Spain's Catalonia region made headlines earlier this week for officially banning bullfighting from 2012. This act goes beyond just boosting animal rights activists but is a form of defiance towards Spain's central government. This Guardian piece gives an interesting description of the region and its disdain for its own country, with some Catalans even going so far as to hope for a Spanish loss in the World Cup final. It should be remembered that Spain's victory in that final was heralded by some media figures as something to unite a nation that is at odds with itself. This article shows that it'll take more than a World Cup to overcome Catalanonia's sense of separation.

Ghana might be in store for some better times, economically speaking, as production of a large offshore oil field is set to start in 6 months' time but already there are some worrying signs ("illicit capital flight") that the oil bonanza may not benefit the nation as much as expected as the LRB blog post linked above talks about possibly shady offshore ownership.

A leak of over 90,000 internal documents seemingly confirms what many assume in the past few years- that the Afghanistan war is getting worse, not better. Among the negative events revealed in the papers - a secret U.S. task force dedicated to hunting down top Taliban commanders, attacks by Western allies that have killed hundreds of civilians and concrete signs of Pakistan "fueling" the Taliban insurgency, the latter being something that doesn't come as a surprise given the suspicions and strong criticism issued by the U.S. over the years. Read here for how the leak took place, a major event in itself.