What ironic timing. An official visit by the US Energy Secretary to Azerbaijan to mark the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was immediately preceeded by violent repression of pro-democracy protests there. From the May 29 New York Times:

Washington - Samuel Bodman, the new secretary of energy, led the United States delegation to Azerbaijan last week to celebrate a huge moment in America's effort to diversify its sources of oil: The opening of a pipeline that will carry Caspian oil to the West, on a route that avoids Russia and Iran.

A front-page story in the NY Times reveals some details of the secret air fleet the CIA uses to carry out "renditions"--but unfortunately fails to emphasize the global outcry over the practice from human rights groups and even the judiciary in allied countries.

CIA Expanding Terror Battle under Guise of Charter Flights
By Scott Shane, Stephen Grey and Margot Williams
The New York Times

Tuesday 31 May 2005

Smithfield, NC - The airplanes of Aero Contractors Ltd. take off from Johnston County Airport here, then disappear over the scrub pines and fields of tobacco and sweet potatoes. Nothing about the sleepy Southern setting hints of foreign intrigue. Nothing gives away the fact that Aero's pilots are the discreet bus drivers of the battle against terrorism, routinely sent on secret missions to Baghdad, Cairo, Tashkent and Kabul.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado released documents May 18 confirming that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Denver is targeting peaceful political activists for harassment and building files on constitutionally-protected political activities that have nothing to do with terrorism or other criminal activity.

A June 2 AP article reports that North Korea called Vice President Dick Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast" and lambasted him for calling the Democratic People's Rebublic (DPRK) leader Kim Jong Il "irresponsible." Said an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry source, "What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of the six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling [North Korea] not to come out for the talks." In a May 29 interview on CNN, Cheney called the reclusive buffont-haired Jong Il "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders" who runs a police state and leaves his people in poverty and malnutrition. The DPRK responded that Cheney was "hated as the most cruel monster and bloodthirsty beast as he has drenched various parts of the world in blood."(AP, June 2)

Topping the charts recently in North Korea was the mega-hit, "Fucking USA," which among other things, complains that the US stole a gold medal. The song ends with an explosion.

Yonatan Ben Artzi, an pacifist Israeli who the IDF refuses to recognize as such, was again denied conscientious objector status by Israel's High Court of Justice on June 1. The army and state have been wrestling with Ben Artzi, who is the nephew of hawkish Israeli Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyau, for several years, jailing him seven times for a total of 19 months. The IDF wants Ben Artzi jailed again for another two months and fined 2,000 shekels. Because he refuses to pay the fine, he will probably have to serve four months. However, in a bit of seemingly unselfconscious whimsy, the court did recommend "that the IDF send Ben Artzi a letter explaining that the fact that the exemption is based on him being unsuitable does not contest the fact that he is a pacifist."

From Spanish TV ABC.es, Sevilla, May 26:

When I see Bush, he reminds me of Benito

Like the great humorists, who are certainly the most sad, Harold Bloom will never laugh at his own jokes nor betray the effect they produce in their interlocutor. Bloom believes the "United States has gone crazy. I cannot refer to the sitting president in any manner other than Benito Bush. When I see him on television with this rigid grimace on his face he reminds me of Benito. We find ourselves in a demented situation. Some time ago we ceased being a democracy and have been converted into a theocratic plutocracy. Its a very dangerous situation. It gives me the sensation that my compatriots are sleeping. Here we are fulfilling the prophecies of Orwell, but [20] years after they were predicted by Orwell."

Hundreds of Egyptians, many of them women dressed in black, rallied in Cairo May 31 to demand the resignation of Habib al-Adly, the interior minister. Activists said they held the minister responsible for the fact that police stood by last week as supporters of the ruling National Democratic Party assaulted women demonstrators, sexually harassed them and stripped them naked in the street. The attacks took place on the day Egyptians voted on a constitutional amendment to allow the country to hold contested presidential elections for the first time.

Activists from Kefaya, a movement which has been campaigning against a fifth term for President Hosni Mubarak, had congregated in front of the Journalists' Union to protest against the referendum, which they dismiss as a meaningless ploy to deflect pressure for reform. They were set upon when police lines surrounding them parted to allow in several dozen thugs, some carrying sticks. Men and women were assaulted, but the women were singled out for sexual humiliation. Egyptian human rights groups have called on Mubarak, who is also head of the NDP, to investigate the involvement of party officials in the incident.

Much to our dismay, our story by Frank Morales in the current issue of WW4 REPORT, "The Provacateur State: Is the CIA Behind the Iraqi 'Insurgents'?", has been picked up by the neo-Nazi Stormfront, which bills itself as "the first White Nationalist website." Gee, what an honor. Just in case there is the slightest room for doubt, let us make explicitly clear that we despise Stormfront and everything they represent, and wish them total disaster in all their endeavors.