Rejecting a dialogue with Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, the striking teachers and their supporters in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca occupied the streets around the state government buildings in the capital for a third day July 29, blocking the entrances…. Read moreOaxaca: government offices blockaded
The really amazing thing about China is that both the knee-jerk right-wingers who love to hate it and the idiot leftists who love to love it are both laboring under the illusion that it is Communist. The self-serving capitalist elite… Read moreChina: workers revolt at Mickey D’s contract factory
From Reuters, July 29: The United States sent its most explicit warning yet to Horn of Africa foes Eritrea and Ethiopia on Saturday to stay out of the escalating crisis in Somalia where they are believed to be backing rival… Read moreSomalia: Ethiopia-Eritrea proxy war?
Pushed from the headlines by multiple crises in the Middle East, genocidal warfare continues in Congo even on the even of elections. This July 28 New York Times op-ed piece by Aidan Hartley, a television journalist who witnessed a massacre… Read moreCongo: genocide continues on election eve
This Associated Press account interprets al-Zawahri’s latest communique as calling for Sunni-Shi’ite unity against the US and Israel, taking a tip from the cementing of the Hamas-Hezbollah conjunction since the Lebanon crisis. If so, al-Zawahri’s followers in Iraq don’t seem… Read moreAl-Zawahri calls for Sunni-Shi’ite unity?
Hamas may be rallying around Hezbollah at the moment, but the Sunni-Shi’ite lovefest sure doesn’t seem to have extended to Iraq. From AP, July 28: Rockets strike an upscale Shi’a district, killing dozens Rockets and mortars rained down an upscale,… Read moreIraq: rockets hit Shi’ite enclave
We noted in March 2005, when US troop levels in Iraq were boosted to around 150,000 ahead of the elections, that they were up from 123,000 a year earlier, and were supported by some 26,000 more coalition troops. This was… Read moreMore US troops to Iraq
A communique from the Federation of Worker Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI), July 27: Killers of the employees of the Tasloja Cement Factory must be brought to justice On July 27,2006, the police and security forces of the Patriotic… Read moreIraq: PUK opens fire on striking workers
Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the left-populist Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) raised the stakes in Mexico’s electoral standoff July 26 by declaring himself “the president of Mexico.” Cesar Nava, a spokesman for candidate Felipe Calderón of the ruling National Action… Read moreMexico awaits ruling on vote; dissidents threatened
From Mexico’s La Jornada, July 24, via Chiapas95, our translation: The Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) and the narco-traffic in Chiapas “are factors that affect the national security,” says an internal document of Superior Center of Naval Studies (CESNAV) of… Read moreMexico: Naval intelligence calls EZLN “national security threat”
From Mexico’s El Universal, July 24, via Chiapas95: OAXACA, Mexico – Gunmen attacked a university radio station that has backed efforts to oust the Oaxaca state governor, as violence flared once more in protests that has driven many tourists from… Read moreOaxaca: student radio station attacked by gunmen
Here we go again. Israel’s envoy to Norway complains that a cartoon goes “beyond free speech.” What the hell does that mean? Beyond good taste? Beyond acceptable discourse? Beyond what should be permitted in a free society? Where are these… Read moreIsrael v. Norway: cartoon wars redux
