This sad story is all the more telling given that the “Salvador option” reveals El Salvador as a test war for Iraq—with the sinister John Negroponte a key architect of both. The failure of the Times to even mention this… Read moreDissent grows in El Salvador over Iraq role
A glimmer of hope is that the outcry following the slaying of Hrant Dink is coming from Turks as well as Armenians. Perhaps his death will not have been in vain—or will there be an inevitable backlash? From the UK-based… Read moreIstanbul: streets filled for slain editor’s funeral
A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a military convoy Jan. 22 near Mirali, in Pakistan’s restive North Waziristan, killing four troops and a civilian woman, and injuring 23, including 20 soldiers. The convoy was a joint force of… Read moreWar engulfs Afghan-Pakistan borderlands
From Reuters, Jan. 24: MOGADISHU – A U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship has launched a second air strike against suspected al Qaeda operatives in southern Somalia, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing unidentified U.S. officials. No confirmation of Monday’s… Read moreNew US air-strikes reported in Somalia
The assassination of Hrant Dink has, fortunately, sparked renewed challenges to the censorious Article 301. But the Turkish state seems to be trying to squelch the debate. Would Dink have wanted his funeral to be used in this manner? From… Read moreTurkey: Article 301 debate on hold as slain editor laid to rest
Freedom’s on the march. From the San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 24: One of the Bush administration’s most far-reaching assertions of government power was revealed quietly last week when Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified that habeas corpus — the right to… Read moreGonzales: Constitution doesn’t guarantee habeas corpus
From AP, Jan. 24: Former Social Distortion Bassist Killed Placentia, Calif. — Brent Liles, a former bassist for the 1980s punk rock group Social Distortion, was struck and killed by a truck while riding a bicycle, authorities said Wednesday. He… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Freedom’s on the march. From AlJazeera, Jan. 18: The US defence department has released new rules allowing terror suspects to be convicted and possibly executed on the basis of hearsay evidence and some coerced testimony. The rules, which the department… Read morePentagon terror trials to allow hearsay evidence
The current violent unrest in Bangladesh is generally portrayed (when the global media bother to take note of it at all) as a contest between the secular, left-leaning Awami League which governed until July 2001 and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party… Read moreTaslima Nasrin: fundamentalism “destroying” Bangladesh
An international commission of human rights observers announced Jan. 21 that at least 23 people were killed and a number of cases of physical abuse and sexual assaults against women were recorded during the months-long conflict in the southern Mexican… Read moreOaxaca: government disputes rights report; police block religious gathering
From the Editor & Publisher, Jan. 22: Conrado de la Cruz JimĂ©nez, the publisher of the most influential daily in the Mexican state of Chiapas, has died in Miami, where he fled to escape prosecution by the state government, the… Read moreExiled Chiapas newsman dies in Miami
This is what George Bernard Shaw called “the extreme form of censorship.” From the New York Times, Jan. 19: ISTANBUL — The editor of Turkey’s only Armenian-language newspaper was assassinated today on an Istanbul street. The editor, Hrant Dink, 53,… Read moreArmenian editor assassinated in Turkey
