conservative Party is furious with the Beeb for running interviews with the Taliban in Afghanistan's Helmand province. British army troops are fiercely battling the Taliban there.

But government Commons leader Jack Straw said the UK is a democracy, and the Beeb had every right to air the interview. The Beeb itself weighs in at the Editor's Blog.

If the global population continues to chew up resources at the current rate, then two Earths will be needed to sustain the global population by 2050, claims a new report by the World Wildlife Fund.

A group called the Senlis Council released a report Tuesday that says why Canada should stay and help stabilize Afghanistan, it might well be going about it the wrong way.

Beeb reporter David Loyn managed to gain access to a group of Taliban in Helmand province. It sits just to the west of Kandahar, the province in which Canada's armed forces are operating.

Just one conflict in a low-income country can cost almost as much as the world spends on global aid in a year, says a committee of British MPs.