On Nov. 16, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Wilfredo Vazquez was arrested by federal agents in Tampa, FL, and charged with three counts of knowingly causing a detainee under his supervision to engage in a sexual act. According… Read moreFlorida ICE agent rapes detainee
On Nov. 13, in its second day of deliberations, a federal jury in Newark, NJ, awarded former asylum seeker Hawa Abdi Jama of Somalia $100,000 in damages after finding the private company that ran an immigration detention facility in Elizabeth… Read moreSomali ex-detainee wins damages from NJ prison farm
Over 20,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning, GA, on Nov. 18 to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), a US Army training school for Latin American military and security personnel formerly… Read more20,000 protest SOA
Meeting in a heavily guarded military academy on the outskirts of Sucre, Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly approved a new Constitution late on Nov. 24 with the support of 136 of the 255 delegates. Two delegates abstained, and the majority of the… Read moreBolivia: new constitution protested
Mario Zavala Navarrete, a leader of alumni of the Raul Isidro Burgos de Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, reported that he was assaulted by armed, masked assailants the night of Nov. 22. He said… Read moreMexico: teacher leader beaten in Guerrero
Several Haitian nongovernmental organizations–including the Haitian Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA), Haitian Women’s Solidarity (SOFA), Tet Kole Ti Peyizan (“Union of Small Farmers”) and the National Coordinating Committee for Women’s Rights (CONAP)—have written the Haitian government demanding an investigation of… Read moreHaiti: UN troops in sex abuse scandal
The French-based group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) announced on Nov. 20 that journalist Joseph Guyler Delva fled from Haiti on Nov. 9. Delva said he’d started receiving death threats on Oct. 25. On the evening of Nov. 5 he found… Read moreHaiti: journalist flees after threats
Near-simultaneous bombs exploded at courthouses in the northern Indian cities of Lucknow, Varanasi, and Faizabad Nov. 23, killing at least 13 lawyers (nine in Varanasi; four in Faizabad), and leaving over 50 injured. All three cities are in the state… Read moreIndia: Uttar Pradesh terror —against shadow of Gujarat pogroms
The Iranian town of Boroujerd, Luristan province, is tense and divided following the Nov. 10 destruction of a hosseinieh or monastery belonging to the Gonabadi Sufi order by the police and Basij paramilitary forces. According to Mohsen Yahyavi, the conservative… Read moreIran: paramilitaries destroy Sufi monastery after clash
Iran’s hardline daily newspaper Jamhouri Eslami made a rare attack on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making espionage accusations against a former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, and saying that influential politicians were using their power to have him cleared. Mousavian was… Read moreIran: Ahmadinejad dissed, Revolutionary Guards threaten “tsunami”
A statement by the Organization for Women’s Liberation—Iran, Nov 8: We condemn the war against people in Iran! The risk of a military attack against people in Iran is imminent. The US administration is adamant about an attack against Iran…. Read moreIranian dissidents oppose US aggression —again
Your tax dollars at work. From the marijuana advocacy site CelebStoner, Nov. 14: California crop report: Nearly three million pot plants destroyed California not only leads the nation in pot production, but also in plant eradication. With the outdoor harvest… Read moreCalifornia tops marijuana eradication record
