There is no validity to reported claims by two Islamic groups that they caused the fatal blast in Texas City, according to the Houston office of the FBI.Reuters news agency reported Thursday that an unknown group, calling itself al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in the United States of America, said it would release a detailed statement and video of the attack later -Houston Chronicle

My last column on the feminization of American politics generated some complaints from "sensitive" men.One in particular was such a glaring example of how ignorant Americans are on the history of this republic, it simply cannot go unanswered -Devvy Kidd/WorldNetDaily

Syria certainly has not forgotten America's previous interventions:president Dwight David Eisenhower prevented Syria from absorbing Lebanon in the 1950s.President Ronald Reagan intervened during the Lebanese civil war and, like the wolf in the Irish tale, left his tail behind.But this time Lebanon will not be the target, Syria will -Rabbi Moshe Reiss/Asia Times

Arab leaders have just finished a two-day Arab Summit in Algeria that coincided with the 60th anniversary of the Arab League. Unsurprisingly, as in the past, the outcome of the meeting was insignificant.The history of Arab weakness, especially during Arab summits, is a phenomenon worth examining -Sami Moubayed/Asia Times

An interview with professional diver turned documentary filmmaker Mark Manning, perhaps the only American citizen outside the employ of a major news agency to have embedded himself in Fallujah for the sake of information("Look into my eyes.I have the eyes of a former sniper.You thought you had the goods on George Bush didn't you? You've been sandbagged boy.") -Santa Barbara Independent

"No country that is proud of itself should construct walls."-Mexico’s President Vicente Fox What a joke.Mr.Fox’s hypocritical hype is known in Spanish as a "pendejada" – loose translation, "Duh." This preening hack, once viewed as a welcome departure from decades of tyranny under the proudly anti-American, left-wing PRI, now indulges in se lf-serving invective as corrupt as the world-class gangsters who preceded him in the Mexican Kremlin.And that’s saying something -Christopher Manion/LewRockwell.com

Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian will join a march against China's anti-secession law on Saturday, aiming to rally one million people to protest the legislation that authorizes the use of force against the island.Chen, set to become the first Taiwan head of state to take to the streets, said on Thursday the march will be a peaceful expression to protect the island's democracy, trying to assuage fears of ratcheting up tension in one of Asia's hotspots

A plan to reform defense-related intelligence calls for moving more spies and analysts out of the Pentagon and closer to the battlefield to better support troops, Pentagon officials said yesterday.The reform plan is aimed at modernizing the Defense Intelligence Agency and other military and civilian components that collect, analyze and disseminate intelligence information -Bill Gertz/Washington Times

The revolutions rolling through Russia's backyard shifted thousands of miles yesterday from the borders of the European Union to the Chinese frontier as Kyrgyzstan fell to the daffodil-clutching opponents of the former communist apparatchik and Leningrad physicist Askar Akayev, whose early promise degenerated into nepotism, sleaze, rigged elections and the jailing of rivals -Ian Traynor/Guardian UK

No doubt it would be imprudent to ignore the role of the international community to protect the world's citizens, whose survival is endangered within the confines of a "nation-state", yet the evidence suggests that the majority of developing nations have become even more enamored of the "domestic jurisdiction clause" of the UN safeguarding them against interference in internal affairs by, to paraphrase a book, "a select group of states ... agreeing on criteria for intervention among themselves" which would, in turn, undermine the current system in international law" -Kaveh L Afrasiabi/Asia Times

A UN fact-finding team reported yesterday that President Assad of Syria had threatened Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, “with physical harm”.But it stopped short of pinning his assassination on Damascus.The report called for a full investigation of the bomb on February 14 by an “international independent commission” but said that the top tier of Lebanon’s security services must first be replaced -London Times UK

Portland is threatening to become the first U.S. city to quit an FBI counterterrorism network after the agency rejected a request by city officials for top-secret clearances they say are needed to safeguard civil rights.Portland Mayor Tom Potter and City Commissioner Randy Leonard proposed earlier this week that continued participation in the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) network be conditional on receiving the top-secret clearances

The reputation of United Nations peacekeeping missions suffered a humiliating blow yesterday as an internal report identified repeated patterns of sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by soldiers supposed to be restoring the international rule of law.The highly critical study, published by Jordan's ambassador to the UN assembly, was endorsed by the organisation's embattled secretary general, Kofi Annan, who condemned such "abhorrent acts" as a "violation of the fundamental duty of care" -Guardian UK

The United Nations Security Council has approved 10,000 UN peacekeepers for Sudan to help monitor a January accord that ended a 21-year civil war in Africa's largest nation.The move comes after two months of diplomatic wrangling over how to handle a separate crisis in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, amid fears the ongoing violence there could derail the north-south peace agreement -ABC News AU