General Motors Mexico will temporarily shut assembly lines at three of its Mexican plants as part of an overall strategy to cut production due to falling demand, the company announced Dec. 15. The plants in San Luis Potosi and Ramos… Read moreGM to idle Mexican plants
Members of the Stop CAFTA Coalition, along with allies in Central America and the Dominican Republic, have compiled a report that describes the trends and impacts of the first three years of the U.S.-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA)…. Read moreObama urged to suspend CAFTA
Haiti marked the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ 60th anniversary with an official ceremony organized by the United Nations at the Foundation for Knowledge and Liberty (FOKAL), a nongovernmental organization formerly headed by Prime Minster Michele Duvivier Pierre-Louis. The event… Read moreHaiti: US resumes deportations
The Argentine government, the opposition and grassroots organizations all marked Dec. 10 as the 25th anniversary of the return of democratic rule after a bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship. The Mothers (Founding Line) and the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo—organizations… Read moreArgentina: mass graves excavated
On Dec. 10 human rights organizations in Latin America celebrated the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by holding ceremonies, staging protests and issuing reports on the situation in their countries. The Venezuelan Program… Read moreLatin America: groups mark Human Rights Day
The Colombian human rights organization CODHES has released a new analysis, entitled “The numbers do not add up,” challenging the government’s statistics of claimed successes against illegal armed groups (principally the FARC). The armed forced claim some 114,000 killed, captured… Read moreColombian army’s “numbers don’t add up” in war on FARC
Enrique Portocarrero, dubbed “Captain Nemo” in Colombia, is accused of building up to 20 fiberglass submarines for narco-traffickers to haul cocaine to Central America and Mexico. Following a three-year investigation involving US and British intelligence, Colombia’s Department of Administrative Security… Read moreColombia’s “Capt. Nemo” faces trial
Militants used patrol bombs to torch 25 supply trucks and oil containers for Afghanistan-based coalition forces near Peshawar, Pakistan early Dec. 13. It marked the fifth attack on a Peshawar area freight terminal within ten days, bringing the number of… Read moreTaliban hit NATO supply route in Pakistan —again
Italy’s Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the anti-immigrant Northern League met with protests after proposing a moratorium on the building of mosques in the wake of arrests on Dec. 2 of two Moroccans suspected of plotting terrorist attacks—one of whom… Read moreItaly: Muslims protest mosque moratorium
This book is a necessary corrective to the dominant perception—left, right and center—that the opposition in Syria are all jihadists and dictator Bashar Assad the best bet for "stability." Long a left-wing dissident in Assad's Syria, Saleh is a veteran of the dictator's prisons. Here, he traces the origins of the Syrian revolution to agony caused by the regime's "economic liberalization" (socialist phrases aside), describes the initially unarmed opposition's popular-democratic nature, and discusses the struggle to keep the Free Syrian Army accountable to this grassroots base after it became clear a military dimension to the revolution was necessary. He makes the case that the Assad regime can be termed "fascist" even by the most rigorous definition, and has been making good on its pledge to "burn the country" before ceding power. (Image: Haymarket Books)
Greek protesters Dec. 13 attacked a police station and ministry building as well as shops and banks in Athens with petrol bombs in an eighth day of protests following the killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos by police. Several hundred protesters… Read moreGreek uprising enters second week
The Indian navy announced Dec. 13 it had captured 23 Somali and Yemeni pirates while coming to the defense of an Ethiopian-flagged merchant vessel in the Gulf of Aden. Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking before a Bahrain conference… Read moreSomali coast pirate wars escalate
