Here's an ominous one. We bet this won't be the last we hear of this news item. Where the hell is "Southwestern Asia" and why the secrecy about the location of the crash? Doesn't the secrecy combined with the unsubtle geographic hint pretty much make clear that it is Iran--where the US has admitted to using spy planes?

This one is truly pathetic. Last week Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) quoted from an FBI agent's memo describing detainees at Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures. "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings," he said. (AP, June 22)

A surge in violence during the past three months has left hundreds dead across eastern and southern Afghanistan. Presumed Taliban militants have carried out suicide bombings and kidnapped or killed aid and election workers, and fighting has also increased between the Taliban and US-led forces. In addition to clashes in remote mountain areas, the latest incidents include the execution of eight kidnapped Afghan police officers and an alleged plot to kill the outgoing US ambassador. The bloodshed has sparked fears that the Afghan war is widening and that the violence could get worse ahead of September's parliamentary elections. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty offers this report today:

The circumstances are still sketchy, but the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico, has announced it is going on "red alert". This account from VOA, June 21:

Mexico's Zapatista rebel group has declared a state of emergency, putting its troops on alert and sending its leadership into hiding. In a statement issued Monday, the Zapatistas said they are calling all troops back to their bases and are evacuating their leadership to ensure their safety. The group says its leadership will do its work clandestinely for an indefinite period of time. The group also shut down its radio station. Civil rights activists say the declaration was likely prompted by some action by the Mexican army...

Right-wing settlers from the West Bank have been holed up in the Maoz Hayam hotel in the illegal Jewish colony of Gush Katif in the occupied Gaza Strip. Some 30 families have moved in the past few weeks to fortify resistance to the expected pullout of Jewish settlements. Among them are key Kach militants. Some Jewish militants residing in the hotel went on a rampage Saturday night, June 18, beating and wounding four Palestinians, residents said, in the neaby Muassi area, near the beach. One of the victims was shot. The settlers tried to claim the Palestinians made them attack them, in self-defense, but one unnamed IDF officer was skeptical:

Dozens of workers trapped in the besieged offices of a newspaper in Oaxaca managed to publish on Sunday despite what they call a bogus strike organized by politicians to silence the daily for its criticism of the state government. The standoff at Noticias, the largest daily circulation newspaper in the state of Oaxaca, began before dawn on Friday (June 17) when hundreds of people, apparently including police in civilian clothing and other outsiders, surrounded the offices and declared a strike seeking a 25% pay raise. Genaro Altamirano, the assistant director of Noticias, said the newspaper's 102 union employees had no desire to strike and had agreed to a 6% pay raise. He said the "strike" was organized by a union headed by state Deputy David Aguilar Robles from Oaxaca's ruling party, the PRI. Speaking by telephone from inside the newspaper's offices, Altamirano said he and 30 other employees had been prevented from leaving and were rationing food and water. "Who knows when we'll get out of here," Altamirano said.

Excerpt from a report by Moroccan news agency MAP (via M&C News):

Laayoune, 19 June: Hundreds of citizens today Sunday held a protest at the Hassan I Airport in Laayoune against the scheming intentions and provocative attempts of the Spanish pro-separatist activists who are trying to visit the town despite the Moroccan authorities' refusal to let them step on national soil.

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), June 20:

The local leader of Hamas was arrested in an often lawless frontier area where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. Brazilian and Paraguayan news agencies confirmed June 17 that Saiel Bashar Yahya Al Atary and 21 others described as Islamic terrorists had been arrested by Brazilian federal police in the city of Foz de Iguazu. The men were charged with being part of an international ring that committed credit card fraud, counterfeited documents and was involved in drug trafficking.