I'm happy to declare the loaded agenda for which I was imprisoned - human rights and social justice Life for journalists wanting to report from Israel has just become harder. I was detained two weeks ago by the Israeli authorities while trying to enter the country in order to complete a number of commissions for the British magazine Red Pepper. I have been held in custody at Ben Gurion airport ever since, while appealing against deportation. Yesterday, an Israeli judge ruled that the evidence against me, which has not been seen by my lawyer, is admissible, and so my appeal will be heard by the supreme court in the near future.

The Palestinian leadership has announced a three-point programme of non-violent resistance in an attempt to wrest the diplomatic initiative from Israel. Palestinian militant groups have yet to reach an agreement on stopping violence, but in effect violence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2000.

General Augusto Pinochet has been stripped of his immunity from prosecution today by the Chilean Supreme Court.

Two asylum seekers have sewn their lips together and started a hunger strike in Greenock Prison. --- "This is not about people who have been left in Dungavel for a matter of days, they have been left for up to one-and-a-half years to basically rot and that's leading them to such despair that they are considering suicide as their only option. "The response of the Home Office is to simply dump them in a prison alongside convicted criminals." Robina Qureshi Positive Action in Housing

The US insists the tribunals will be fair, and are the appropriate way to deal with prisoners that President George Bush described as "killers" and his Attorney General, John Ashcroft called "uniquely dangerous". The tribunals were ordered by President Bush in November, 2001. But human rights groups and legal campaigners have condemned the hearings as unprecedentedly unfair and in contravention not just of the Geneva Conventions but a raft of other international laws. "We're concerned that the military commission rules lack key fair-trial protections," said Wendy Patten, a director of Human Rights Watch, based in New York. "Under these rules, the military serves as prosecutor, judge, jury, appeals court and, potentially, even as executioner. The commission rules do not create a level playing field. The military commissions offer no possibility for independent appeal, no matter how serious the error. A fair system of justice provides an opportunity for trial mistakes to be corrected through independent review." Defendants and their lawyers have no right to see evidence used by prosecutors, conversations between defendants and their lawyers will be monitored, there will be no jury, just a panel of military judges, and the legal standard required for a conviction is a lower than in normal civilian courts. Defence lawyers have also been told that even if they do learn of classified information they will not be permitted to inform clients. Information obtained through torture or coercive interrogations will be permitted. The prisoners have had little contact with their lawyers. Mr Hicks and others selected for military tribunals are believed to have been held in solitary confinement for almost 30 months. This has created huge difficulties for those trying to represent them. One lawyer has not seen his client in four months because of a government delay in giving clearance to a translator. Another has reportedly withdrawn because she has another job, leaving her client with no representation. This month, three of the freed Britons helped compile a detailed report claiming prisoners at the "Cuban" prison camp suffered torture, mistreatment and sexual humiliation.

The right of journalists in the United States to withhold the identity of their sources has come under unprecedented assault, with reporters from several of the country's most prestigious news organisations now under threat of jail and punitive fines from judges and the Justice Department. Last week, a US District Court judge ordered reporters from AP, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and ABC to pay $500 (£275) a day in fines for refusing to reveal their sources. In another case, a federal judge held Matthew Cooper of Time magazine in contempt for refusing to tell a grand jury who gave him the name of an undercover CIA agent. Last week, a federal court began collecting a fine of $1,000 a day from an NBC reporter in Rhode Island who has declined to reveal sources that helped him report a corruption case. "The government is trying to keep more and more secrets, and journalists are working harder to uncover those secrets. Given the terrorism climate, all this has come to a head." Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Jasiewicz, 26, a freelance journalist who writes for the leftwing monthly Red Pepper, went to court after being refused entry to the country on August 11. She has been detained at Ben Gurion airport since then. As well as working as a journalist, Jasiewicz has also worked as a human rights activist in the West Bank. Yael Barda, Jasiewicz's lawyer, said: "Two judges in Israel have decided that Ms Jasiewicz is not a security threat, yet they have denied her entry into Israel because of her ideological beliefs."

Cesare Battisti, convicted in Milan of four murders in the 1970s as a member of a far-left terror cell, disappeared this week to evade extradition and life imprisonment in Italy, and will stay in France to fight his case. Battisti, who has the support of many leftwing politicians, writers, intellectuals and actors in France, has sworn he is innocent of the killings.

Journalists from Arab and other international media, including the entire BBC team, as well as the Guardian, the Independent, Times and Daily Telegraph, were pushed into a truck, which was driven off to Najaf's police station where the local chief of police, Ghalib al-Jazae'ri, said he was incensed by media reports.

Political activists opposed to US President George W Bush have been told they will not be allowed to stage a huge rally in New York this weekend.