The Yemeni authorities must stop sacrificing human rights in the name of security as they confront threats from al-Qa'ida, Zaidi Shi'a rebels in the north, and address growing demands for secession in the south, Amnesty International said in a new report.

Last month, Lebanon's Military Tribunal sentenced two Lebanese men to death for providing Israel's intelligence services with information about Hizbullah. We may see more death sentences in the coming months, given that an estimated 100 suspects await trial in military court on charges of spying for Israel.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which is headed by the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, has been waging a hate campaign for the past week against Lvin Magazine, accusing it of besmirching the memory of Barzani's father, the late Kurdish nationalist leader Mullah Mostafa Barzani.

There has been a new wave of harassment and violence against journalists in the occupied Palestinian Territories as the political tension between Hamas and Fatah continues to take its toll on the media. In one of the latest cases, Ahmed Fayadh of the Aljazeeranet news website was beaten by police yesterday in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.