Spain's foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos began talks May 30 with his Moroccan and Algerian counterparts in the latest attempt to find a solution to the decades-long conflict in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Mohamed Benaissa of Morocco and Algerian Abdelaziz Belajadem met Moratinos in Luxembourg to discuss the recent outbreak of violence in the mineral-rich former Spanish colony, where supporters of the Algeria-backed Polisario Front independence movement have been battling police in the territory's main city, Laayoune.

Up to 11 British soldiers and officers are under investigation for alleged war crimes over the death of an Iraqi civilian in British custody, the UK Independent revealed May 29. Military lawyers are considering the charges as part of a major inquiry into allegations that members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment beat Baha Mousa, a hotel worker, to death in September 2003. The officers include the regiment's commander, Col Jorge Mendonca, 41, who has been warned he could be tried for allegedly failing to control his troops effectively. Another eight Iraqis arrested with Mousa are preparing to sue the UK after claiming they were tortured by British troops. Another detainee, Khifah Taha, was also hospitalised and narrowly escaped death after suffering acute kidney failure allegedly as a result of a beating while in British custody.

New York City's tabloids are having a field day today with the arrest of a Bronx martial arts instructor, Tarik Ibn Osman Shah, on charges of "providing material support" to al-Qaeda. The NY Post does not fail to emphasize that Osman Shah is the son of Lieutenant X, a key aide to slain Black Muslim leader Malcolm X, according to "police sources." "It is particularly gratifying that someone using New York City as a base for terrorist support is now in custody," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. Also arrested was Dr. Rafiq Sabir, a Columbia medical school graduate in Boca Raton, FL. Both men are US citizens.

Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan is pervasive, says Amnesty International today, releasing its latest report "Afghanistan: Women Under Attack."

"Throughout the country, few women are exempt from violence or safe from the threat of it," the report finds. Afghan women remain at daily risk of abduction and rape by armed men, forced marriage and being traded in settlement of disputes and debts. They face discrimination from all segments of society as well as by state officials. Violence against women is widely accepted by the community and inadequately addressed at the highest levels of the government and the judiciary. Investigations by the authorities into complaints of violent attacks, rape, murders or suicide of women are neither routine nor systematic, and few result in prosecutions.

France has rejected the European Union's constitution in a national referendum, in a blow to President Jacques Chirac and European integration. 56% voted against the treaty, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said, citing official results with 90% of ballots counted. The defeat, the first veto of an EU pact by a founding member, may kill the constitution, which requires the approval of all 25 nations. It may also end Chirac's hopes of seeking re-election in 2007, after his failure to curb unemployment at a 5-year high. The result may set back plans by countries including Turkey and Croatia to join. The euro fell after the exit polls.

Another Hit-and-Run in the City
by Eyewitness News' Carolina Tarazona

(Elmhurst, Queens-WABC, May 29, 2005) — Another hit and run in the city--this morning's collision is the latest in a string of recent hit and run incidents. But this time, the victim survived, and the suspect did not get away. Eyewitness News reporter Carolina Tarazona is in Elmhurst, Queens right now with more.

Police say ten people are struck by hit-and-run drivers every day in New York City. Luckily, this latest victim survived. The victim was critically injured by an alleged drunk driver early this morning at 98th Street and Northern Blvd. Police stopped the driver of the red Nissan Maxima, and arrested 36-year-old Jose Castro. They say he may have been under the influence of alcohol.

In a depressing May 29 story in the London Times, "'New Castro' threatens to take his feud with America nuclear," Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is quoted saying: “We want to initiate nuclear research and ask for help from countries like Iran.

In a May 24 op-ed in the New York Times, Niall Ferguson--a history professor at Harvard, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire--makes the case for a long-term US occupation of Iraq, drawing some instructive lessons from the experience of British imperialism before the American Century. The Brits, in Ferguson's nostalgic view, were real old-fashioned undisguised and unapologetic imperialists, with no squeamishness about the burdens of colonial policing, and therefore were able to prevail over the Iraqi insurgents of the 1920s--and this, of course, is what the US must now emulate. The piece is tellingly entitled "Cowboys and Indians," implicitly invoking the ugliest colonial conquest of America's own past, although the text does not actually invoke the pacification of the American west (presumably because it is too obvious). Ferguson begins:

"I think that this could still fail." Those words - uttered by a senior American officer in Baghdad last week - probably gave opponents of the war in Iraq, particularly those clamoring for a hasty exit, a bit of a kick. They should be careful what they wish for.

He then predicts disaster if the US leaves, and goes on to draw his comparison with the British experience in Iraq starting in the aftermath of World War I: