What Caught My Eye Today

Taiwan - The U.S. military mistakenly shipped four fuses for nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006 and never caught the error, the Pentagon said, acknowledging an incident likely to rile China. Do you think? The military was supposed to ship helicopter batteries to Taiwan, but instead sent fuses used as part of the trigger mechanism on Minuteman missiles. Wait, it gets better. The problem went unnoticed until Taiwan realized it did not have the helicopter batteries it ordered and reported the issue to the United States. I'm curious as to what the Taiwanese military thought it had. And don't even get me started on why it took so long to figure this out. The erroneous fuse shipment was the Pentagon's second embarrassing misplacement of nuclear or nuclear-related equipment announced in recent months. An Air Force bomber mistakenly carried nuclear warheads over the United States in August 2007. And finally, one last factoid that I'm sure will allow all of us to sleep better tonight. The Defense Department has ordered the Navy and Air Force to take inventory of all nuclear and nuclear-associated equipment and material. So does this mean we don't know where all the components of our nuclear arsenal are? Or maybe, we think we do and we're just making sure. Either way, this latest series of events doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the Defense Department does it.

It would appear that the U.S. military isn't the only government agency having a bad day.

Belarus - Belarus said it had uncovered a spy ring working for Washington, deepening a diplomatic and human rights row between the countries. Belarus's intelligence service, still known by its Soviet-era initials KGB, said a spy ring of Belarussian citizens had been uncovered in the country of 10 million. Tightly controlled state television reported at the weekend that a spying network of 10 Belarussian nationals had been exposed, but gave no details of concrete charges against them. Is that, perhaps, because Belarus is making up the charges as they go? The report showed people described as embassy employees working as informers for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Some told an interviewer they were gathering information to prevent terrorism. Here's my dilemma. On one hand we have a government that recently kick out our ambassador and generally doesn't hold the United States in high regards. So it isn't outside the realm of possibility that they are making this thing up just to piss us off. On the other hand, it isn't much of a stretch of the imagination that the U.S. was snooping around and got caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

France - French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that he cannot rule out the possibility he might boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if China continues its crackdown in Tibet. An official from France's state television company said the broadcaster would likely boycott the games if coverage was censored. Is it just me, or does it strike you as odd that a television network is acting as the mouthpiece of a country? Can you imagine the day when PBS becomes the voice of the United States? Me neither. Meanwhile, the European Union, United States, Australia and Canada urged China to show restraint as it tries to quell continuing unrest in its Tibetan areas. Violent protests in Tibet, the most serious challenge in almost two decades to China's rule in the region, are forcing human rights campaigners to re-examine their approach to the Summer Olympic Games in August. Chinese officials say at least 22 people have died in Lhasa (the capital of Tibet), while Tibetan rights groups say nearly 140 Tibetans were killed. I'm sorry, but did I hear this correctly. France is taking the lead role in an international brouhaha? It's a world gone mad, I tell you.

Antarctica - A chunk of Antarctic ice about seven times the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed, putting an even greater portion of glacial ice at risk. That sounds bad. Satellite images show the runaway disintegration of a 160-square-mile chunk in western Antarctica. It was the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf and has been there for hundreds, maybe 1,500 years. While icebergs naturally break away from the mainland, collapses like this are unusual but are happening more frequently in recent decades. The rest of the Wilkins ice shelf, which is about the size of Connecticut, is holding on by a narrow beam of thin ice. Scientists worry that it too may collapse. Larger, more dramatic ice collapses occurred in 2002 and 1995. Scientists said they are not concerned about a rise in sea level from the latest event, but say it's a sign of worsening global warming. I know that it goes without saying that global warming is pretty much a bad thing. What isn't so clear is what the danger is related to this ice collapse. Seriously, you can make anything sound good or bad, depending on your perspective. I'm just curious as to what the particular imminent danger is this time.

Comoros - Yet another in our ongoing series on countries no one has ever heard of. Comoros is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa between northern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique. The Comoros government captured the capital of the rebel-held island of Anjouan, just hours after an African Union-backed military operation got under way to oust a renegade colonel who took power in May. The Comoros, an archipelago of three main islands 250 miles off Africa's southeast coast with a population of about 750,000, has been caught up in a series of coups and political upheavals since gaining independence from France in 1975. The latest came when Colonel Mohamed Bacar - a former president of the country - took over Anjouan island, drawing increasingly strident warnings from the central government. You may be asking what the big deal is here. Here's the part that I found, for want of a better term, amusing. At least 80 AU troops from Tanzania were among the landing force who apparently arrived aboard four ships that cruised earlier in the day along the coast toward the island's airport and seaport. An invasion of 80 troops? And they won? I don't know who this Colonel Bacar is, but I'm guessing that he isn't what one might consider a military genius. Here these guys are floating around in broad daylight--presumably deciding against the element of surprise--and this moron still loses? Sad, very sad indeed.