From Compass Direct News, Feb. 22. Compass Direct monitors global persecution of Christians, and likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But nobody else is covering this.

Police detained Christian families in Upper Egypt and forced them to deny arson attacks on their homes during a spate of anti-Christian violence last week, the families said.

AlJazeera includes the following interesting passage in its Feb. 22 coverage of the conviction of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman. Now, did "rendition" victim Abu Omar show up to support Soliman, despite his taunts of reactionary Islam on his blog? Does he support him as a fellow victim of state oppression? Or does he view him as an apostate kafir? Or perhaps both?

Freedom's on the march in Washington's top Arab client state, and the world's second-largest US aid recipient after Israel. From the BBC News, Feb. 22:

An Egyptian court has sentenced a blogger to four years' prison for insulting Islam and the president. Abdel Kareem Soliman's trial was the first time that a blogger had been prosecuted in Egypt.

Wow, like, nostalgia for the '80s, dude. This should be read to the strains of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Except that now the Russkies are threatening to nuke former Warsaw Pact members—which just indicates how desperate their post-imperial position is, and (contrary to the conventional wisdom) makes them more likely to use their nukes. We can only hope the decrepit things will fail to fire... From RFE/RL, Feb. 20:

Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned Feb. 21 after his center-left government failed to get the necessary majority of 160 Senate votes to extend Italy's Afghanistan mission. Both Prodi and Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema lobbied for the extension, but fell short by two votes because of opposition from the left within the government coalition. Some 1,900 Italian soldiers are currently stationed in Afghanistan. (UPI, Feb. 21)

The New York Times informs us Feb. 21 that this still hasn't been resolved. But here's an informative overview from the Press Trust of India, Feb. 6. There were five suicide bombings in Pakistan between Jan. 26 and Feb. 6? Amazing how this stuff doesn't even make headlines anymore... And this is in Washington's closest ally in the region... And note that this crisis is in the capital, not some tribal hinterland...

The arrogance of invoking Cuban "sovereignty" to justify this trangression when the Cubans oppose everything Washington is doing at Guantánamo Bay is staggering even by the standards of our deeply cynical age. Oh and by the way, freedom's on the march, eh? From the LAT, Feb. 21:

WASHINGTON -- In a victory for the White House, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that the hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay do not have a right to plead their innocence in an American court.

Denmark has announced that it will pull all of its troops out of Iraq in August, following the British plan to scale back its forces in the country. Tony Blair announced that troops in southern Iraq would be cut by 1,600 to 5,500 in the coming months. The UK currently has about 7,100 troops stationed in and around Basra. About 450 Danish troops are stationed in southern Iraq under British command. Meanwhile, Washington is planning to send some 21,000 troops into Iraq in addition to the 138,000 already there. But both London and Washington are citing supposedly "improved" conditions in Basra as justifying the British pull-out. (AlJazeera, Feb. 21) Following the British and Danish announcements, Lithuania stated it is planning to pull its 53 troops out of Iraq. The Lithuanians serve under Danish command, just as the Danes serve under Britain. (Reuters, Feb. 21)