This one is truly pathetic. Last week Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) quoted from an FBI agent's memo describing detainees at Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures. "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," he said. (AP, June 22)

A surge in violence during the past three months has left hundreds dead across eastern and southern Afghanistan. Presumed Taliban militants have carried out suicide bombings and kidnapped or killed aid and election workers, and fighting has also increased between the Taliban and US-led forces. In addition to clashes in remote mountain areas, the latest incidents include the execution of eight kidnapped Afghan police officers and an alleged plot to kill the outgoing US ambassador. The bloodshed has sparked fears that the Afghan war is widening and that the violence could get worse ahead of September's parliamentary elections. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty offers this report today:

The circumstances are still sketchy, but the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico, has announced it is going on "red alert". This account from VOA, June 21:

Mexico's Zapatista rebel group has declared a state of emergency, putting its troops on alert and sending its leadership into hiding. In a statement issued Monday, the Zapatistas said they are calling all troops back to their bases and are evacuating their leadership to ensure their safety. The group says its leadership will do its work clandestinely for an indefinite period of time. The group also shut down its radio station. Civil rights activists say the declaration was likely prompted by some action by the Mexican army...

Dozens of workers trapped in the besieged offices of a newspaper in Oaxaca managed to publish on Sunday despite what they call a bogus strike organized by politicians to silence the daily for its criticism of the state government. The standoff at Noticias, the largest daily circulation newspaper in the state of Oaxaca, began before dawn on Friday (June 17) when hundreds of people, apparently including police in civilian clothing and other outsiders, surrounded the offices and declared a strike seeking a 25% pay raise. Genaro Altamirano, the assistant director of Noticias, said the newspaper's 102 union employees had no desire to strike and had agreed to a 6% pay raise. He said the "strike" was organized by a union headed by state Deputy David Aguilar Robles from Oaxaca's ruling party, the PRI. Speaking by telephone from inside the newspaper's offices, Altamirano said he and 30 other employees had been prevented from leaving and were rationing food and water. "Who knows when we'll get out of here," Altamirano said.

Is the current fighting along Iraq's Syrian border actually a prelude to a US invasion of Syria? Certain voices in the Arab world seem to think so. This from UPI, June 15:

AMMAN, Jordan -- The United Arab Emirates' al-Bayan reported Wednesday the United States was massing troops on the Syrian-Iraqi border and Damascus complained of repeated U.S. military penetration into Syrian territory. The pro-government daily quoted unidentified Arab officials as saying Egypt and Saudi Arabia "have reliable information from Damascus of U.S. military mobilization on the Syrian-Iraqi border." They said U.S. forces have repeatedly entered Syrian territory on the "pretext of chasing infiltrators and Iraqi insurgents." The sources told the paper the Syrian leadership told Cairo and Riyadh it was "exercising self-restraint in the face of these American provocations and will not be pulled into any attempt aimed at finding a pretext to attack Syria." They added Egypt and Saudi Arabia will express their "grave concern over the growing U.S. administration's threats against Syria" during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the Middle East that starts at the end of the week.

Even as the US moves to restore military ties with Indonesia, harsh repression continues in areas of the archipelago where indigenous peoples are fighting for sovereignty. This from Survival International, June 15:

INDONESIA: Fifteen years in prison for flying a flag
Two Papuan activists, Filep Karma and Yusuk Pakage, have been sentenced to 15 and 10 years in prison respectively for raising the Papuan flag on 'Papuan independence day', December 1st, 2004. For this ‘crime' they were charged with 'treason against the state'.

This editorial, to appear in the International Herald Tribune June 20, was (in slightly longer form) in the New York Times June 18:

Guantánamo and who we are
The New York Times

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005
It was a relief to watch last week's hearing by Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee on the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to hear Specter, a Republican, declare that it was time for Congress to do its job and finally bring the American chain of prison camps under the law.

At the hearing, four military and civilian officials overseeing the processing of prisoners could not, or would not, provide the most basic information - such as how many detainees there are and what countries they came from. Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, a military lawyer, later courageously testified that he was assigned to represent one of the prisoners for the sole purpose of extracting a guilty plea. He provided a written order that contradicted the denials of the man who assigned him, Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, who oversees the military tribunals George W. Bush created after 9/11 to screen selected prisoners away from public and judicial scrutiny.

After the UK froze a planned $36.1 million aid package, Ethiopia has freed 336 prisoners seized in a crackdown following clashes with police over elections which left 36 dead. But more remain behind bars. The main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, has said up to 120 of its staff have been jailed. Ethiopia's main human rights group has said three of its members were arrested.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's ruling party claimed victory in the elections, based on provisional results. But parties have lodged complaints in 299 of the country's 527 constituencies. The unrest is the most serious dissent the Meles government has faced since it came to power in a 1991 revolution.