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
A year after he was arrested on immigration charges, Posada Carriles is being investigated by a federal grand jury–but the media are no longer paying attention. From our sibling journal Upside Down World, May 24: Convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles… Read moreGrand jury probes Posada Carriles
Another restive ethnic group in Iran is making demands for culture and autonomy felt—and meeting with harsh repression. Following the Arabs of Khuzestan and the Kurds of Kordestan, now the Azeris—who, like the Kurds, had a short-lived independent state under… Read moreIran: Azeri uprising in Tabriz
A statement from the New York-based Campaign for Peace and Democracy: Just as it did before its invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration is manufacturing a climate of fear in order to prepare public opinion for another act of aggression… Read moreIran: Neither US aggression nor theocratic repression
This one is really funny. The ultra-conservative hyper-interventionist Islamophobes at the oddly named Human Events managed to score an interview with Reza Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran and pretender to the throne. But this self-promoting monarchist restorationist,… Read moreIran: monarchist pretender not reactionary enough for neocons!
The vote for secession in Montenegro is being posed as the final chapter in the disintegration of Yugoslavia that began in 1990 with Slovenia’s vote for seccession. Technically, “Yugoslavia” ceased to exist in 2003 when what was left of it… Read moreMontenegro secession: Balkans still re-balkanizing
Remember, if you’re not with us you’re with the terrorists. From the Newark Star-Ledger, May 21: Family waits for answers in hit-run Memorial grows for siblings killed in Roselle By yesterday afternoon, the curbside memorial along St. Georges Avenue had… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Dubious reports circulate that a bill pending in Iran would force Jews and other religious minorties to wear identifying insignia—in an obvious echo of Nazi Germany. Predictably, the Iranian regime is calling the allegations a Jewish conspiracy. From the Financial… Read moreIran: badges for Jews? No, but veils for women is bad enough, thank you
