A military jury at Fort Bliss, TX, spared an Army reservist prison time but reduced his rank Aug. 18 for abuse of a detainee who later died at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Prosecutors had asked that Pfc. Willie V. Brand, 27, be sent to a military prison for 10 years with a dishonorable discharge for the December 2002 beating. Instead, the panel reduced his rank to private, the lowest pay grade in the Army, and set him free.

A Katyusha rocket fired from Jordan landed near the airport in the Israeli city of Eilat Aug. 19, and at least two more rockets narrowly missed the USS Ashland, a US Navy ship moored at the Jordanian port of Aqaba near a US Navy ship, killing a Jordanian solider. Two US Navy vessels had been on a joint training exercise with the Jordanian navy, and left the area shortly after the attack. An Internet statement took responsibility for the attack in the name of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades.

Cindy Sheehan's brave protest encampment down the road from the Bush ranch in Crawford, TX, where the commander-in-chief is vacationing as the corpses pile up in Iraq, has succeeded in grabbing national attention in a way that countless of unimaginative anti-war rallies never have. All too predictably, this success is being met with violent harassment--including intentional desecration of the "Arlington West" cemetery activists have established, made up of hundreds of white crosses emblazed with the names of soldiers killed in Iraq (including, of course, Cindy's son Casey). Reports William Rivers Pitt in an on-the-scene Aug. 16 account for TruthOut:

A New York Times business section story Aug. 14, "The Oil Price to Be Scared Of," notes that the current price shock has significantly lowered the bar for what constitutes a crisis:

Once upon a time, not too long ago, the prospect of crude-oil futures hitting $50 a barrel sent waves of anxiety over consumers, business executives and politicians, evoking the specter of gasoline rationing, not to mention a global recession and general economic mayhem.

An Aug. 18 Christian Science Monitor story, online at TruthOut, reports that some 300 small bombs exploded in cities across Bangladesh the previous day, killing one, wounding at least 100, and raising fears of a surge of Islamic militancy. The bombs mainly targeted government offices, bus and train stations, and markets in 63 of the country's 64 districts. No one formally claimed responsibility, but copies of a leaflet found at most of the sites carried a call by the group Jaamat-ul-Mujahideen for Islamic rule in Bangladesh.

The campaign officially opened for Afghanistan's first post-Taliban parliamentary race Aug. 17, even as violence continues to plague the country. Authorities are still not ruling out the possibility of an attack against a helicopter that crashed near Herat Aug. 17, killing 17 Spanish soldiers on board, although bad weather could have been the cause. (RFE/RL, Aug. 17) But Taliban rebels were almost certainly behind the bombing of a bus carrying police trainees that day in Kandahar, killing one and injuring at least 11. Eyewitnesses said the bomb was in a cart placed near a speed bump on a road in the city centre and was detonated as the bus passed by. (BBC, Aug. 17)

An Aug. 16 AFP account, online at TruthOut, reports the claims of former Iraqi prisoners claim on that evening's BBC Newsnight that British troops abused and humiliated them in the aftermath of the US-led invasion in March 2003. Two brothers, Marhab and As'ad Zaaj-al-Saghir, said they were beaten with sticks and denied water and sleep after being arrested in Basra and taken to an internment camp. One said a soldier urinated on his head. Newsnight said the accounts were similar to numerous other claims made in a confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Violent clashes between Kurds and police erupted in the north Syrian town of Ein al-Arab Aug. 16, according to the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in Syria (AOHRS). The organization said the violence flared after police halted a march in support of a banned separatist group, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Cars were burned, and stones hurled at police who responded by firing tear gas and making a number of arrests.