From Reuters, July 19:

UK court convicts Afghan warlord

LONDON: A British court has convicted Faryadai Sarwar Zardad, a former Afghan warlord, of torturing and terrorising civilians in his homeland for four years in what prosecutors said was the first case of its kind the world.

A private army loyal to Zardad (42), including a ‘‘human dog’’ that ate a victim’s testicles, brutalised Afghans in the Sarobi district East of Kabul which he commanded in the 1990s before he was ousted by the Taliban.

Egyptian Prosecutor General Maher Abdel-Wahed has indicated that Egyptian biochemist Magdy El-Nashar, arrested in Cairo over suspected involvement in the London bombings, will not be extradited even if he was charged. He said that the country's constitution bans the extradition of any Egyptian citizen accused of committing crimes abroad to any foreign state, the official MENA news agency reported. Nashar had just arrived in Egypt for a 45-day vacation and planned to return to Britain to complete his studies. (Xinhua, July 16) Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adli told al-Gomhuria newspaper that the foreign media had drawn hasty conclusions about 33-year-old El-Nashar, whose Leeds apartment was raided by police. "Habib el-Adli confirmed that Magdy Elnashar had no connection with al Qaeda," said the newspaper, which did not quote the minister directly. (Reuters, July 16) A computer found at El-Nashar's Leeds home is said to have revealed only downloaded music files. (UK Telegraph, July 17)

Saddam Hussein has finally been indicted by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, for a July 1982 massacre of some 150 Shi'ites at Dujail, a town north of Baghdad. But the ex-dictator's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano is demanding that the trial be relocated from Baghdad to another country. "Baghdad couldn't even prevent the recent kidnapping and killing of the Egyptian ambassador. There are also many Iraqis who want to see Saddam executed and many others who want to see him freed. That means the defense and prosecution would both be in danger there," di Stefano said. He also said the fact that Saddam has been held in custody for 548 days without being formally charged is a violation of international law. "The whole point of the Iraq war was replace Saddam and everything he stood for. But there is a total disregard of the law there now," he said. (UK Guardian, July 18)

The Project on Defense Alternatives sends the following press release:

New proposal outlines "near-total" troop withdrawal by September 2006;
Early exit from Iraq depends on political compromise

The United States could safely withdraw almost all its forces from Iraq within a year or so without further destabilizing the country, according to a 19 July proposal by the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), a US-based think-tank. Progress toward that end requires a significant political compromise with the Sunni community and with Iraq's neighbors, however.

A Colorado Republican congressman makes some really helpful comments:

Congressman Says U.S. Could 'Take Out' Islamic Holy Sites

July 18, 2005 1:08 p.m. EST

Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter
Orlando, FL (AHN) - Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) told WFLA-AM in Orlando, the U.S. could "take out" Islamic holy sites if Muslim fundamentalist terrorists attacked the country with nuclear weapons.

Rep. Tancredo made his remarks Friday, yet, his spokesman stressed he was only speaking hypothetically.

According to a Yahoo report, talk show host Pat Campbell asked the Littleton Republican how the country should respond if terrorists struck several U.S. cities with nuclear weapons.

More on the spread of anti-Semitism in the FSU:

Wave of anti-Semitic articles seen tied to vote for Ukraine Parliament
By Vladimir Matveyev
July 17, 2005

KIEV, Ukraine, July 17 (JTA) — A new wave of anti-Semitic outbursts by public figures is surging in Ukraine.

Last week, several newspapers of nationalist orientation published appeals by members of the Ukrainian Writers Union against the “Judaization" of the union and in favor of the expulsion of the group’s Jewish members.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) runs a July 13 piece from the Florida Times-Union, "Muslim Leaders Condemning Terror to Deaf?" in which columnist Mark Woods speaks to CAIR's new chairman Parvez Ahmed and finds that such Muslim condemnations are in fact widespread—but never seem to be sufficient:

There are twin moral and intellectual traps most commentators are falling into vis-a-vis the London bombings. The first is the terrifyingly myopic and widespread consensus which is emerging that the attack "wasn't about Iraq." The increasingly predictable Christopher Hitchens writes in "The Anticipated Attack: Don't Blame Iraq for the Bombings" (Slate magazine):