04 August 2005

BBC News Roundup

The Chinese oil company CNOOC has dropped its bid to buy the American oil firm Unocal. Why is this good news? Because it would be exceedingly bad for the Chinese, who are thirstier for oil than [insert ethnic joke about Italians here], to have any direct control on American oil.

A new Italian and British unit will be taking control of the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan. Turkey has taken the lead for the last six months of operations. While most of the troops, and the commander, of the new unit are Italian, the deputy commander is a Royal Marine.

Everybody's favorite folks over at Amnesty International are accusing the American government of detaining terror suspects in secret underground jails. Now, let's think about this for a moment. What's more likely, that the American government has a top secret underground jail where they keep people they don't want to send to Gitmo, or that Amnesty International is conjuring up stories? Hmmm...

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt may have opened the upcoming elections up to contenders from other parties, but it seems that things are getting rough. The "politically active youth" are demanding change, and getting raucous in the process... Hmmm, remind anyone of San Francisco or Seattle? I say this tongue in cheek, of course; I'm not an apologist for Hosni Mubarak, and I support young people getting involved, but I question the intentions of self-admitted Islamists who want to change Egypt's political situation.

Apparently research in the British National Archives has revealed secret British assistance to Israel in the development of Israel's nuclear program. Good for Britain.

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