From Shabelle Media Network via AllAfrica.com, Oct. 27: More than 15 people mainly civilians and seven Ethiopian soldiers have been killed and many more have been injured after insurgents and government-allied forces battled with different sorts of weapons like, machine… Read moreSomalia: Mogadishu explodes again
It seems that since the capitulation of warlord Khun Sa 11 years ago, his Mong Tai Army has collapsed back into its constituent entities—and that his former militia, the Shan State Army, is back in rebellion against the Burmese regime…. Read moreBurma: Shan guerillas pledge continued resistance
One day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of New York IMC journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, two primitive homemade explosive devices were thrown at New York’s Mexican consulate in an apparent pre-dawn bicycle-by attack Oct. 26, shattering… Read moreNYC: improvised explosives hit Mexican consulate
Bolivian President Evo Morales is facing converging crises on multiple fronts—from South American neighbors, from the Colossus of the North, and from internal opposition. Peru is seeking the extradition of Walter Chavez, a top adviser to Morales’ successful 2005 campaign,… Read moreBolivian government under pressure cooker?
Ten prostitutes in the Bolivian highland city of El Alto sewed their lips together Oct. 24 as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after angry protests by residents. Some 30… Read moreProstitutes strike in Bolivia
With all the focus on the crisis over Kurdish separatist rebels taking refuge in northern Iraq, largely overlooked are the multiple reasons that Turkey’s Kurds have to be discontented. We noted two years ago the pressures on eastern Turkey’s peoples… Read moreTurkey seizes Kurdish lands for Ilisu Dam
With an Iraqi delegation in Ankara to discuss the standoff over PKK rebels in northern Iraq, Turkish war planes and helicopters reportedly bombed guerilla bases within Iraq’s borders Oct. 26. However, even as the state-run Anatolia news agency reported the… Read moreTurkey bombs Iraq —then backs off (for now)
Predictably, a front-page Wall Street Journal story Oct. 25 bashes native plant advocate Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute as a culprit behind the devastating Southern California fires that have left half a million displaced. The article also approvingly… Read moreEcology scapegoated in Southern California disaster
The “Old Order” Amish of the Pennsylvania Dutch country still refuse to use automobiles. Maybe they have the right idea. From AP, Oct. 22: INDIANAPOLIS — A tire blowout may have caused a van carrying passengers from an Amish community… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
This Patrick Cockburn report is entitled “Baghdad may be unable to stop attacks by PKK fighters,” but the more relevant question may be whether the regional Kurdish government which is the real power in northern Iraq has any real desire… Read moreDoes Baghdad have power to crack down on PKK?
We’ve already had to warn the heroic Buddhist dissidents of Burma and colonized Uighur people of China’s far west against allowing themselves to be exploited as propaganda fodder by the Bush White House. Now it seems we have to warn… Read moreDalai Lama pawn in Bush’s oil wars?
President Bush already has called the GWOT “World War III.” Now he again invokes the phrase—but in a more conventional sense, arguing that it looms in the future if Iran devlops the atomic bomb. Of course, a pre-emptive attack to… Read moreBush invokes World War III —again
