News of the Day (September 27)

Pakistan's Taliban deal angered NATO: The NATO countries heavily involved in Afghanistan are so infuriated by Pakistan's recent deal with pro-Taliban forces in Waziristan that they "actually considered issuing an ultimatum to Musharraf to either close down the Taliban and arrest its leaders operating from Pakistan, or face the consequences. Instead, they opted to leave the matter for President Bush" (Time Asia). Meanwhile, the editors of the Washington Times ponder the consequences of the Waziristan deal.

Ignorant Comment of the Day: Michael A. Needham & Tim Kane of the Heritage Foundation come close for criticizing the "economic confusion" (National Review Online) of corrective-currency tariff supporters with some geopolitical confusion of their own. However, the prize goes to Ali Arouzi of NBC (via MSNBC) for treating Iran like a normal country instead of the mullah-imposed prison society it is.

Enlightened Comment of the Day: Denis Charleton (Epoch Times) details Communist China's ties to the Iranian mullahs and includes a subsequent warning to nations looking to sell uranium to the cadres.

More on the Middle Eastern Proxies: The mullahcracy denies earlier reports of a deal (Bill Gertz, Washington Times) on its nuclear ambitions (fourth item); the Times' editors pan the proposal. Meanwhile, Syria lectures the United States - again (United Press Int'l via Washington Times, see also fourth item).

Remember Katrina Leung? Bill Gertz does (Newsmax).

Did the U.S. reach a secret deal with the Communists on their currency? The BBC speculates.

The Korean colony rips the U.S. for anti-Stalinist sanctions: Mouthpiece Choe Su-Hon gave the latest Stalinist rant at the United Nations General Assembly (BBC and UPI via Washington Times).

New Japanese PM wants talks with Communist China: The recently elected Shinzo Abe "was ready to travel to Beijing" (BBC) for talks next month.

Taiwan's other opposition party pushes for recall of Chen: The People First Party "submitted a new parliamentary motion to try to force the island's president, Chen Shui-bian, to step down" (BBC). Their Nationalist allies had tried this earlier - and failed.

On the firing of Chen Liangyu: Pan Xiaotao (Asia Times via Epoch Times) sees factional politics behind the "anti-corruption" removal of the Shanghai boss: "the power struggle between Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin at the 17th Communist Party Congress has ended one year in advance" with "the end of Jiang Zemin's era and the beginning of Hu Jintao's era."