Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan is pervasive, says Amnesty International today, releasing its latest report "Afghanistan: Women Under Attack."

"Throughout the country, few women are exempt from violence or safe from the threat of it," the report finds. Afghan women remain at daily risk of abduction and rape by armed men, forced marriage and being traded in settlement of disputes and debts. They face discrimination from all segments of society as well as by state officials. Violence against women is widely accepted by the community and inadequately addressed at the highest levels of the government and the judiciary. Investigations by the authorities into complaints of violent attacks, rape, murders or suicide of women are neither routine nor systematic, and few result in prosecutions.

In an editorial for the July issue of The Progressive, editor Matthew Rothschild makes a serious case for war crimes charges against Rumsfeld and Bush, as well as other White House and Pentagon figures...

Stripping Rumsfeld and Bush of Impunity
When Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee last year, he was asked whether he "ordered or approved the use of sleep deprivation, intimidation by guard dogs, excessive noise, and inducing fear as an interrogation method for a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison." Sanchez, who was head of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint Task Force-7 in Iraq, swore the answer was no. Under oath, he told the Senators he "never approved any of those measures to be used."

A conference questioning Turkey's official position on the World War I-era Armenian genocide has been cancelled following pressure from the government. The conference, entitled "Ottoman Armenians at the Decline of the Empire: Academic Responsibility and Issues of Democracy," was to start on May 26.

Stephen Ulph of the national-secuity think-tank The Jamestown Foundation writes that "militant Islamist forums" in Algeria are circulating a statement dated May 8 purporting to announce the formation of a new al-Qaeda cell, apparenrly seeking to revive Algeria's dormant civil war.

The Intifada which has broken out in Morocco-occupied Western Sahara continues too grow, and has even spread to Morocco proper. Yesterday, bludgeon-wielding police raided a university campus in Rabat to break up a protest by Saharawi students held in solidarity with demonstrators in the occupied territory. Students hurled stones at the police, and injuries were reported on both sides. (AlJazeera, May 28)

Clashes between Moroccan security forces and Saharawi demonstrators have broken out in towns across Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, following the violent repression of pro-independence protests. Saharawi human rights activists say that nineteen people are missing in police custody, including one whole family, and that a young demonstrator was raped by Moroccan security forces.

At least 25 are dead in an apparent suicide bombing at the Bari Imam Sufi shrine at Nurpur village outside Pakistan's capital Islamabad this morning. Thousands of devotees were attending the last day of a five-day festival at the time of the explosion. Worshippers had been waiting for a prominent Shi'ite leader to address the gathering when the bomb went off. The shrine is located about one kilometer from the official residence of Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

A team from the United States is expected to arrive in Bulgaria within days for talks on possible US military bases, Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov told a news conference on May 17. Svinarov’s announcement on May 17 confirmed a statement by Bulgarian armed forces chief Nikola Kolev made a few days earlier. "Bulgaria also hopes to get support for the modernisation of its army - rather than financial remuneration - in exchange for the use of its military facilities," Svinarov said. “A decision when the foreign bases will start operating in Bulgaria will be taken by Parliament under national law." He said he expected such a decision by the end of this year. (Sofia Echo, May 23) Graf Ignatievo, Bezmer, Novo Selo and Sarafovo airport, near Burgas on the Black Sea coast, are named as locations for the new US bases. (Sofia News Agency, May 18)