Signals continue to be mixed on Sudan's tentative return to Washington's good graces. On an official visit to the country, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stopped at Darfur's Abu Shouk refugee camp, which houses some 55,000 displaced people, and demanded "action not words" to stop the violence in the war-torn region. Rice earlier met Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir and John Garang, the former rebel leader who is the new vice-president under the recent peace deal whch ended the war in Sudan's south. She next flew on to Israel, to hold talks on the planned Gaza Strip withdrawal. (BBC, July 21) The Sudan stop was marred by overt tension—Rice demanded and received an apology after officials and press accompanying her were "manhandled" by security staff at President al-Bashir's residence. (AFP, July 21) Darfur's principal rebel group, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), immediately issued a communique expressing "shock and disbelief about the humiliation and insult meted out by the Khartoum regime on her Excellency Condeleza Rice the US Secretary of state and her entourage during her visit to Khartoum." The SLA may be uncertain on the spelling of Her Excellency's first name, but not on whose side they're on in this heavily symbolism-laden "manhandling."

Note that the imposition of the usual neoliberal economic model is sparking the unrest. Yet it is Islamic fundamentalists—not leftists, as in Bolivia—that are best poised to exploit the backlash. From the Guardian:

Yemen Riots Over Subsidy Cut Leave 16 Dead

Thursday July 21, 2005 8:46 PM

By AHMED AL-HAJ

Associated Press Writer

SANA, Yemen (AP) - Rioters enraged by subsidy cuts clashed with security forces for a second day Thursday across Yemen, burning cars and buildings and leaving 16 people dead in the country's worst civil strife in more than a decade.

The New York Times today notes the growing cult of Zheng He in China, the 15th-century mariner who led gigantic fleets across the Pacific and Indian oceans in the Ming Dynasty's brief but impressive expansion of naval prowess. Statues are going up of the eunuch admiral (who happened to be a Muslim—a fact presumably not emphasized by China's rulers), and a group of young Kenyans who claim Chinese ancestry due to an apocryphal Ming-era shipwreck on the East African coast have been invited to Beijing for ceremonies. The Times is quick to point out the obvious contemporary political context for this new personality cult:

This is pretty Orwellian. The government says it has the right to hold accused "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla without charge as an "enemy combatant" for the "duration of the conflict." The "conflict" in question is a completely open-ended undeclared war which the administration says could last generations. And the "battlefield" in question is defined as the entire United States. Padilla's lawyer is actually in the ironic position of demanding that his client be indicted! Now, nobody is supposed to care about this because Padilla is just a jihad freak. But your habeas corpus rights are evidently not worth the paper they're written on anymore. From Bloomberg, July 19:

Shades of Soylent Green. "The plankton is dying!" From AP July 14, via TruthOut:

Scientists Raise Alarm about Ocean Health
SEATTLE - With a record number of dead seabirds washing up on West Coast beaches from Central California to British Columbia, marine biologists are raising the alarm about rising ocean temperatures and dwindling plankton populations.

A report in today's Newsday tells of a meeting at London's Finsbury Park mosque, where prominent Muslim leaders signed a statement condemning the 7-7 attacks, under a banner reading "A New Beginning." But there was also a sign at the mosque warning gatherers that they were under government surveillance, and rather than a new beginning it looks more like the same old pattern is becoming more entrenched. The government is considering draconian "anti-terror" legislation, while Islamist hardliners gain legitimacy in reaction...

Another factory forced to halt operation by heroic Chinese peasants protecting their lands from the industrial onslaught. We question how "violent" it is to tear down a security fence. In contrast, the security forces' response to the rising tide of peasant protest seems to be quite genuinely violent. From AP, July 19:

Violent protest by Chinese farmers forces shutdown of chemical plant
SHANGHAI, China – Farmers angered by toxic factory discharge they blame for destroying crops have attacked a pharmaceutical plant in eastern China, officials said Tuesday, the latest rural clash sparked corruption, pollution and other problems.

Well, the pending US nuclear aid to India is now official, with India hailed as a beacon of "responsible" nuclear development (which we argue is as oxymoronic as "authentic reproduction," "corporate responsibility," "military music," etc.). This despite the fact that India, unlike "irresponsible" Iran, already has nuclear weapons, and so does its arch-rival Pakistan, and the brief 1999 war between the two regional powers almost went nuclear. This report from Bloomberg: