Russian Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky flies home from the Far East this week after finalizing plans for large, ambitious joint-military exercises to be held with China this fall. But the negotiations were far from a bed of roses.

A raid by U.S. and Iraqi forces on a suspected rebel training camp left 80 militants dead, the single biggest one-day death toll for rebels in months and the latest in a series of blows to the country's insurgency, Iraqi officials said Wednesday.

Racking his brain to think of something positive to say about the nominations of John Bolton as U.S.ambassador to the United Nations and Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank, Paul Heinbecker ventured: "At least it gets them out of government."Heinbecker, Canada's former ambassador to the U.N., usually is more diplomatic than that -Toronto Star CA

One only has to look at the nasty conglomeration of government (Democrat, Republican, etc., and the puppet masters behind them), the media (mainstream or otherwise), military (ours or theirs), and corporations (from Enron to that bastion of American manufacturing, China-Mart) to see who benefits, and to understand how much has been lost and at whose expense -Jill Cohen Walker, J.D./NewsWithViews

Not long after Part 1 of this series was posted on NewsWithViews, I received e-mail from many concerned, intelligent and insightful readers.One was from a gentleman who shared what it was like to return to the United States after WW II.He said my column took him back to the signing of the UN Treaty in San Francisco on June 26, 1945.Our returning soldiers were thinking about living a decent life “with no threats of war or governance by tyrants.” -Jill Cohen Walker, J.D./NewsWithViews

For more than 40 years, Beltway pundit Robert Novak has been a scowling bundle of contradictions.Now the high-decibel conservative who exposed Valerie Plame as a C.I.A. agent is at the silent center of a Justice Department probe - and as unrepentant as ever -Vanity Fair

Two years ago, Pakistan's military establishment pieced together a system of statecraft that was a mixture of military and civil governance.This policy now lies in tatters, and the ruling military establishment is desperately trying to patch it up.In effect, Musharraf now has only one constituency - the army.Other forces are gathering against him -Syed Saleem Shahzad/Asia times

Much policy production in the US rests on the a priori assumption that an entity called "the Muslim World" in fact exists, and that the cooptation of elements of this transnational entity is central to containing terrorism.In this vision, Musharraf's perceived "enlightened moderation" is the key not just to securing a purely tactical set of interests - in Afghanistan, for example - but to a far larger ideological project -Praveen Swami/Asia Times

Religion should not play the same role in British politics that it does in America, Tony Blair has said. Mr Blair said he did not want a system where politicians went out "beating their chests about our faith".Tony Blair is a member of the Christian socialist movement -BBC

Investment advisors often remind their clients that the Chinese character for "crisis" also means "opportunity".Similarly, many people argue, expect, and even hope that a severe crisis in America's monetary and banking systems will provide the necessary and sufficient opportunity for reform along free-market and constitutional lines.An event which triggers psycho-social destabilization and provides ammunition for the Establishment to wage psycho-political warfare is better characterized as a "source of social psychoses" than as an "opportunity" -Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.Ph.D.,J.D./NewsWithViews

Askar Akayev, the embattled Soviet-era President of Kyrgyzstan, claims he is facing an attempted coup d'etat and has vowed not to let his strategically important central Asian state become engulfed in a Ukraine-style revolution.As the 60-year-old potentate spoke, Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished former Soviet republic of five million people, looked dangerously close to violent clashes, if not civil war -Independent UK

Tuesday's Cabinet shuffle was also considered a disappointment for many other lawmakers who thought the president would replace -- among several others -- Political Coordination Minister Aldo Rebelo.The minister is seen by many as a relations liability in Lula's quest to push key reforms through the Congress

A wetland area in Brazil hosting rare animals and plants could be destroyed by farming, urban development and climate change, a UN report has warned.The Pantanal - the world's largest wetland - stretches across areas of Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia -BBC

A bomb ripped through a shopping mall in a predominantly Christian area north of Beirut, Lebanon, early Wednesday, killing three people and wounding at least two others, police said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Israel at the end of April, the first visit ever by a Russian leader to the Jewish state, Israeli officials said Tuesday.

Jon Rappoport speculates: Suppose the public sees what it considers a health miracle developing, day by day, news show by news show, before its eyes, as Terri accomplishes, say, a partial recovery? A miracle taking place AFTER all the medical experts have weighed in with their negative analysis. What could that do to public confidence in the medical system? For these reasons, you can bet there is tremendous pressure to kill Terri Schiavo.

President Bush's intervention for Terri Schiavo has opened old wounds in Texas where death penalty opponents say his words of support for a "culture of life" ring hollow after so many executions during his time as governor of the state.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a California case holding someone in handcuffs while police execute a search warrant is constitutional.

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday pushed a key interest rate up by a quarter-point to 2.75 percent as it continued its campaign to gradually nudge rates high enough to make sure that a rebounding economy does not trigger unwanted inflation.