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)

From American Friends Service Committee, Feb. 7:

PHILADELPHIA – The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker humanitarian service organization, has nominated two Colombian groups for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their extraordinary commitment to nonviolence in the midst of the country’s 50 year-old conflict and their exemplification of organized efforts by many Colombians to end that conflict justly.

Earlier this month, a delegation from the Bush adminisation met with President Alvaro Uribe in Bogota to evaluate what Uribe is calling "Plan Colombia II." The delegation was led by assistant secretary of state for hemispheric affairs Tom Shannon and assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs Anne Patterson (former US ambassador to Colombia). Also on the delegation were assistant secretary of defense for western hemisphere policy Stephen Johnson, assistant attorney general Mary Lee Warren and US AID deputy director Mark Silverman. The Bogota daily El Tiempo called it part of Uribe's "diplomatic offensive" to assure continued Plan Colombia aid following the changes in Washington. He officially dubs his new program "Plan Colombia Consolidation Phase: Strategy for Strengthening Democracy and Social Development." It emphasizes alternative crop programs for peasants in drug-growing regions and job programs for the 32,000 ostensibly "demobilized" paramilitary fighters. (El Tiempo, Jan. 26)