Sanjar Umarov, a prominent opposition leader in Uzbekistan, was arrested Oct. 22 on embezzlement charges, and is being held incommunicado. Members of his group, Sunshine Uzbekistan say they still do not know the exact whereabouts of their leader. The group, which is calling for free market reforms in the authoritarian Central Asian republic, says the charges are fabricated. The offices of the opposition group were searched by dozens of plainclothes police the same day as the arrest, and a large number of documents were taken away. Two other members of the group have also been arrested.

Baz Mohammad, a reputed Afghan drug kingpin who allegedly condoned selling heroin in the US in the name of jihad, has become the first person to be extradited from Afghanistan for prosecution. Upon his arraignment in Manhattan Oct. 24, Mohammad told US District Judge Denny Chin, "I am innocent." He was ordered held without bail.

Riot police dispersed an opposition rally in Azerbaijan's capital Oct. 23, beating and detaining protesters who defied an official ban on downtown demonstrations two weeks before parliamentary elections. Opposition groups say the government will try to rig the Nov. 6 vote and have been holding rallies nearly every weekend, clashing with police.

Freedom's on the march in Afghanistan—the freedom of fundamentalist fanatics to protect their faith from such blasphemous assaults as newspapers that condemn public stoning. From Reporters Without Borders, Oct. 24:

Reporters Without Borders today called on President Hamid Karzai to intercede after a Kabul court sentenced Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, the editor of the monthly publication Haqoq-e-Zan (Women's Rights), to two years in prison at the end of a summary trial on blasphemy charges on 22 October.

The Iraqi Bar Association has officially urged lawyers to suspend cooperation with the special court hearing the case against Saddam Hussein until the murder of a member of the defense team is solved. The association also passed a resolution calling a one-day strike for Oct. 26 to protest the killing of Saadoun Janabi, who was bundled out of his Baghdad office Oct. 20 by heavily-armed men and later found dumped on a roadside, dead of gunshot wounds.

White House public relations chief Karen Hughes, already in hot water for numerous public-relations snafus on her recent tour of the Middle East, has done it again. Speaking before a group of students in Indonesia Oct. 21, just as Saddam Hussein's trial opened in Baghdad, she defended Washington’s decision to invade Iraq, claiming Saddam gassed to death "hundreds of thousands" of his own people.

Five people were injured when two ambulances crashed into each other in Naples Oct. 22 during a drill designed to test emergency services' response to a terrorist attack. Special anti-terrorism police, helicopters, fire engines, sniffer dogs and Red Cross volunteers took part in the exercise, which had recruited over 100 actors to play dead and injured. Two ambulances rushing to help the "injured" slammed into each other, resulting in five real injured, and two hospitalizations. Another casualty was a woman civil defence volunteer who had to be treated for a panic attack. The "Autumn Emergency 2005" drill followed similar exercises in Rome and Milan organized in the wake of the July 7 London bombings. (Reuters, Oct. 22)

Authorities in Uzbekistan are threatening to force dissident Elena Urlaeva to submit to immediate treatment with powerful psychotropic drugs—even though an initial psychiatric commission had declared her sane. The case against Urlaeva is the latest in the Uzbek government's deepening repression of human rights defenders and independent political activists in the aftermath of the May 13 massacre at Andijan.