2 for 1 on this Friday. We’ll start with the op-eds.
1) The always provocative Gideon Levy, in Haaretz: Let’s face the facts, Israel is a semi-theocracy.
2) Nir Rosen, in the Boston Review, hammers the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
3) Hassan Haidar, in the Lebanese daily Dar al-Hayat: The Rediscovery of Afghanistan.
4) FP interviews Vaclav Havel.
News:
1) A joint British-Malasyian (Shell and Petronas) bid won the rights to the Majnoon oil field in Iraq.
2) Developing countries lambast announced aid packages from rich countries as too small; a draft agreement being circulated calls for up to 40 percent emission cuts from 1990 levels by rich countries.
3) U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates claims al-Qaeda is fleeing South Waziristan (ed: so, we’re just going to let them get away again, right?), and a top al-Qaeda militant is killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan. (BBC claims Saleh al-Somali, other media outlets Abu Yahya Al Libi.)
