Well, after all the "Newsweek-lied-people-died" gloating, the Pentagon acknowledges Koran abuse at Gitmo (while denying the toilet incident).

Pentagon Admits Five Acts of 'Mishandling' the Koran
By Rupert Cornwell
The Independent UK

Friday 27 May 2005

The Pentagon admitted last night it had substantiated five occasions when US military personnel at Guantánamo Bay prison "mishandled" the Koran of Muslim detainees. But it said it found no credible evidence to confirm a complaint that the Islamic holy book had been flushed down a toilet.

James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), the House Judiciary Committee chair, has introduced the Orwellianly named "Safe Access to Drug Treatment and Child Protection Act" (HR 1528) would compel people to spy on their family members and neighbors, and even go undercover and wear a wire if needed. Citizens who resisted would face imprisonment.

Under the law, if you "witness" or "learn about" certain drug offenses, you must report the offenses to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide "full assistance in the investigation, apprehension and prosecution" of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory minimum two-year prison sentence, and a maximum sentence of 10 years.

An Islamist prisoner, accused of involvement in the 2003 Casablanca bombings, has died in a Moroccan prison on hunger strike, al-Jazeera reports. The unidentified man died in Autaita prison in the city of Sidi Qasim, where about 1,000 inmates, members of the so-called Salafia Jihadia organisation, had staged a hunger strike. The strikers deny involvement in the bombings and say they have been tortured. Abu Usama, a prisoner in Autaita jail, told Aljazeera the prisoners were demanding the Moroccan authorities open an investigation into rights violations they faced in Morocco's prisons and jails, including being made to sign confessions under threat of torture.

In recent weeks, we've been following Washington's current regime change offensive, in which the White House is seeking to encourage--and, presumably, co-opt--opposition activists in countries which really are unhappily authoritarian, but (more to the point) insufficiently compliant with US interests. Now there are signs that even Egypt, a top global recipient of US aid, could be next.

Police in Edinburgh are asking for a ban on a major anti-war rally slated for the Scottish capital during the G8 summit meeting, alleging that its organizers have been linked with "violence and disruption." The UK's Stop the War Coalition wants to hold the rally four days before the G8 summit opens the first week of July at the nearby resort of Gleneagles.

On the morning of May 26, a car bomb exploded in Madrid, causing proprty destruction and leaving 50 with mostly minor injuries. Phone calls to media outlets immediately before the explosion warned that it was coming and claimed responsibility in the name of ETA, the armed Basque separatist organization. (Berria, Bilbao, May 26)

Hours later, Arnaldo Otegi, leader of the outlawed Basque separatist party Batasuna and a former member of the Basque regional parliament, was arrested. He is being held in solitary confinement after being charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation and of forming part of the leadership of ETA.

A week after calm started to return to Uzbekistan (see out last blog post), signs of simmering unrest continue, and the geopolitics of the conflict are starting to become clearer... Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Newsline (RFE/RL) reported May 23 that hundreds protested in Korasuv, the border town which had been briefly seized by Islamists in a seemingly spontaneous uprising. The protest was quickly broken by security forces. Arrests of suspected Islamists also continue.

We applaud Human Rights Watch for continuing to document the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan even as it has fallen off the media radar screen. But we question their assumption that Karzai "needs more support from the US," given that it is his own security forces that are doing much of the killing...

Afghanistan: Violence Surges
Karzai Needs More Support from U.S.

(New York, May 24, 2005) -- Afghanistan's security situation has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, with a spate of political killings, violent protests, and attacks on humanitarian workers, Human Rights Watch said today. The instability comes as President Hamid Karzai visits the United States this week.