Albania, of all places, has agreed to take in five Uighur militants who had been captured by the US in Afghanistan and held at Guantanamo. Stateside Uighur advocates and human rights organizations went to court to halt their deportation to China, where they could face torture due to their presumed links to separatist activities. The case casts an ironic light on US exploitation of the human rights issue in China: not only does Gitmo mirror the very conditions the US protests in Chinese prisons, but Washington was perfectly ready to collaborate with the Chinese torture state by deporting the Uighurs. The case also indicates that, US-Chinese tensions notwithstanding, the two imperial powers still have some common geostrategic interests. Now how long before national security wonks (and neo-Chetniks) start squawking about the Uighur-jihadi threat in Albania? From the Uyghur Human Rights Project, May 5:

"The financial equivalent of a nuclear strike," says one analyst. We do wish he would refrain from that particular analogy. The whole showdown over Iran--with Washington apparently threatening to use nuclear weapons in the name of protecting the world from nuclear weapons--may actually have more to do with maintaining global hegemony of the petro-dollar. From AP, May 5:

The Bush administration has just upped the ante on turning federally-administrated public lands over to corporate interests. Previously, they had just pushed to expand timber, oil and mineral lease rights, citing the energy crunch and need for "energy independence" due to Middle East instability. Now they are talking about an unprecedented direct sell-off--in the name of closing budget deficits themselves created by the Iraq adventure. From Montana's Great Falls Tribune, May 8:

Washington's closest South American ally plays the wimp-baiting and commie menace cards in his bid to become president for life. Sadly, the polls indicate it is working. From Reuters, May 6:

BOGOTA - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, expected to win re-election later this month, turned up the heat of the campaign on Friday by suggesting his opponents would hand the country over to leftists rebels.

It was heartening to see a picture of Subcommander Marcos in the New York Times May 10, even if it was on page 12. The masked Zapatista leader sat down in a Televisa studio for a nationally-broadcast interview May 9, as the political crisis sparked by violence at the village of San Salvador Atenco, just outside the capital, continued to escalate. Politicians of all stripes are baiting the rebel leader as a demagogue and extremist, even as the press continues to portray him as a washed-out has-been. Pretty funny. An excerpt from the Times story:

Samir Adil, president of the Iraqi Freedom Congress, is on a tour of the United States sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. He most recently spoke in Barre, VT. The following May 5 account from Vermont's Rutland Herald is misleadingly headlined: Adil and the IFC are not seeking support from the US government, but from anti-war activists, trade unionists and other grassroots progressive forces in the US.

From the Egyptian NGO, Civil Monitors for Human Rights, in Cairo, May 11:

Egyptian Authorities Continue Crackdown on Opposition Today
Continuing in their policy of oppression, the Egyptian authorities are trying to prevent protests which the Egyptian opposition is organizing to support the judges Hisham Bistowissi and Mahmoud Mekki and to condemn the oppressive policies of the Egyptian government.

From the American Library Association, May 5:

Brandeis Students Protest Removal of Palestinian Art
Some 100 people, many of them students at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, marched May 4 to protest the removal a week earlier of "Voices from Palestine: Aida Refugee Camp Children Speak Out"—an artwork exhibit that had been on display at the campus's Farber Library. Drawn by Palestinian youths, the paintings depict such images as a bulldozer threatening a girl lying in a pool of blood, a boy with an amputated leg, and a dove perched on barbed wire.