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.

An exhibition of artwork at Brandeis University featuring 17 paintings by Palestinian youths from the al-Rowwad cultural center at the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, was removed by the university last week, after several students complained, according to Democracy Now. The paintings depicted life under Israeli military occupation. It ran for four days until it was removed. The exhibit is now showing at MIT.

Gee, what reason would these people have to be so angry? Note that the refugees accuse the guerilla leader who signed the peace deal of being a traitor. Note that they are very eager for Western, and especially American intervention. Once again, the case against Western intervention in Darfur may be a good one, but if the anti-war forces are going to make it, they had better be prepared to offer some other meaningful solidarity to the refugees--instead of loaning succor to their oppressors, as the idiot left did in the case of Kosova. From the New York Times, May 9 (emphasis added):

There's oil in Cuba! Can the invasion be far behind? Actually, the fact that this story (complete with maps of the divided offshore zone and the exploration blocs) appears on the front page of today's New York Times indicates that maybe more pragmatic elements of the US ruling elites would like to get in on the action and view this embargo jazz as a Cold War anachronism. Maybe these elements constitute enough of a critical mass to indefinitely forestall any military designs on the island. We hope.

This sort of thing has become so common in Iraq that it rarely makes headlines any more. But this one inconveniently happened just as a break has been announced in the deadlock over forming a new government. This obvious escalation contradicts Bush's facile claim that the US "strategy is working." On the contrary, the war is spreading. From Bloomberg, May 9:

From The Jurist, May 8:

Afghan parliament descends into chaos as lawmakers attack female legislator
The floor of the Afghan parliament has witnessed its first outbreak of violence, with lawmakers physically and verbally assaulting a controversial female legislator who called several of the country's mujahedeen leaders criminals unfit for public office. Female colleagues of 27-year old anti-fundamentalist women's health worker Malalai Joya threw plastic bottles at her and male lawmakers insulted her and allegedly made death threats in the wake of a speech Sunday. Joya was surrounded by a cordon of moderates and escaped unhurt.

The BBC reports today that price of oil is back up to over $70 a barrel following a drop of more than $1.50 following news yesterday that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had written Bush a personal letter. This was initially considered a remarkable overture, unprecedented since the US cut off relations with Iran in 1979, and was thought to signal a thaw in the nuclear crisis. No such luck. The contents of the letter were leaked today, and poured cold water on any hopes for de-escalation. Instead, Ahmadinejad lambasts the Iraq occupation, questions the Holocaust, loans credence to 9-11 conspiracy theory and attacks the legtimacy of the Israeli state. The letter may be addressed to the White House, but it is clearly playing to a very different audience, trying to win global sympathy in what is obviously regarded by both Tehran and Washington as the prelude to an invetiable war. And showing greater strategic savvy than the White House, Ahmadinejad makes clear he is not only playing to the Islamic world, but also Latin America and Africa.