Summaries here and here and here.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry decided to hike prices of fuel in response to calls by the International Monetary Fund and the Paris Cub, an official said on Sunday.

[snip]

The decision coindided with reports about riots at some fuel stations in the towns of Al-Kut and the city of Basra in the south of Iraq. Article

Noted, but also take into account the source (and its undeniable agenda) being quoted.

The Iraqi Islamic Party said on Sunday that the U.S.-led operations in western Baaquba have killed more than 350 persons so far.

“Neighborhoods in western Baaquba have witnessed, since last week, fierce attacks by occupation forces within Operation Arrowhead Ripper,” the party said in a statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). Article

The immediate upshot, of course, is virtual legislative paralysis accompanied by a more fully sectarian-tilted executive.

The announcement of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front’s (IAF) and the National Dialogue Front’s (NDF) boycotting of parliamentary sessions in response to the removal of House Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani has sparked heated controversy in Iraqi political circles.

MP Kamal al-Saadi from the Shiite Unified Iraqi Coalition (UIC) said in an exclusive statement to the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), “The coalition was surprised at the announcement of the IAF boycotting parliamentary sittings because we had already agreed with the front’s leadership that it will name a replacement (for al-Mashhadani).”

Explaining that the dispute was about the way the issue was handled, not the removal decision itself, al-Saadi said “If the front’s members keep holding onto al-Mashhadani as speaker, a meeting of political bloc leaders will be necessary to reach common ground.”

[snip]

Saleem Abdullah, an official spokesman for the IAF, reiterated his front’s refusal to attend parliamentary sessions in the absence of al-Mashhadani as speaker.

The IAF has 44 seats in the Iraqi parliament, while the NDF has 11. Article

Contours of chaos:

Without immediate evacuation and life-saving medical help, roughly one dozen seriously ill Palestinians – mostly young children stranded in Baghdad or in a make-shift camp close to the Syrian border – could die or suffer complications, the United Nations refugee agency said today, appealing for urgent assistance.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) believes that there could be more Palestinians who could be in urgent need of medical attention.

“UNHCR continues to receive reports from Baghdad of Palestinians who refuse to go for medical care because they are afraid for their safety,” the agency’s spokesperson Ron Redmond told reporters in Geneva. “We know of some people who refused to seek medical attention for fear of att?cks and later died in their homes as a consequence.”

Palestinians residing in Iraq are in desperate need of a humanitarian solution, as 1,450 live in grim conditions at two border camps, while up to 13,000 are still living in Baghdad, down from 34,000 in 2003.

Those living in Iraq – who continue to be targeted – have no access to other countries and no communities to seek refuge from within Iraq. Article

One must presume that, if so, movement is underway to reconstitute somewhere in the less accessible inland areas.

Four ex-members of Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said on Sunday the guerrillas were vacating camps in northern Iraq due to fear of a possible incursion into the area by Turkish troops.

[snip]

“In the last few days the rumours of a cross-border operation has triggered fear within the organisation (PKK). All the camps have been emptied,” one of the ex-rebels said in a televised news conference.

The four, one of them a woman, handed themselves over to Turkish authorities this weekend after escaping from a PKK camp in northern Iraq, the state Anatolian news agency said.

At their news conference, held at a paramilitary police base in southeast Turkey’s Sirnak province, the four — who wore masks to disguise their identities — also said they had seen two U.S. armoured vehicles deliver weapons to the PKK at their camp.

The claim, which could not be independently verified, was widely reported in the Turkish media and is bound to stoke further Turks’ deep suspicions about U.S. policy in Iraq. Article

Afghanistan summary here and here.

Pakistan: quick overview of some of the tribal tensions in play in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas here.

Could be entirely coincidental, but then again each and every time pressure on Musharraf reaches a certain level (or analysis and criticism gets too pointed and direct), an announcement of a big catch is not far behind.

Pakistani police said Sunday they had busted a gang of pro-Taliban militants planning major terrorist attacks in the country.

An official statement released here said the militants “got training in Afghanistan in making explosive devices” and were “planning to carry out bomb blasts at several places in Lahore.”

The eight-member gang was also involved in training other militants in bomb making and the use of explosive devices, the statement said.

Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani also said the militants were “plotting attacks inside Pakistan and they were trained in the neighbouring country.”

Earlier a senior police official speaking on condition of anonymity said the militants during interrogation “confessed” that they were sending suicide bombers for attacks in Afghanistan.

The eight-member group led by former fighters of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad militant faction was based in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, the official said. Article

Something in this story doesn’t sit quite right, but noted FYI:

Lawyers in Pakistan are investigating a report that up to 30 men tortured and gang-raped a young Christian man for refusing to convert to Islam. Article

Summary here and here.

Ms. Fraser wanders off the reservation:

Chances are that the United States has run out of options in Somalia after the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Ms Jendayi Fraser conceded last week that Washington’s support for the ouster of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) by Ethiopia might have been a miscalculation.

In an interview with BBC, Fraser conceded that the use of force in Somalia had only aggravated an already atrocious situation. Article

Editorial du jour:

For all their blinkered insensitivity and gratuitousness, Condoleezza Rice’s recent remarks about the alleged irrelevance of nonalignment do serve a useful purpose. They underline the vast conceptual gulf that separates the world views of the United States and India despite the two countries being “strategic partners.” Secondly, they provide a glimpse of the unrealistic and even dangerous expectations Washington has of New Delhi. According to Dr. Rice, no nalignment has “lost its meaning” now that the world is no longer divided into rival blocs; instead, she posits a new alignment based on the “values of a common humanity” and mutual support for “opportunity and prosperity and justice and dignity and health and education and freedom and democracy.” She might as well have mixed in motherhood and apple pie. Plus Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and extraordinary renditions; agricultural subsidies and unsustainable lifestyles; pre-emptive war, missile defence, and the weaponisation of space, not to speak of ‘tactical’ support for regimes that murder, torture, or imprison opponents and continue to find themselves on the right side of the veil of freedom. Article

From Australia, an interesting (and disturbing) case of a clash of medical ethics and the state security apparatus:

Mamdouh Habib and his psychiatrist are at loggerheads with the Federal Government over an attempt by the Commonwealth to obtain the former Guantanamo Bay detainee’s medical file.

Mr Habib has gone to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal over the refusal by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to return his passport, cancelled in January 2005, three days before his release from the US military prison.

Chris Tennant, professor of psychiatry at Sydney University, was called last week to give evidence about whether Mr Habib had a pre-existing mental disorder before he was tortured in Egypt, where he was held for six months after being captured in Pakistan and before being sent to Cuba. It has previously been disclosed that Mr Habib was receiving treatment for depression before travelling to Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.

Dr Tennant says he examined Mr Habib in February 2005, a few days after his return from Guantanamo Bay, and diagnosed “as florid a case as I’ve seen” of post-traumatic stress disorder.

This assessment confirmed an earlier diagnosis referred to in a medical report issued at Guantanamo Bay on January 17, 2005. It stated that “most of his psychiatric issues included visual hallucinations of his wife and children, recollection of torture he experienced in a foreign country before being taken into custody and major depression”.

Dr Tennant says that reliving the trauma in court would cause Mr Habib extreme anxiety and agitation, and would be exacerbated by his belief that an ASIO agent attending the AAT hearings was also present during his torture in Egypt.

The Commonwealth has denied that any Australian official witnessed Mr Habib’s torture.

After giving evidence to the AAT, Dr Tennant was asked to hand over his file on Mr Habib, but refused to do so on the grounds of doctor-patient confidentiality.

“I said to them look you’ve ambushed me, you’ve brought me in here with my file and now you want to subpoena it, and I’m not prepared to be ambushed,” he told The Australian.

Dr Tennant is now anticipating a subpoena demanding the file from counsel for the commonwealth, Andrew Berger.

He has sought advice from the Medical Defence Union and plans to resist any attempt to force him to provide the file. Article

FYI:

Japan’s defense minister apologized on Sunday for comments about the 1945 US atomic bomb attacks on the country which outraged survivors and drew criticism from the ruling bloc ahead of a key election in late July. Article

It must be stated up front that ye old scribe doesn’t ‘get’ Second Life, but take a gander at the war being waged:

Pig Bombs, Machine Guns and French Racists: Second Life Gets Political

WELL BREAD

Bagging the baguette?

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EAR CANDY

Get out those headphones and slap ‘em on to hear some mightily impressive and astounding surround sound audio editing: