In a “mega-march” extending more than 10 kilometers, thousands of teachers from the Section 22 union and their supporters in the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched through southern Mexico’s Oaxaca City June 14 to mark the first anniversary… Read moreOaxaca: “mega-march” commemorates start of uprising
Former US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke has an essay in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, “Defying Orders, Saving Lives: Heroic Diplomats of the Holocaust,” which draws an unsettlingly valid analogy to contemporary Iraq. Holbrooke outlines the… Read moreIraq’s refugee crisis: echoes of the Holocaust
One Abdur Raziq contributes June 9 a brief account to the open-posting website Ground Report (“Where You Make the News”) of the Taliban crackdown on elements of traditional Pashtun culture which are considered “un-Islamic” in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas—Lakhtai dancing boys… Read morePakistan: Taliban threaten Lakhtai boys and “eunuch” dancers
New details are emerging surrounding the 208 arrests at the June 10 Puerto Rican Day Parade in Manhattan. According to the New York Times June 13, the police still claim that people were arrested for “specific illegal behavior,” like blocking… Read moreNYC: confusion surrounds police sweeps at Puerto Rican parade
Two minarets at Shia Islam’s revered Golden Mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra were blown up June 13. The government has imposed a total curfew on the city until further notice. Shi’ite officials blamed al-Qaeda for the attack, but… Read moreIraq: Samarra’s Golden Mosque hit again —reprisals target Sunni mosques
Erick Sosa Villavicencio, a leader of the protest movement in Oaxaca, was freed at dawn on June 9 from the Federal Center of Social Readaption in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. The brother of Flavio Sosa Villavicencio, director of… Read moreMexico: Oaxaca protest leader Erick Sosa released
Two Colombian soldiers assigned to counter-guerilla operations in the southern part of the country were arrested June 10 for slaying six unarmed civilians, including a child, during a killing spree early the previous day. The soldiers appeared to be drunk… Read moreColombia: soldiers arrested in killing spree
A Sri Lankan probe into rights abuses blamed on both security forces and Tamil Tiger rebels fails to meet international standards, foreign observers say. Experts appointed by the international community to observe the presidential commission’s investigation charge the most serious… Read moreSri Lanka: abuse probe inadequate
The Philippine military has deployed helicopters and spy drones with the help of US intelligence to search for Muslim rebels who kidnapped Italian Catholic priest Carlo Bossi of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) in the Zamboanga peninsula. Bossi… Read moreMindanao: drones scan jungle for kidnapped priest
From Reuters, June 10: TEHRAN – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who wants more aid from the United States, called on Sunday for a new world order to replace “capitalism and imperialism”, at the start of a trip to arch U.S…. Read moreDaniel Ortega schmoozes ayatollahs
For those who remember when Albania was a hermetically sealed communist dictatorship under Enver Hoxha, the spectacle of George Bush receiving a hero’s welcome in Tirana was a surreal one. An easy appeal to ethnic nationalism on the issue of… Read moreBush does Albania; exploits Kosovars, Uighurs for cheap propaganda
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the journal Science, has teamed up with Amnesty International for a project to monitor the Darfur conflict by satellite. From Medical News Today, June 10: A pioneering AAAS program… Read moreRights groups monitor Darfur villages by satellite
