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)

As with the May Day mobilization, "terrorism" charges have emerged from the protests against the NATO summit in Chicago—or so the media are playing it, with headlines sporting the T-word. But it seems Sebastian Senakiewicz was charged with "terroristic threatening" for bad-assing that he had explosives hidden in the hollowed-out interior of his "Harry Potter" book (which he didn't). Mark Neiweem was charged with "attempted possession of explosive or incendiary devices"—basically, he was asking around for material to make Molotov cocktails. So neither of them have actually been charged with terrorism. (Chicago Tribune, NYT, May 20)

Readers of World War 4 Report will know that we are implacable enemies of the pathological global car culture, pillar of petro-oligarchical rule, and support the ultimate abolition of the internal combustion engine. And readers will know that your chief blogger is a long-suffering New York City bicyclist. So we would really like to take heart in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial measures to accommodate bicycles. But since the very start, it has all smelled suspicious to us. The "congestion pricing" plan to charge motorists to enter Manhattan struck us as a prescription for turning the island into a sort of Manhattanland tourist theme park; the closing of large sections of Times Square to cars has coincided with administration of this "public" space being turned over nearly completely to the Times Square Alliance BID; plans to bar cars from the East Village's Cooper Square are similarly concomitant with delivering the historic plaza over to Cooper Union college and New York University as a virtually privatized space. Now, the plans for a bicycle-sharing program vindicate our worst fears...