Legal showdown over Guantanamo
In a momentous hearing in the US Supreme Court today, the Bush administration policy of denying the right to habeas corpus to "enemy combatants" and terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay could be ruled unconstitutional. The Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 stripped habeas corpus from detainees who were not US citizens. Should lawyers arguing the cases of Lakhdar Boumediene, an Algerian detainee, and Fawzi al-Odah, a Kuwaiti detainee, be successful, the MCA may be toppled.
An Algerian inmate at Guantanamo attempted to commit suicide by slashing his throat with a sharpened fingernail.
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New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh wrote two articles in 2006 about the lack of evidence regarding Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions and that key figures in the Bush administration have suppressing for a year the intelligence, revealed only this week, that Iran had frozen its nuclear weapons program in 2003.
Winning hearts and minds.... in Kyrgyzstan
At a time when 88% of Kyrgyz people believe their country should orient itself towards Russia - and not the United States - American servicemen stationed in the country participate in "village partnership" projects in order to slowly improve Washington's image in central Asia.
German al-Qaida arrests
A German court has jailed three men for allegedly attempting to raise funds for al-Qaida-militant groups and for plotting a suicide attack. The convicted terrorists are of Syrian and Palestinian extraction. They have been imprisoned for terms ranging from three-and-half years to seven years.
Gates visit brings further carnage
Two suspected Taliban suicide bomb attacks in as many days have killed dozens of soldiers and civilians in Kabul. US defence secretary Robert Gates was visiting Afghanistan in the early part of the week.
Turkey-PKK clashes continue
Turkish soldiers killed six Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters, including four women, along the border with Iraq after the rebels refused to surrender.
Fighting in the DRC
Congolese troops stormed bases belonging to the rebel leader Laurent Nkunda, a Tutsi, in the strategically-important province of Nord-Kivu.
Army chief to be president in Lebanon
General Michel Suleiman, the commander of the Lebanese army, has been chosen as the next president of Lebanon, replacing the much-maligned Emile Lahoud. Suleiman is thought to be the favoured candidate of Hizbollah and the "pro-Syrian" opposition.
Tuareg rebellion
Ethnic Tuareg rebels in the north of Niger attacked a military convoy on its way to the remote town of Iferouane, in fighting that left three soldiers and eight rebels dead, according to army officials.
Kashmir gun battle
In clashes between militants and Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir, two rebels and two soldiers were killed. The fighting was prompted by a series of stop-and-search operations mounted by the police in a district south of the summer capital Srinagar.
