China arrested a few courageous activists who attempted to mark the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, while any mention of the June 4, 1989 events was purged from the communications media with Orwellian completeness. BBC News tells us that authorities have again resorted to pre-emptive electronic action to head of protests, blocking Internet searches for terms such as "six-four," "23," "candle" and "never forget." Micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo has deactivated the candle emoticon, commonly adopted on the web to mourn deaths. Another BBC report, citing unnamed "rights campaigners," tells us that hundreds were rounded up in Beijing, while a delegation of some 30 who came from Zhejiang province to "petition" were met at a railway station by police who put them on a bus back to their hometown of Wuxi. Some 20 were also reported by AFP to have been arrested and beaten in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province, when they attempted to gather in the city's May First Square.

Reports from Mali's breakaway northern region of Azawad are as murky and contradictory as ever. Last week we were told that the Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) had cut a deal with the largest jihadi faction in the region, Ansar Dine, for creation of an "Islamic state." Now a May 29 AFP report picked up by Nigeria's This Day and South Africa's IOL News quotes a Tuareg rebel leader as saying the deal has collapsed. But the leader is named as speaking not in the name of the MNLA, but a "National Liberation Front of Azawad (FNLA)." To wit:

A new law granting Israeli authorities the power to detain "illegal migrants" for up to three years took effect June 3, following a wave of Tel Aviv protests over the influx of African migrants who cross into Israel along its border with Egypt. The law even makes asylum seekers liable to imprisonment—without trial or deportation—if caught staying in Israel for long periods. Additionally, anyone found to be aiding migrants or providing them with shelter could face up to 15 years in prison. The law amended the Prevention of Infiltration Law, passed in 1954 to prevent the entry of Palestinians.

It is bitterly disappointing, but there is a sense of the inevitable to it. When the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA first claimed to have seized northern Mali and declared the independent state of Azawad last month, they trumpeted their commitment to secularism and dismissed the Islamist factions that had evidently taken power in Timbuktu and elsewhere in the territory as insignificant "groupsicles" that they would shortly crush. Now, just a few weeks later, the MNLA announces that it is merging with the most significant of these factions, Ansar Dine. The marriage of convenience is an obvious one. The MNLA, despite its boasting, was not able to crush the Islamists and is adhering to the old adage "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." They have betrayed their supposed commitment to secularism in order to achieve their more fundamental aim of an independent Azawad. Ansar Dine, in turn, have sacrificed their loyalty to a unified Mali (which probably never meant much to them anyway) in order to achieve their more fundamental aim of an Islamic state.

Following last week's indecisive elections, the Muslim Brotherhood is urging Egyptians to support its presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi in next month's seemingly inevitable run-off with Ahmed Shafiq, the ex-air force chief who was Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister. The Brotherhood is deriding Shafiq and his supporters as "feloul"—a scornful Arabic term for "remnants" of Mubarak's order. (Middle East Online, May 26; Egyptian Gazette, May 25) The Brotherhood's own website Ikhwanweb.com sports a headline reading "Muslim Brotherhood, Freedom and Justice Party: We Seek National Unity to Save Revolution," calling on "all patriotic parties and political players to join hands and face up to [presumably meaning 'stand up to'] the heinous coup of reactionary Mubarak-era leftovers." But Egypt's secular progressives are no more heartened by the Brotherhood than the "feloul." Ahmed Khairy of the liberal Free Egyptians Party called the likely runoff "the worst-case scenario," describing Mursi as an "Islamic fascist" and Shafiq as a "military fascist." (Ahram Online, May 25)

The opposition Syrian National Council is urging the UN Security Council to act after regime forces "massacred" more than 110 people in the town of Houla—half of them children. "Some of the victims were hit by heavy artillery while others, entire families, were massacred," the SNC's Basma Kodmani in a statement. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said more than 50 civilians, including 13 children, were killed in shelling of Houla, in the central province of Homs. But the SNC put the figure twice as high, and said that after the army shelled the opposition stronghold, pro-government militia went house to house and killed residents at close range. (NPR, Sept. 27; Middle East Online, May 26)

Pakistani Dr. Shakeel Afridi was sentenced to 33 years in prison on treason charges May 23 for helping the US CIA locate Osama bin Laden, immediately sparking stateside outrage. US Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) issued a joint letter, warning: "We call upon the Pakistani government to pardon and release Dr. Afridi immediately. At a time when the United States and Pakistan need more than ever to work constructively together, Dr. Afridi's continuing imprisonment and treatment as a criminal will only do further harm to US-Pakistani relations, including diminishing Congress's willingness to provide financial assistance to Pakistan." But there are a few complicating factors here...

The typical equivocation from NATO at the Chicago summit—acting as if there were a firm 2014 deadline for a withdrawal despite Obama's deal for an extended US (at least) military presence in the country. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen went through the motions of calling the Taliban "terrorists" virtually in the same breath that he invoked negotiations with them. "I don't know whether the Taliban leadership is prepared to negotiate a solution, maybe not, I don't know, but I think we should give it a try, providing certain conditions," Rasmussen told reporters, without specifying those "conditions." So much for not negotiating with terrorists, but Western leaders have displayed such doublethink before. (Chicago Sun-Times, May 20)