On Nov. 12 and 13, sheriff’s deputies in Weld County, Colo., arrested 13 people in “Operation Number Games,” a round-up of suspects who allegedly filed tax returns using suspicious Social Security numbers. Two more suspects were arrested in the sweep… Read moreColorado: immigration raids target tax filers
Authorities in the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu have imposed a curfew on districts of Longnan city following two days of violence between security forces and local residents resisting eviction. Fighting began Nov. 17, when some 1,000 people attacked a… Read moreChina: Gansu under siege after riots
Missiles from an apparent US drone struck a house near the town of Mir Ali in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region early Nov. 22, killing at least four. Mir Ali has been hit repeatedly in the more than 20 US air-strikes… Read moreUS bombs Pakistan —again
The president of a failed Colombian financial firm suspected of laundering drug profits and bilking thousands of mostly poor investors of millions of dollars was arrested in Panama and promptly deported Nov. 20. David Murcia Guzmán, 28, founder of the… Read moreColombia: protests after arrest of populist outlaw banker
From the BBC News, Nov. 18: UK drug users ‘damaging Colombia’ Drug users in the UK are causing an environmental catastrophe in Colombia, the country’s vice-president has told a meeting of police chiefs. Speaking in Belfast, Francisco Santos Calderon said… Read moreColombia: coke users snort rainforest
Mexican authorities detained the country’s former Drug Czar—officially the Special Investigative Sub-Prosecutor for Organized Delinquency (SIEDO)—Noé RamÃrez Mandujano Nov. 20, a day after he voluntarily spoke to investigators. RamÃrez was named to the post in December 2006 when President Felipe… Read moreMexico’s ex-drug czar busted for cartel collaboration
A typically subtle distortion is at work in this Nov. 21 New York Times story, “Global Forecast by American Intelligence Expects Al Qaeda’s Appeal to Falter.” You have to read halfway through the story before you find out that the… Read moreIntelligence report: al-Qaeda to decline with US power
A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia Nov. 20 ordered the release of five Algerian detainees from Guantánamo Bay. In the first ruling on detainees’ rights since the June Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v…. Read moreFederal judge orders five Gitmo detainees released
US President-elect Barack Obama‘s pick to run the Department of Homeland Security, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, is described by the AP Nov. 20 as “tough on illegal immigration”—although she has been a skeptic on the border wall, having once said,… Read moreObama: ominous appointment for Homeland Security
Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in Washington DC for an OAS meeting Nov. 19, drew parallels between himself and US President-elect Barack Obama: “Who would have believed 10 or 15 years ago that I could become president of Bolivia?… Read moreBolivia’s Evo Morales seeks “improved relations” with Obama White House
Its not The Hague, but its a start. From AFP, Nov. 19: Texas jury indicts Cheney, Gonzalez in prison abuse case WASHINGTON — A Texas grand jury has issued indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney general Alberto… Read moreCheney indicted in Texas prison scandal
The New York Times reports Nov. 19 that “President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team has signaled to Eric H. Holder Jr., a senior official in the Justice Department in the Clinton administration, that he will be chosen as attorney general… Mr…. Read moreEric Holder: death-squad defender
