Day: June 6, 2005

Mexico
Mexico

Mexican elections see record number of assassinations

The results are in from Mexico’s presidential election and Claudia Sheinbaum of the ruling left-populist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) has won by some 60%, handily defeating a rival backed by an alliance of the country’s more traditional political parties. But the ongoing human rights crisis in Mexico that will obviously pose a grave challenge for Sheinbaum was dramatically exemplified by the record number of political assassinations that marred the elections. (Map: PCL)

Syria
Atareb

Protest WHO board seat for Syrian regime

Doctors and healthcare workers held a demonstration outside a hospital in the Syrian city of Idlib, to protest the election of the Bashar Assad regime to the executive board of the World Health Organization (WHO)—the latest coup for normalization of the regime. “How can we trust WHO [when] one of its executive board members is the murderer who is killing my colleagues?” said Dr. Salem Abdan, head of health services for opposition-administered Idlib. Read a banner at the protest: “We reject that he who destroyed our hospitals be represented on the executive board.” Idlib province is part of a remaining rebel-held pocket in the northeast of the country, where Assad regime warplanes have for years been bombing hospitals and clinics. (Photo of bombed hospital in northern Syria via Daily Sabah)

Africa

Russia blocks UN statement against Sudan massacre

Russia, joined by China, blocked a bid at the UN Security Council to condemn the killing of civilians in Sudan and to issue a pressing call for an immediate halt to the violence. According to the latest update by the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, over 100 people were killed by militiamen of the Rapid Support Forces who stormed the sit-in site in Khartoum and opened fire on the protesters. (Photo: Radio Tamazuj)

New York City
Lopez Rivera

Oscar López Rivera, terrorism and semantics

The controversy over liberated political prisoner Oscar López Rivera’s participation in New York’s Puerto Rican Day Parade opens a window on the political uses of the term “terrorist.”

The Amazon

Peru: no justice five years after Bagua massacre

On the fifth anniversary of the Bagua massacre, Amnesty International called on Peru's authorities to ensure that all suspected of criminal responsibility are brought to justice.

Greater Middle East

Syria war fuels Lebanon hashish boom?

Afraid of war spilling across the border from neighboring Syria, Lebanon's government has halted cannabis eradication in the Bekaa Valley, allowing a dope-for-guns pipeline to flourish.

Greater Middle East

Samantha Power signals Syria intervention?

Samantha Power’s appointment as UN ambassador may signal a determination on the part of the Obama administration that intervention in Syria is inevitable.

Iran

Iran: protests at funeral of reformist cleric

Thousands gathered to chant "down with the dictator!" at the funeral procession for dissident cleric Ayatollah Jalaluddin Taheri in Isfahan, signaling a renewal of opposition activism.