Exactly four years after winning its independence from Indonesia, East Timor is tragically descending into chaos, and Australia has sent a “peacekeeping” force. Excerpts from a Reuters account via TV New Zealand, May 27: Gangs of youths allied to feuding… Read moreAussie imperialism exploits East Timor unrest
A victory for Western designs on Capsian oil 20 years in the making, this heightens the regional contradictions in several ways. It places greater pressure on Turkey to crush the Kurdish PKK insurgents who are making trouble in precisely that… Read moreTrans-Caucasus pipeline in first tanker delivery
At a joint news conference with Tony Blair in Washington, Bush said he regretted saying “bring ’em on” when responding in July 2003 to a question about the Iraqi insurgency. Bush now says the remark was “kind of tough talk,… Read moreIraq: Bush shows contrition; DoD reveals civilian killings
The outside world is paying no attention, but if the National Council of Resistance (Mujahedeen Khalq) is to be believed, the Azeri uprising in northern Iran is spreading. Of course Mujahedeen Khalq (with some degree of likely US connivance) would… Read moreIran: Azeri uprising spreads?
The Fatah and Hamas factions met at the official Muqata compound in the Palestinian capital Ramallah today, with President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh attempting to calm the situation after armed clashes between their supporters claimed at least… Read moreThree-way war for Palestine?
Just as a resolution was in sight in the Mohawk stand-off in Ontario, a re-escalation—due to an angry backlash from Caledonia’s white residents. From the Toronto Globe & Mail, May 23: Caledonia, Ont. — Violence erupted at the site of… Read moreOntario: violence flares at Mohawk blockade
From the New York Daily News, May 24: Call for justice in SUV rage Dad whose family was mowed down rails at suspect brothers “They came here like animals,” seethed Michael Celentano. Standing yesterday on the front yard of his… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
From the New York Times news service, May 23: LONDON Amnesty International assailed the United States’ use of military contractors in Iraq on Tuesday as “war outsourcing” that may be fueling human rights abuses. “War outsourcing is creating the corporate… Read moreAmnesty protests torture “outsourcing”; Koppel wants “mercenary army”
How interesting. In an implicit acknowledgement that their hardcore Islamophobe policies are backfiring in Chechya, the Russian authorities are embracing the indigenous peace-loving Sufi tradition as an alternative to the violently intransigent Wahhabism imported from the Arab world. But this… Read moreChechen Sufi revival —between Russian occupation and Wahhabis
A heartwarming addendum to a horribly tragic story. Newsday‘s May 24 coverage of the funeral notes that the late Amber Sadiq was the product of mixed Pakistani-Dominican (and Muslim-Catholic) marriage. Repudiating New York’s usual tabloid-enflamed culture of law-enforcement-as-personal-vengeance, Amber’s father… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Top officials from Mexico’s official National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) say that 23 cases of sexual abuse and rape have been documented following the violent clash between protesters and police in San Salvador Atenco. At a press conference, CNDH inspector… Read moreMexico: abuse charges mount in Atenco case
Boogie for your right to defy gringo imperialism, y’all. From Reuters, May 23: CARACAS – Among the shabby high-rise tenements overlooking Venezuela’s capital, hip-hop beats rather than the usual gunfire kept the Caracas neighborhood of Pinto Salinas awake one night… Read moreVenezuela: the hip-hop revolution
