Hmmm, Eritrea got a flurry of headlines when Somalia was heating up a couple of months ago—then disappeared. What happened? This telling Feb. 22 story from The Economist, "Eritrea: Still in the Regional Game?," is reprinted in New Jersey's Eritrea Daily:

When Ethiopia invaded Somalia at the same time as Somalia's Islamists were getting arms from (among others) Eritrea, there were fears that the war in the Horn of Africa might spread. Eritrea has long been at daggers drawn with Ethiopia, and fought a bitter war with it between 1998 and 2000 over a disputed border. But so far the latest war in the region has been contained. This week the UN Security Council authorised the African Union to send peacekeepers to Somalia for at least six months. Ethiopia, meanwhile, has emerged as the Horn's top dog.

As we noted in a related post on Egypt, Compass Direct News, which monitors global persecution of Christians, likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But this still doesn't smell very good. From a Feb. 22 report:

An Eritrean Christian died in prison last week, four and a half years after the Eritrean regime jailed him for worshipping in a banned Protestant church.

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...