From the Associated Press: BOGOTA, Colombia, Jan. 27 Colombia insisted Friday that a false-passport ring it dismantled may have links to al-Qaida and Hamas, despite U.S. doubts about the counterfeiters’ connection to the terrorist groups. Colombian officials said Thursday the… Read moreAl-Qaeda ring in Colombia?
A letter sent to the Colombia Support Network in Madison, WI, from local campesino activsts in Putumayo, Colombia’s Amazon rainforest department bordering Ecuador: Mocoa, January 25, 2006 Beginning in December of 2005 the FARC-EP began a series of attacks upon… Read moreColombia: forgotten war in Putumayo
Two Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents at the border crossing (port of entry) in Douglas, Arizona shot and killed a driver on the night of Feb. 9 after Douglas police officers attempted to stop the man. Apparently trying to… Read moreDeath on the Mexican border
The final pair of missionaries from New Tribes Mission pulled out of their Venezuelan outposts Feb. 9, days ahead of their deadline, after being accused of espionage by President Hugo Chavez. The nearly 40 missionaries, some having worked for 59… Read moreVenezuela: Chavez expels New Tribes Mission
A petition, dated Feb. 9: To: Kurdish Authorities Campaign to defend the life and safety of Marywan Halabjaye Defend this secular writer against the threats of Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan! Marywan Halabjaye is secular Kurdish write who recently published a… Read moreIraq: Kurdish secular writer under threat
Violence continues to grow throughout the Muslim world in protests against the anti-Islamic cartoons published in Denmark. In Nairobi, police opened fire as hundreds of protesters advanced on the Danish ambassador’s residence, leaving one injured. Another was killed and four… Read moreViolence escalates in cartoon imbroglio
From AP, Feb. 9: A suicide bomber struck Thursday in Pakistan on the holiest festival for Shiite Muslims, triggering a riot that left a provincial town in flames and at least 27 people dead and more than 50 wounded. After… Read moreAshura violence in Pakistan, Afghanistan
An informative and insightful, if somewhat problematic, commentary from Egypt’s Al-Ahram Weekly. Anjali Kamat argues that the cartoons are not merely “offensive” but propagandistic, and that leaving racism out of the simplistic “free speech/Islamic intolerance” equation is to miss the… Read morePropaganda and the cartoon controversy, Pt. 2
An ominous juxtaposition of two news items. First, the anti-immigrant vigilante group known has the Minutemen rallied at the Capitol Building in Washington as the Senate debates a get-tough immigration bill already passed by the House. The Minuteman rally was… Read moreWar coming to Mexican border?
A victory for free speech and historical memory was declared last month when charges were dropped against Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who had dared to invoke the World War I genocide of the Armenians, as well as more recent persecution… Read moreTurkey: free speech on trial —again
This is cute. Just as the cartoon controversy is being portrayed as evidence of Western values of “free speech” versus inherent Islamic intolerance, comes the conviction of Shiekh Abu Hamza al-Masri in Britain—on charges of, basically, expressing his opinions publicly. That he… Read moreAl-Masri conviction reveals “free speech” double standard
Brian Tokar reports for February’s Z Magazine on the recently-concluded Montreal talks on global climate change, aimed at implementing the Kyoto agreement. What’s really dangerous is that this agreement—which the Bush administration is refusing to join, of course—was already essentially… Read moreUS sidetracks Montreal climate talks
