On closer inspection, the story of Saddam’s Hussein’s financial holdings in France is full of perverse twists and interconnections that cast many aspects of the run-up and aftermath of the Iraq War in a new light. The fact that a front company of the late Iraqi dictator should own a major stake in the publisher of the sneeringly titled “I am America (And So Can You!)” by Stephen Colbert — a comic who made his name, after all, by mocking President Bush and, notably, the latter’s decision to invade Iraq — is only the most glaring of them. As noted [...]
Diplomatic tension between Russia and Great Britain that has been building over the past year is likely to continue in 2008. The tension began in May 2007, when Russia refused to extradite Andrei Lugovoy, the main suspect in the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (the successor to the KGB) and an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Litvinenko defected to Great Britain in 2000 and became a British citizen. He was poisoned with radioactive polonium at a London restaurant in November 2006 while attempting to investigate the murder of Russian journalist [...]
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The voice of fugitive militant leader Shakir al-Abssi arose like a specter from Lebanon’s recent past yesterday. In a voice recording posted on the Internet, the radical leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group threatened further attacks against the nation’s U.S.-backed army. In May, entrenched in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, the Jordanian-born al-Abssi led his Fatah al-Islam militants, which included many non-Palestinians, in a 15-week battle that tested the Lebanese national army and destroyed the refugee camp. Al-Abssi reportedly escaped just hours before Fatah al-Islam’s remaining holdouts were killed or captured in a final breakout [...]
