In what is being hailed as a landmark decision, a 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn’t strip Ali al-Marri, a legal US resident, of his constitutional right to challenge his… Read more4th Circuit rules for “enemy combatant”
Despite recent denials by the Ethiopian regime, Der Spiegel corroborates June 11 that “terror suspects have been questioned by US officials in Ethiopia after being transferred from Somalia and Kenya. The captives included Europeans who were detained, interrogated and then released without charge.” Up… Read moreUS agents interrogate “renditioned” suspects in Ethiopian prisons
On May 28, some 200 Nicaraguan women marked International Day of Action for Women’s Health with a protest in Managua to demand the decriminalization of therapeutic abortion. Dozens of vehicles formed a caravan that drove past the Supreme Court, the… Read moreCentral America: women protest abortion bans
On June 1 a group of Mexican soldiers opened fire on an extended family riding in a van in Sinaloa de Leyva municipality, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa. According to the Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA), the soldiers fired… Read moreMexico: six killed at army roadblocks
As of June 6 Mexican authorities had still not arrested four suspects in the May 15 murder of environmental activist Aldo Zamora, despite pressure from Greenpeace Mexico, human rights groups and federal legislators. Four assailants ambushed Zamora and his 16-year-old… Read moreMexico: environmental activist murdered
A suspected suicide blast in the middle of a Nairobi street June 11 has left at least one dead and dozens injured. The blast occurred during rush hour near the Ambassadeur Hotel in the city’s packed central business district. It… Read moreNairobi terror blast: Islamists or Mungiki?
The rights group Global Witness charges in a new report that cocoa profits fueled the brutal civil war in Ivory Coast just as diamonds did in Liberia, with both the government and rebels profiting from the trade. The study finds… Read moreIvory Coast: “blood chocolate” fuels civil war
Buddhist monks and other Thais rallied over the weekend to have Buddhism enshrined in the constitution as the national religion of Thailand. [Some 5,000 blocked traffic outside the parliament building in Bangkok.] With ongoing violence in Thailand’s predominantly Muslim south,… Read moreThailand: clash of chauvinisms?
A bomb blast outside a shop in Istanbul wounded at least 14 people [June 10]. Turkish security forces believe that Kurdish separatists are behind the attack. [Reuters, June 10] Ongoing fighting in the Turkish southeast between the army and Kurdish… Read moreBombs and clashes in Turkey
Police in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar have found a propaganda CD by a group claiming to be “al-Qaida fil Hind” (al-Qaeda in India), with the aim of launching a jihad beyond the borders of Kashmir into all of India…. Read moreAl-Qaeda in India?
Afghan president Hamid Karzai survived the third assassination attempt on his life on [June 10] when Taliban militants fired rockets at a building in which he was giving a speech [outside Kabul]. [The president is known as the “mayor of… Read moreAfghanistan: Karzai dodges rocket attack
In the west and central regions of Iraq, heart of the supposed “Sunni insurgency”, US forces are equipping and training former Sunni insurgents to fight al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in a bid to turn local and tribal groups against the presence of… Read moreIraq: US arms Sunni militants
