Newsweek and Karl Rove, Karzai suffers an election blow, China stops work on Gwadar Refinery

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff doesn’t pull any punches in his story on Karl Rove’s role in the 2006 firing of numerous U.S. attorneys, including New Mexico’s David Iglesias, whom Isikoff interviewed. Still, it seems a little odd that no one at Newsweek thought to insert a mention of Rove’s relationship with the magazine run by the Ultimate Thinking Person.
Rove signed on as a Newsweek contributor in November 2007, and a few months later the New York Observer reported that he had a two-year deal as a regular columnist for the magazine. Events seem not to have played out that way—Rove’s most recent column for the magazine was published in November 2008—but he remains “an occasional contributor,” according to a Newsweek spokeswoman. Newsweek and Rove

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's alliance with ethnic Uzbek strongman General Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish-e-Milli party is in tatters, just over a week before August 20 polls. The split plays right into the hands of the president's main rival, Abdullah Abdullah. - Ahmad Kawush Karzai suffers an election blow

The toned and tanned of St Tropez - sipping chilled wine aboard multimillion-euro yachts anchored at this mythic Mediterranean port - don't do drones. Especially not the kind that took out Pakistani warlord Baitullah Mehsud last week. And for them, an economic "crisis" is not landing the best five-star table in town. Welcome to the gleaming epicenter of hypercapitalism. - Pepe Escobar THE ROVING EYE : Jihad bling bling

China has shelved its multi-billion dollar refinery project at Gwadar, in Pakistan's insurgency-troubled Balochistan province, casting doubt also on plans for a fuel pipeline running the length of Pakistan to China's far west. Lack of progress is the given reason. - Syed Fazl-e-Haider
China calls halt to Gwadar refinery