Author: Bill Weinberg

North Africa

Fidel Castro: NATO to occupy Libya

Fidel Castro writes in his column “Reflections of Comrade Fidel” that NATO’s planned invasion of Libya will begin in “a matter of hours or a few days.”

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Notorious narco-lord "Chapo" Guzmán was convicted by a federal jury in New York and faces life in prison. But violence in Mexico has only escalated since his capture. Few media accounts have noted how Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel rose as militarized narcotics enforcement escalated in Mexico—a trajectory mirrored by the cartels' move from dealing in cannabis to deadly white powders. (Photo: US Coast Guard via Cannabis Now)

Mexico
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An indigenous environmental activist was killed in Mexico's south-central state of Morelos, three days ahead of a planned referendum on an energy development project that he opposed. Samir Flores Soberanes was a leader of the local Peoples in Defense of Land and Water Front and community radio station Amilzinko. He was slain by unknown gunmen in an attack at his home in the village of Amilcingo, Temoac municipality. He was a longtime figure in local opposition to the planned Huexca power plant and associated natural-gas pipeline, pushed by the government under the Morelos Integral Project. (Photo: Somos el Medio)

Greater Middle East
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Egypt, Tunisia, Wisconsin

An appeals court in Turkey upheld the convictions of 14 employees of Cumhuriyet, a Turkish news outlet that has been critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. The defendants—including journalists, a cartoonist, executives and accountants—were sentenced in April to prison terms between four and eight years on charges of "acting on behalf of a terrorist group without being members." The Third Criminal Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Justice reviewed and upheld each of these sentences. In Turkey, sentences less than five years cannot be overturned once they are upheld by an appellate court, meaning that eight of the defendants must now serve out their terms. The remaining defendants with longer sentences plan to appeal to Turkey's Supreme Court. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)

North America
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A 16-state coalition filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, requesting the court to issue a judicial determination that Trump's national emergency declaration over the southern border wall is unconstitutional. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the lawsuit, stating: "Unlawful southern border entries are at their lowest point in 20 years, immigrants are less likely than native-born citizens to commit crimes, and illegal drugs are more likely to come through official ports of entry. There is no credible evidence to suggest that a border wall would decrease crime rates." (Photo via Jurist)

New York City

DEA decoys deceive Taliban wannabes

DEA operatives pretending to be from the Taliban entrap gullible hotheads—and the New York Times plays along, portraying an actual Taliiban role in the case (which there isn’t).

Greater Middle East

Egypt: paranoids see neocon conspiracy (again)

The fact that Egyptian protesters drew inspiration from Serbia’s Otpor and international nonviolence guru Gene Sharp is fueling further conspiranoid speculation about an astroturf revolution.

East Asia

Russo-Japanese arms race over Kuril Islands

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's trip last year to the disputed Kuril Islands has sparked both a regional military build-up and a diplomatic war of words with Japan.