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The Pakistani mission to the Taliban has returned with an agreement to continue talks, but one delegate is reporting that bin Laden was not discussed in the meeting just concluded. It appears that the Taliban continue to play for time, as the US comes closer and closer to overt military action.

Meanwhile administration officials are saying that US Special Forces have entered Afghanistan on reconnaissance and intelligencegathering missions. The British Special Air Service (SAS) have also been in Afghanistan for some time.
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Before September 11, we were one country. Now we are another. In the old America, we were self-assuredly embarking on what was actually a very strange and forked road. On the one hand, our new administration was promoting globalism and free trade. On the other, it was pursuing a policy of isolation and disengagement. It had more-or-less withdrawn from the Arab-Israeli peace process. Our national defense was being refocused on two things: a massive reduction in our conventional armed forces, and the creation of an anti-missile shield. We were in the process of simultaneously encouraging open borders while at the same time withdrawing from our foreign military commitments.
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Afghan cities are ghost towns. Refugees are pouring out of the country, despite attempts at border control by surrounding countries. As many as eight million Aghans may soon be at risk of starvation soon, and one and a half million are at immeidate risk.

Now, lower level Taliban officials and soldiers are quitting, and military conscription is in chaos, according to CNN. Students released from Islamic school in order to join the army are instead becoming refugees.

Numerous Taliban security checkpoints have been abandoned. Tribal leaders in various parts of the country are urging Arab fighters from abroad to leave the country.
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A severe meteor storm expected to peak in November will bombard the world?s satellites with an unusually dense amount of space dust, creating the greatest threat of a meteor impact since 1966, according to NASA scientists.

The Leonid meteor shower occurs annually but this year it is expected to be a storm unlike anything seen in recent decades. The last time the Leonids produced what astronomers call a storm, only a handful of satellites orbited the Earth, so the threat was minimal.

Now there are hundreds of satellites that will be at risk. They provide services ranging from pagers and television to weather forecasts and monitoring for potential nuclear blasts from other nations.
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