Teachers from the Section 22 union local in Mexico’s divided southern state of Oaxaca launched blockades and occupations of government offices throughout the state Feb. 20, demanding that their members be allowed back into 250 schools where authorities have installed… Read moreOaxaca: APPO and teachers block government offices
Dick Cheney in Australia he gave an interview to the national ABC network’s PM program Feb. 23, in which he invoked Anglo racial solidarity in the most blatant terms—and raised the threat of a new Caliphate stretching from Spain to… Read moreCheney: terrorists seek new caliphate
The latest entry in the wave of dangerously specious terror cases is giving us deja vu. Like Jose Padilla, Daniel Maldonado is a Latino convert to Islam. Like John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan, he is accused of bearing arms for… Read moreLatest “al-Qaeda” bust reveals GWOT futility
Arab Monitor calls the brief detainment by US forces of a son of Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim “a message to SCIRI,” the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Washington has got to be uneasy that its allies in… Read moreIraq: US intimidates SCIRI?
The US denies it, of course, but the evidence seems pretty convincing. From AP, Feb. 23: BAGHDAD – U.S. troops battled insurgents in fierce fighting that killed at least 12 people in the volatile Sunni city of Ramadi, the military… Read moreIraq: women, children killed in Ramadi fighting
The Taliban is prepared for an ambitious spring offensive, the military leader of the Islamist milita boasted in a new interview with AlJazeera TV. “The attack is imminent,” said Mullah Dadullah. “The number of Taliban mujahedin who are ready to… Read moreAfghanistan: Taliban pledges “imminent” offensive
The New York Times‘ increasingly questionable Michael R. Gordon has yet another report Feb. 23 (with Mark Mazzetti) based largely on anonymous sources. But this one, “U.S. Used Bases in Ethiopia to Hunt Al Qaeda in Africa,” is just telling… Read moreNYT: Ethiopia waged US-backed “blitzkrieg” in Somalia
We noted that the current (Feb. 22) issue of The Economist has an uncharacteristically favorable article on Eritrea, saying it can “help or hinder progress in the Horn.” The same issue has an equally uncharacteristic slap at the rival Ethiopian… Read moreThe Economist: Should the West back Ethiopia?
Hmmm, Eritrea got a flurry of headlines when Somalia was heating up a couple of months ago—then disappeared. What happened? This telling Feb. 22 story from The Economist, “Eritrea: Still in the Regional Game?,” is reprinted in New Jersey’s Eritrea… Read moreEritrea still in Somalia?
As we noted in a related post on Egypt, Compass Direct News, which monitors global persecution of Christians, likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But this still doesn’t smell very good. From a Feb. 22 report: An Eritrean… Read moreEritrea: persecution of Christians seen
From Compass Direct News, Feb. 22. Compass Direct monitors global persecution of Christians, and likely has its own evangelical axes to grind. But nobody else is covering this. Police detained Christian families in Upper Egypt and forced them to deny… Read moreEgypt: growing violence against Copts in south
AlJazeera includes the following interesting passage in its Feb. 22 coverage of the conviction of Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman. Now, did “rendition” victim Abu Omar show up to support Soliman, despite his taunts of reactionary Islam on his… Read moreEgypt: “rendition” victim speaks
