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.

A former Taliban official now living on Long Island pleaded guilty in US District Court in Manhattan June 16 to tax fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Noorullah Zadran, 53, of Huntington Station, faces up to 8 months in prison after pleading guilty to filing a false 2000 tax return, failing to include in the statement the $1,541 in income he received from the Taliban. Zadran also admitted that he falsely claimed on a bank loan application that his wife was employed, in order to get a lower interest rate.

Zadran, described by Newsday as "a tall, elegantly dressed man with gold wire-rimmed glasses," was "First Secretary to the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan" from 1998 to 2001, when he frequently appeared on TV news programs as the spokesman for the Taliban regime.

You almost have to admire the chuztpah of the Bush gang. Not only are they refusing the close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, they are actually planning to expland it--and Halliburton gets the contract! This from the AP:

Halliburton Gets $30M Gitmo Contract
Friday, June 17, 2005

WASHINGTON — A subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton has been awarded a $30 million contract to build an improved 220-bed prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay (search), Cuba, the Pentagon announced.

This June 18 BBC account on Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's approaching 60th birthday provides a good brief overview of the recent escalating violence in Burma:

No happy returns for Suu Kyi
By Tony Cheng
BBC News, Bangkok

The woman simply known as "The Lady" will spend a lonely 60th birthday this Sunday, allowed only the company of two maids and a weekly visit from her doctor, as she enters her consecutive third year under house arrest.

From the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, June 16th, 2005 (online at Stop The Wall):

Villagers of Marda Continue To Resist Settler Bypass Road

Thirty villagers were injured today during clashes with Occupation Forces in Marda, in the east of Salfit district. Villagers were demonstrating against the theft of their lands by the Apartheid Wall and the Jewish-only bypass road system that together will almost completely encircle the village.

Several hundreds villagers marched to lands in the northwest of Marda, which are being confiscated and uprooted by the Occupation for the route of a new settler bypass road. They were attacked on the way by Occupation Forces who fired tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets into the crowds of demonstrators.

Another escalation is reported in the persecution of the Mapuche indigenous people of Chile: the imprisonment of the editor of a Mapuche magazine on six-year-old charges related to a land occupation, effectively preventing him from travelling to Canada for a meeting of Native journalists. This June 16 account is from Reporteros Sin Fronteras (RSF) and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX):