A proposal to make Buddhism the national religion of Thailand in the country's new constitution has sparked huge debate. Though overwhelmingly Buddhist (95% of the country), Thailand is in the grips of escalating strife in the southern, predominantly Muslim parts of the country.

Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, columnist for the Mexican left-leaning daily La Jornada, reports back April 8 from Tifariti, Western Sahara, where the Polisario Front resistance movement recently held its fifth national congress. Tifariti is the principal town in the Morocco-occupied territory controlled by the Polisario Front, whose exile government is recognized by the African Union. Ramírez writes that this year Polisario's national congress was occassioned by the emergence of a "struggle within the struggle"—that of women demanding their right to an equal place within the movement to liberate their homeland.

Amnesty International condemns Egypt's record on torture and illegal detention in a new report, and calls on other countries to abandon diplomatic "no torture" deals with Cairo. Egypt's record on torture recently made headlines after police officers raped a 21-year-old taxi driver with a stick and filmed the torture on a mobile phone. Amnesty's report, "Systematic abuses in the name of security," focuses on the question of "rendition" of terror suspects to Egypt. In 2005, Cairo acknowledged that since 2001 the US had transferred some 60-70 detainees to Egypt.

Forces from the separatist Somali state of Somaliland and neighboring autonomous Puntland clashed April 9 over a disputed strip of land along their shared border in the Sanag region. "Puntland forces attacked the town of Dahar around 8:00 this morning," Somaliland Information Minister Ahmed Hagi Dahir said in a statement. "The attacking forces were supported by 17 technicals and 3 big trucks." Technicals are pick-up trucks mounted with weapons, the Somali version of a tank. At least one fighter was reported killed.

Nine Algerian soldiers and at least four Islamist insurgents were killed in clashes after militants ambushed an army patrol in the southwestern province of Ain Defla, 150 kilometers from Algiers April 7. Government troops, backed by helicopters, are searching for the attackers, estimated at 50 militants. They are presumed to belong to the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. Fighting was also reported between security forces and Islamist rebels in the Biskra region, southeast of Algiers, which has been tense following an April 2 rebel attack which killed three soldiers. The new fighting has brought the largest single casualty toll among government forces since Islamist guerrillas killed at least seven troops in November 2006 in the Bouira region east of Algiers. (Reuters, April 9)

Fighting between the government and Sh'i'te insurgents in Yemen's northern mountains has killed 25 soldiers and 20 guerillas over the last five days. The government has set up camps to shelter about 10,000 people displaced by the violence. Sporadic clashes are still taking place in the town of Dhahian. Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's president, ordered the army to crack down on (Abdul-Malik) al-Houthi and his fighters, based in northern Saada province, in January. About 315 Shi'ite fighters and 157 Yemeni soldiers have been killed in clashes since then, although al-Houthi's followers say the government's estimates of the number of insurgents killed are too high. (AlJazeera, April 9)

Three months after the White House successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea over that country's nuclear test, the Bush administration "allowed" Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from Pyongyang in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, the New York Times reported April 8, citing unnamed US officials. The US allowed the arms delivery to go through in January, as Ethiopian troops were in the midst of an offensive against Islamist militias in Somalia. The account said the US was trying to "wean" Ethiopia off its longstanding reliance on North Korea for cheap Soviet-era military equipment.

Thousands of Turkish troops backed by helicopters battled Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) insurgents near the Iraqi border April 8, in clashes that left 10 soldiers and seven guerillas dead. The fighting was centered in the provinces of Tunceli, Bingöl, Bitlis and Şırnak. (Zaman, April 9)