The Periscope Post

USA Today Hunted al-Qaeda spawns allies, imitators

“What has happened to al-Qaeda?” asked USA Today. After almost a decade without a successful follow-up attack on the US, officials say that the organization is badly organized and weakened. But USA Today pointed out, “The group itself may be small and hunted, but its imitators and allies are increasingly active, and they keep trying to attack.” Attempted attacks are just as ominous as successful ones, the paper said. Today declared that al-Qaeda, whether weak or strong, must be destroyed “to send an unmistakable message about what happens to those who attack the United States.” But the difficulty is working out how to do it “without becoming entangled in conflicts across the globe. … The answers are still evolving, but if we ever hope to observe a 9/11 anniversary in peace, that trap must be avoided, and that begins with getting bin Laden himself.”

Wasington Post If Iran makes a final nuclear push, can it be detected?

A recent report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed that there has been almost no change in Iran’s steady accumulation of low-enriched uranium. The Wasington Post said that while President Barack Obama had been successful in imposing economic sanctions on Iran and thereby increasing the cost of its nuclear programme, “the ultimate goal of Obama’s policy is not limiting Iran’s prosperity but stopping its enrichment of uranium and forcing its compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. By this measure, the administration has yet to produce tangible results.” If, as the Institute for Science and International Security suggest, Iran is secretly producing weapon-grade uranium in a plant unknown to the inspectors or Western intelligence agencies then, said the Post, “economic sanctions are unlikely to prevent it.”

The LA Times The rich get richer

President Barack Obama has said that the the tax cuts approved under President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire for the top 2% of earners while being extended for the middle class. Republicans are up-in-arms, but the LA Times said that “Obama’s proposal is a practical way to keep the deficit in check without shutting off growth, and it could at least slow the trend of income disparity.” The Times pointed with concern to the CIA’s World Factbook which provides an index of income inequality. The United States ranks 42nd meaning it has a more even distribution of wealth than South Africa, Hong Kong and Brazil, but it’s more unequal than 92 other countries including Venezuela and Kenya. “Big gaps in wealth,” noted the Times, “can have pernicious effects on a society, encouraging corruption, disrespect for the rule of law, health problems and other woes.” The LA Times found it “increasingly untenable to argue that the wealthy can’t afford a small tax hike.”

Miami Herald Venezuela’s Land Grab

A Venezuelan farmer called Franklin Brito recently starved himself to death; the 250^th person to die as a result of the property redistribution despute in the country. “He shrank to 77 pounds and died last week rather than toe the line on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s dubious land reform program,” commented the Miami Herald. The land-grab programme has created, according to the Herald, “a miserable brotherhood.” While carried out it the name of equality, the Miami Herald pointed out that, conversely, “Chávez has accomplished little except to exacerbate the social divide that helps keep him in power.”