On Dec. 12, some 1,000 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carried out simultaneous dawn raids at six meat processing plants in six states and arrested a total of 1,282 immigrant workers, most of them Latin American. (AP, Dec…. Read moreImmigration sweeps in six states; ICE charged with racism
From The Telegraph, Dec. 14, emphasis added: Saudi Arabia would respond to an American withdrawal from Iraq by funding and arming Sunni insurgents to prevent them being massacred by Shia militias, the kingdom has told the White House. The blunt… Read moreSaudis: We’ll arm Iraq insurgents
From Afrol News, Dec. 11: An Algiers bomb attack against oil workers that killed an Algerian driver and wounded nine people, including several Western citizens, has raised fears that Algeria’s trend towards peace and stability may end. As the US… Read moreAlgeria: Salafists target Halliburton
A press release from the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard, Dec. 13: Retaliatory Attacks Also Kill Highlanders in Gambella Region Cambridge, MA – Soldiers in the Ethiopian military have killed, raped, and otherwise abused hundreds of Anuak civilians… Read moreEthiopia: military atrocities against Anuak civilians
Maria Antonieta Trinidad Ramirez del Valle, popularly known as La Trini, returned to the conflicted central Mexican village of San Salvador Atenco Nov. 25 after more than six months in clandestinity at an unknown location. She was accompanied by Don… Read moreMexico: Atenco protest leader out from clandestinity
From Human Rights Watch, Dec. 11: The Iranian Judiciary should prosecute officials responsible for the arbitrary detention and alleged torture of several bloggers in 2004, instead of prosecuting the bloggers for expressing their opinions, Human Rights Watch said today. On… Read moreHRW to Iran: Prosecute torturers, not bloggers
From The Scostman, Dec. 12: A conference of the world’s most prominent Holocaust deniers opened in Iran yesterday amid international condemnation and protests by dozens of Iranian students, who burned pictures of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and chanted “death to the… Read moreIran: protesters condemn Holocaust conference
From the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), Dec. 7: Darkest Scenario for Women of Iraq: Public executions of women by Islamist militias in Baghdad Shia Militias: A new wave of public executions against women is undertaken by Al… Read moreOWFI: “Darkest scenario for women of Iraq”
Former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1973-1990) died of heart failure at the age of 91 in the Santiago Military Hospital the afternoon of Dec. 10. Dozens of his right-wing supporters gathered outside the hospital as soon as they… Read morePinochet dies untried
A sneak preview of our upcoming film review by cultural critic Shlomo Svesnik… MEL GIBSON’S HEART OF DARKNESS Apocalypto Reveals More About Mel than the Maya Here we go again. Mel Gibson’s 2004 surprise mega-hit The Passion of the Christ… Read moreMel Gibson garbles Maya history
From the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) General Command, Dec. 2: To the people of Mexico: To the people of the world: Brothers and Sisters: The attack that our brothers, the people of Oaxaca suffered and suffer cannot be ignored… Read moreEZLN: global mobilization for Oaxaca, Dec. 22
Thousands of Somalis chanted anti-US slogans at an Islamist protest against a Washington-backed plan to send foreign peacekeepers to prop up the country’s weak interim government Dec. 4. In a decrepit Mogadishu football stadium, Somalis shouted “Down with the USA!”… Read moreUS backing Ethiopia’s Somalia intervention?
