From the Egyptian groups Institute for Freedom of Thought and Expression, Arab Institute for Civil Society, Legal Aid Society for Human Rights, and The Civil Monitor for Human Rights, on May 21:

On Thursday, May 18 activist Asmaa Mohammed Hassan Soliman (known as Asmaa Soliman), was surprised to learn that she had been dismissed from her job at the National Institute for Laser Enhanced Science at Cairo University. The dean of the institute, Dr. Mohy Saad Mansour, usually refuses to fire anyone, even when the situation clearly demands it When Asmaa tried to learn the reasons behind her dismissal, the director of Human Resources, Amaal Khalil, said that the dean had the right to do what he wanted, without giving his reasons.

From the JTA, May 20:

Congresswoman cuts off AIPAC
A congresswoman says AIPAC is unwelcome in her office until it apologizes for an activist who called her a terrorist supporter.

Israel is continuing "targetted assassinations" in supposedly unoccupied Gaza. But internecine Palestinian violence, alas, now seems equally efficient in killing off the Palestinian leadership.

An Israeli missile strike on a car in Gaza City May 20 killed a top Islamic Jihad commander, Mohammed Dahdouh. A Palestinian woman, Hanan Aman, her 4-year-old son Mohanad and a female relative Naima Aman were also killed in the attack, and three others wounded. (Al-Bawaba, May 20)

A front-page story in today's New York Times paints an even more desperate picture of the deteriorating situation in Darfur than usual. Lydia Polgreen reports from Tina, a village that was overrun April 19 and the residents forced to flee to the overstretched and over-crowded refugee camp at Tawila. Only this time the armed horsemen who swept through, burning, looting, shooting and raping, were not Janjaweed, but a faction of the Sudan Liberation Army, the major guerilla group resisting the Sudanese pro-government forces. The SLA has splintered, with the faction that signed the recent peace accord turning against the more intransigent faction which has held out, calling the accords a sham. The ostensibly pro-peace faction is now attacking civilian villages, mimicking the tactics of their Janjaweed enemies. Again, there is an ethnic dimension: the supposedly pro-peace faction is led by ethnic Zaghawa, who are traditionally semi-nomadic herdsmen, while the hold-out faction is led by sedentary, agricultural Fur, who are the big majority in Darfur ("Land of the Fur"). "It was the Zaghawa who did this," a Tina sheikh told Polgreen. "We used to fear the Arab janjaweed. Now we have another janjaweed."

From the London Times, May 20:

THE largest prisoner uprising yet at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre was reported by the US military yesterday as the UN watchdog on torture called for the camp to be shut down.

From Long Island Newsday, May 18:

Two teenage girls and a 25-year-old man were killed Wednesday morning when their car rear-ended a parked tractor-trailer on a busy two-lane road in Brentwood, Suffolk police said.

More pendulum swings. Douglas Feith, former no. 3 at the Pentagon, Richard Perle, who served on a Pentagon Advisory board, and former undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz have all been the subject of investigations for their ties to Israel, according to Stephen Green, writing in Counterpunch. Even though the three were subject to repeated investigations, they continued to get Defense Department jobs. The following may signal the proverbial chickens coming home to roost. From the Jerusalem Post, May 18:

Israeli ties impair US security clearance

US citizens who have ties to Israel or an Israeli-American dual citizenship encounter difficulties in obtaining security clearance from the Pentagon and are dealt with in a manner similar to that of Americans who have ties with hostile nations.

More protests in Cairo, where last week when 255 people were arrested. Today, thousands of riot police and hundreds of plainclothes officers were deployed in streets leading to the courthouse in downtown Cairo as they attempted to prevent opposition activists from gathering. At issue are arrests and prosecution of opposition activists, and demands for an independent judiciary. Does the below story from the Washington Post (May 18) indicate that arrested opposition figure Ayman Nour is the neocons' man—as opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood?