Read to the end of this story excerpt.

On Sunday, a number of co-ordinated attacks were carried out on U.S. and Afghan military outposts in the Korengal Valley of eastern Afghanistan. Hmm. Who do we know that does stuff like that?

From the BBC:

A top Taleban commander in Pakistan has halted peace talks with the government, his spokesman says.

Last week Baitullah Mehsud ordered a ceasefire amid reports that he was close to reaching a peace deal with the new government.

But his spokesman says talks have broken down because the government refuses to order troops out of the tribal areas by the Afghan border.

It would seem to me that having Pakistan withdraw its troops from South Waziristan before a deal is reached with Mehsud would provide the militant leader with a significant advantage. But maybe that's just me.

My headline may be a bit misleading. Read on:

However the spokesman said that they did not plan to start fighting again at this stage.

"Taleban remain firm in the ceasefire but Mehsud warned that if the government launched any action his fighters would retaliate," Maulvi Omar said.

Okay, so they're not talking, but they aren't shooting either. My mistake.

From the Guardian blurb: He quit his job to continue covering the Afghanistan conflict, got shot during an ambush but went back again six months later. Photojournalist John D McHugh explains why he has returned once more.

For untold millenia, the Earth could keep the carbon content of its atmosphere roughly in balance. But the carbon spree that began with the Industrial Revolution has thrown that process wildly out of whack, claims a new study.

BBC reporter James Rodgers got to go on a rare trip inside Chechnya, a place the Kremlin insists is "getting back to normal." However, Rodgers sees fertile ground for the seeds of future conflict.

From the Guardian:

Becoming a journalist is nearly impossible "if you don't have rich parents", according to Orwell Prize winner Johann Hari.

The 29-year-old Independent columnist, whose first media job on the New Statesman in 2001 earned him £9,000 ($18,141.30) a year, spoke out as he received the Orwell Prize for political writing last night.

"Basically, if you don't have rich parents, it is increasingly impossible to become a journalist in Britain – and that is really bad, not just for social justice but for the newspapers themselves," Hari told the audience at the Orwell Prize as he accepted the £3,000 award.

"When I graduated, I suddenly realised that if you want to become a journalist, you have to work unpaid in central London for as long as two years – and I just couldn't afford it. There was no way I could."

In her book No Logo, author Naomi Klein touched on the theme that cultural industries jobs in Canada, including journalism, were defaulting to those who had the financial support to accept unpaid internships.

I've heard of jobs in T.O. that pay in the low $30K range, which doesn't buy you much of a life in the Big Smoke.

From the NYT:

President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.

Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.

From the Globe and Mail:

Russia's super-rich love to flaunt their wealth. Soon they will have a magazine called Snob to help them.

Mikhail Prokhorov - whose wealth is estimated at about $22-billion - plans to spend $150-million setting up a magazine, website and television station called Snob, the general director of the new venture told Reuters this week.

Is it simply a matter of supply and demand being out of whack, to be balanced by letting market forces work their magic? This  analysis for the BBC suggests it's a bit more complicated than that.

From the BBC:

A top Taleban commander in Pakistan has ordered his followers to stop all attacks in the country.

Baitullah Mehsud is the man the Pakistani authorities say ordered the killing of Benazir Bhutto.

Pamphlets containing his order appeared in tribal areas along the Afghan border. Mehsud said anyone found violating the order would be punished.

Pakistan's new government has said it will deal with Islamic militancy through dialogue and development.

I wonder if it will be much different than this truce?

Meanwhile, the NYT reports that Pakistan is close to reaching a deal with the militants.

Jeff Rubin, chief economist for CIBC World Markets, predicted today that oil prices will top US$200 per barrel by 2012. Gas? Get ready to pay $2.25 a litre by then.

You might want to revisit this April 1, 2007 post: The Green Revolution's Outer Limits.

The BBC story looked at whether the world can produce enough food to feed the estimated nine billion expected to inhabit it by mid-century -- in other words, is a second act to the Green Revolution of the 1960s possible? Barring an unforeseen scientific breakthrough, it would appear unlikely.

There are other parts to the series:

March 28, 2007: Tiny island with a global warning

March 31, 2007: Obesity fueled by cheaper food

This page archives the podcasts of the Feeding the World series.

European Union foreign policy chief Xavier Solana is urging Pakistan to not talk with al Qaeda -- a move being pondered by the country's new government.

From the NYT:

At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its ...   more »