Miscellany

-- Annals of sting operations: a 21-year-old Bangladeshi pled guilty to trying to blow up the Federal Res. Bank of NY with a fake bomb supplied by an undercover agent. Assuming he entered the country with an intent to do something criminal, as the government alleges, I still doubt it makes sense to put him in prison for 30 years. According to the NYT, this case is the work of "the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes F.B.I. agents and members of the Police Department." (Note btw that he was dissuaded from returning to Bangladesh before the operation's completion.)

-- Pakistan's government is planning a $30 million amusement park in Abbottabad, according to a news report cited by FP's AfPak Brief recently.

-- Big Oil fights transparency: From the current issue of OxfamCloseup, I see that the American Petroleum Inst. is suing the SEC over its rules on disclosure of payments to governments. For more on the regulations, see e.g. here. Also here.