From the NYT:

President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia on Sunday laid out what he said would become his government’s guiding principles of foreign policy after its landmark conflict with Georgia — notably including a claim to a “privileged” sphere of influence in the world.

J-prof Kelly Toughill says police are far too willing to arrest or detain news photographers -- especially when the cops themselves are the subject.

The operator of a dissident news website in the restive Russian province of Ingushetia dies of a police gunshot wound after being arrested at the airport.

Doris Gibson founded Peru's leading newsmagazine, Caretas (Mask), 58 years ago and kept it going through repressive governments and outright military dictatorships alike. She has died at age 98.

When Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for the U.S. Democratic nomination on Thursday, it came on the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legendary "I have a dream" speech on the Washington Mall.

A black scholar looks at some of what has been lost.

From NYT film critic A.O. Scott's review of Babylon A.D.:

The only explicable thing about “Babylon A.D.” is that it was not screened in advance for critics. Our judgments, in any case, may be superfluous, since the director, Mathieu Kassovitz, has already publicly described it as “pure violence and stupidity.”

He did not mean that in a good way, and while I hate to contradict an artist’s assessment of his own work — Mr. Kassovitz blames 20th Century Fox for compromising his political and metaphysical vision — a purely violent and stupid film might have been kind of fun. This one, while it has some nice futuristic design touches (including grubby East Bloc housing projects and a splendidly renovated Harlem brownstone), combines badly executed action sequences with mystic mumbo-jumbo that I suspect not even a two-disc director’s cut DVD could make comprehensible.

From AP via CTV.ca:

A Pakistani legislator defended a decision by southwestern tribesmen to bury five women alive because they wanted to choose their own husbands, telling stunned members of parliament this week to spare him their outrage.

"These are centuries-old traditions and I will continue to defend them," Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents Baluchistan province, said Saturday. "Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid."

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditch.

They were still breathing as their bodies were covered with rocks and mud, according media reports and human rights activists, who said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choosing

Zehri told a packed and flabbergasted parliament Friday that Baluch tribal traditions helped stop obscenity and then asked fellow legislators not to make a big fuss about it.

Here's my TIFF draw picks. Wish me luck!

And yet there's precious little on the major news sites I use for arts coverage to help guide me in this task.

TheStar.com has a TIFF section, but there's no capsule reviews that I can see.

The best, however, is Now's Film Festival Insider, which highlights some films.

Addendum

I'm baffled by the fact that TIFF coverage really only starts next week (the festival kicks off on Sept. 4).

By then, good luck to you in getting tickets to any of the really choice screenings.

CBC's Neil Macdonald reports that while the media couldn't bring any fresh fruit into the U.S. Democratic convention in Denver, they were fed everything else.

Bill Clinton said last night that "... Barack Obama is the man for this job."

Didn't he mean the person? :^)

Back on Aug. 2, I wrote a small post saying how Tabatha Southey's column today is pretty damned funny!

Unfortunately, a search turned up no link to her whatsoever on globeandmail.com (her column runs in the Saturday Focus section of the Globe). Pity, said I.

Perhaps (undoubtedly?) I flatter myself, but there was a link to her column on the globeandmail.com home page this weekend (HL: The heart is a lonely Rielle Hunter)

And when I did a search just now, Southey columns popped up like proverbial whack-a-moles, including the Aug. 2 one that amused me so.

So whether the column really wasn't there before, or whether it was and I had accidentally searched for Southeyy, or Suthey, or soothsayer (or some variation thereof) back at the time of the original post, or whether my post actually inspired action on this pressing issue, no matter now. Thanks, globeandmail.com! :)

Back in June, the Taliban blew apart the front walls of Sarposa prison in Kandahar City, freeing about 400 of its fighters and hundreds more regular criminals. From a security perspective, things continue to deteriorate there.

From the BBC, based on an interview with Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi:

Mild-mannered and slightly stiff in bearing and walk, you sense a very different style of leader from his predecessor (Vladimir Putin).

Mr Medvedev's self-confidence is more composed.

His English comprehension is good - he clearly didn't need the interpreter who translated my questions for him.

He gazed inscrutably as he composed his responses and answered calmly and methodically, betraying his lawyer's training.

No impassioned rhetorical flourishes, embellished with earthy language, as Mr Putin was prone to.

It is hard to imagine Mr Medvedev letting loose with such colourful language that the Russian translators would feel obliged to edit out choice phrases.

In the end, though, it was hard to gauge whether he wanted to reassure the West or increase its sense of foreboding.

There must, must be a movie out there that takes advantage of the treacly, creepy music-box sound of a neighbourhood ice cream truck.

If there isn't, there should be.

I can't imagine the driver of one of those trucks not having a broadaxe or scythe in the back.

I'm walking westbound on College Street, when, at Euclid, I hear an angry voice boom out, "YOU'RE A TINY LITTLE MAN!!"

While I don't think the remark was necessarily directed at me, having seemingly come from across the street, I instinctively turned to look for the source of the sound. I didn't see an obvious conflict going on, or even a bellower fleeing the scene.

Other people were looking too, which comforted me. I was starting to wonder if the voices were back. :)

From CTV.ca:

There are indications that a Somali militant group believed to be holding two journalists, including a Canadian, may soon make a ransom demand, says a journalism organization official.

Tom Rhodes, Africa co-ordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, told CTV.ca on Monday that his sources say the militants are looking for a safe house to hold Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan.

Once they have found such a place, it is believed they will make a formal ransom demand, he said.

But "no one really knows what's going on," Rhodes glumly added.

Six Canadian soldiers and two Canadian journalists were among those injured when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb in the Panjwaii district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

One soldier suffered serious injuries.

From CBC.ca:

The journalists are Tobi Cohen of the Canadian Press and Scott Deveau of the National Post. Both are in good condition and have returned to work, the military said.

Here's Cohen's first-person story.

This CTV.ca story has video attached of Cohen being interviewed from Kandahar.