Bahrain: Doctors Without Borders released a report today alleging that Bahraini government forces have tortured injured demonstrators in hospitals around the country. The report focused on Manama’s Sulaimaniya hospital, where Doctors Without Borders volunteers documented several methods of torture used against patients. The head of the organization’s mission in Bahrain, Jonathan Whittall, said that all patients suspected of participating in peaceful protests were taken to the hospital's sixth floor, where they were severely beaten on a daily basis. Twenty Bahraini doctors are being prosecuted for “disrupting public order” for treating injured demonstrators.

Libya: The humanitarian situation in Libya is deteriorating as clashes continue between the revolutionaries and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's loyalists. Thousands of people have been killed or injured, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced, since fighting began five months ago. Sources say fierce battles against Gaddafi’s forces continue, especially in western Libya, as the revolutionaries make their way to Gaddafi-controlled Tripoli. The International Committee of the Red Cross expects 850,000 people to be affected by the war by the end of the year. 

Syria: In his third speech since unrest broke out three months ago, President Bashar al-Assad said his country is the victim of a conspiracy and that anti-regime protestors are working for a foreign agenda. He added that the people’s demands for reform are legitimate but that they must be differentiated from the demands of the “vandals.” Assad called for a comprehensive national dialogue to end the current crisis. Protestors and activists were quick to reject the president’s statements and immediately took to the streets vowing that the revolution would continue. 

(Al Jazeera English: 0408 PT, May 12, 2011) Al Jazeera's exclusive report on Bahrain looks at the abuse of medical workers as part of the government's crackdown on dissent.

'Bahrain Has Placed Healthcare at the Center of a System of Oppression'

(Al Jazeera English: 0408 PT, May 12, 2011) AJE interviews Christopher Stokes of Doctors Without Borders on the subject of the abuse of medical workers as part of the government's crackdown on dissent.

How should we view the recent resurgence of Taliban activity in Pakistan?

Be afraid, very afraid.

That’s a common message voiced by media and political observers in recent weeks. Pakistan’s government could go the way of the Shah of Iran in 1979, writes the Wall Street Journal editorial page. Taliban threats to Pakistan’s leadership represent the worst global crisis since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, a RAND Corporation official tells the Financial Times.

And it’s hard not to be moved by the devastation occurring in Pakistani regions like the Swat Valley. Doctors Without Borders announced today that it was halting medical services to refugees in Swat due to escalating warfare.

But could all this fear of a Taliban takeover in Pakistan be blinding the U.S. to local realities? An Economist report notes that for all the Taliban’s repellent acts in Swat, the Pakistani military has engendered deep local hostility by its brutal strikes on civilian targets. Rather than pushing for further billions of dollars in military aid for Pakistan to stave off an unlikely Taliban takeover, U.S. leaders would do well to pay more attention to the shaping of local hearts and minds. Central Asia Institute, the education non-profit co-founded by Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson, is one example of a worthy U.S. effort to build rather than break human capital in Pakistan.

Watch the Global Pulse episode on Pakistan here.

This week, Global Pulse is covering the controversy surrounding last week's International Criminal Court decision to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Human rights activists hope the court's action, the first against a sitting head of state, will end the bloodshed that has flared in Darfur since 2003. But many Sudan watchers worry that the warrant could set off further tensions, including a resurgence of a decades-long, north-south civil war.

The Christian Science Monitor examines how Sudan's move this week to expel 13 international aid groups cuts Darfur's humanitarian effort in half, placing over 1 million people at risk for starvation. Likewise, BBC News predicts that rising desperation in Darfur could trigger renewed conflict in south Sudan, where rebel groups have long sought political recognition from the Sudanese government.

Meanwhile, guest columnists at the Huffington Post and the Washington Post call on the Obama administration to use the ICC warrant as justification for a stepped-up military campaign in Sudan. Today's kidnapping of 3 Doctors Without Borders workers in Darfur may further stoke the fire of the military interventionists.

Should the international community enforce ICC wishes and arrest Bashir, even if by military means? Or will enforcement of the court's wishes only lead to further humanitarian catastrophe?