Turkey's Kurdish separatist guerillas, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), officially ended a five-year truce in June, and eastern Turkey has since seen a series of bombings and skirmishes. Most recently, five Turkish soldiers died after a bomb blast ripped through… Read moreTurkish intolerance fuels PKK resurgence
The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the resurgent Kurdish guerilla movement in eastern Turkey and long-standing offical State Department-designated “foreign terrorist organization,” is apparently building a visible presence in northern Iraq, and is even said to be establishing a foothold in… Read morePKK expands presence in Iraq —and Iran?
The National Council of Resistance of Iran reports that on Aug. 3 thousands took to the streets of Saqez, capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, against the clerical regime, and in solidarity with uprisings in other cities in the region, including… Read moreUprisings rock western Iran
NYC activist Robert Lederman offers the following commentary on the below Aug. 5 AP story on plans to conduct simulated bio-chemical warfare attacks in the city: I don’t want to be an alarmist but isn’t this the exact pattern of… Read moreBio-chem warfare tests in NYC
Writing for Toward Freedom Aug. 2, Benjamin Dangl provides an overview of regional press coverage of the new US troop presence in Paraguay. Dangl finds that the troop contingent—ostensibly sent in support of humanitarian missions like road-building—is actually about policing… Read moreParaguay: Pentagon base to police Bolivia?
Amnesty International has released testimony from two Yemeni men now detained in their own country, who were recently transfered there from Guantanamo Bay but also told of being held at a secret US detention facility at an unknown location where… Read moreTestimony claims secret CIA archipelago
In his Aug. 4 video-communique, al-Qaeda bigshot Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the 7-7 bombings were payback for British participation in the United States’ “policy of aggression against Muslims.” While not directly taking credit for the London bombings, he promised more… Read moreAl-Zawahiri: It’s Iraq, stupid!
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history August 6 and August 9 will mark the 60th anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in… Read moreLest we forget…
The Indonesian government has charged a local unit of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., the world’s largest gold miner, with damaging the environment at its mine near Manado in eastern North Sulawesi province. The government also charged Newmont of Indonesia’s president,… Read moreNewmont Mining sued over Indonesia contamination
A coalition of 14 media organizations and public interest groups organized by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed an amicus brief in federal court in New York urging the release of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos…. Read morePress stands up to White House on Abu Ghraib torture photos
The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) has filed suit against the city to keep police from searching the bags of passengers entering the subway. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, claims the two-week old policy violates… Read more(Some) New Yorkers resist Big Brother
In an Aug. 1 statement, Amnesty International expresses concern about the recent arrest and detention of six human rights defenders in Western Sahara, and reports that two of them had been tortured. Some of those arrested are former “disappeared”, others… Read moreMore arrests, torture in Western Sahara
