Speaking in Algeirs, Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz called for a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. “We won’t opt for violence. We will continue to fight through peaceful means,” he told a news conference. But he… Read moreMorocco bars Western Sahara investigation
The Pentagon is rapidly expanding its little-noted “anti-terrorist” training program in the nations of Africa’s Sahel. From page 11 of the New York Times, June 10: As Africans Join Iraqi Insurgency, U.S. Counters With Military Training in Their Lands A… Read morePentagon “Pan-Sahel Initiative”
President Bush says today he has receieved reports of covert Syrian interference in Lebanon, and the White House charged that it had information that Damascus had drawn up an assassination hit list targeting Lebanese political leaders. “Obviously we’re going to… Read moreBush accuses Syria on Lebanon
Violence continued in Nepal June 7, with 14 soldiers and six Maoist guerillas killed in a clash in the southwest, even as the rebels publicly apologized for killing 38 civilians in a land mine blast the day before. The civilians… Read moreNepal: Maoists apologize for atrocity; repression continues
On May 27, Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) Paraguay condemned an agreement approved by the Paraguayan Congress which will allow US troops into the country for an 18-month training and advisory mission from June 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006…. Read moreUS troops to Paraguay
While Chilean ex-Minister of the Interior, Jose Miguel Insulza, assumes the post of Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General, Chile’s indigenous Mapuche bring their case to that same organization, accusing the Chilean government of human rights violations. Having exhausted… Read moreMapuche protest abuse of Chilean terror laws to OAS
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” charged: “The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado… Read moreAmnesty: US kills prisoners in secret global archipelago
A dozen men armed with assault rifles killed two children of a man who belongs to a peasant ecologist group in Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Guerrero May 19, and soldiers arrested three members of the same group on weapons… Read moreMexico: children of campesino ecologist murdered
The Independent Task Force on the Future of North America, a New York-based body coordinated by the Council on Foreign Relations, has released a detailed set of proposals that build on the recommendations adopted by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin,… Read moreNAFTA militarized
What ironic timing. An official visit by the US Energy Secretary to Azerbaijan to mark the opening of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was immediately preceeded by violent repression of pro-democracy protests there. From the May 29 New York Times: Washington –… Read moreAzerbaijan: pipeline opens, political space closes
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado released documents May 18 confirming that the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Denver is targeting peaceful political activists for harassment and building files on constitutionally-protected political activities that have nothing to… Read moreJTTF targets protesters
The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is protesting the arrest of a second representative in Sudan. Vincent Hoedt, a Dutch national and regional coordinator for MSF in Darfur, was arrested May 31 in Nyala. A… Read moreDarfur: Doctors Without Borders volunteers arrested
