UK prime minister Brown announced in Parliament today that rules banning torture are to be published and that the government will be reviewing "any developments and relevant information", which is clearly a reference to the cases of Binyam Mohamed and Kazhar Khan in whose torture British intelligence agencies colluded. Given that this review comes from the same government that brought us an illegal war in Iraq and the De Menezes shooting of an innocent man on the London Underground, for which no-one has been brought to account, you can appreciate it if we are not filled with confidence that this will bring the UK's role in rendition and torture to an end. Brown said he was making the move to "to protect the reputation of our security and intelligence services". It's a bit late for that.

The Egyptian torturers' tools of the trade Egypt has reopened its Rafah border for two days to enable students and the sick to cross, a security official has told AFP . "The border has opened for two days to allow the passage of Palestinian students and the sick who are stuck on the Egyptian side," the border official said, asking not to be named. "Palestinian patients who finished their treatment at Egyptian hospitals and other humanitarian cases will be allowed to return back home," Egypt's official MENA news agency quoted Palestinian embassy. What can you say about the rotten regime in Egypt except that they are traitors to the Palestinian cause and a bunch of torturers - with a little help from British intelligence, as revealed in the case of Binyam Mohamed and now also Kazhar Khan. There were more revelations this week about the British government’s complicity in the torture of suspects as part of the “war on terror”. Azhar Khan, a 26 year old from Slo...