From Reuters, Jan. 10: U.S. soldiers fed up with almost daily bomb attacks on their patrols near Iraq’s main oil refinery are taking drastic measures to fight their shadowy enemy — they’re walling in an entire town. Army bulldozers have… Read moreIraq: US walls off towns with sand berms
From Newsday, Jan. 10: The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the city on Tuesday, challenging restrictions on people’s right to photograph public places after an award-winning filmmaker from India was blocked from videotaping near the MetLife building. In its… Read moreNYC: Indian film-maker sues over detainment
From Newsday, Jan. 11: A criminal court judge in Manhattan has held that the city’s main weapon in its campaign against the Critical Mass bicycle ride is unconstitutional. Deciding the case of eight cyclists arrested in January 2005, Judge Gerald… Read moreNYC: court rules for Critical Mass
From The Scotsman, Jan. 12: A man armed with a knife wounded several people, including a rabbi, at a synagogue in Moscow yesterday. One Jewish official said the man called out as he burst into the building: “I will kill… Read moreMoscow: slasher attack at synagogue
Naga separatist guerillas in India’s remote northeast are once again being hunted down by the authorities in neighboring Burma (Myanmar), where they had previously been granted refuge. This appears to be leading to a two-front insurgency in which the Naga… Read moreBurma resumes crackdown on Naga guerillas
From AP, via the New York Times, Jan. 10: President-elect Evo Morales of Bolivia met with President Hu Jintao of China in Beijing and called China an “ideological ally,” a day after he invited it to develop Bolivia’s vast gas… Read moreBolivia: Evo woos China on gas investment
From DPA, Jan. 9, via United Arab Emirates’ Khaleej Times: ISLAMABAD – Pakistan on Monday said it has launched a strong protest with the Afghan-based Coalition Forces over weekend firing from across the border that killed eight people in the… Read moreAfghan war spills into Pakistan
From Newsday, Jan. 9: [A] French engineer abducted Dec. 5 apparently was dumped on a Baghdad street by his fleeing captors and recovered by U.S. troops, who turned him turned over to the French Embassy on Sunday, according to Iraqi… Read moreIraq: jihadis don’t read newspapers
From Arab Monitor, Jan. 8: US occupation troops burst into the Umm al-Qura Mosque compound in western Baghdad and ransacked the offices of the headquarter of the Association of Muslim Scholars. The troops arrested a member of the Association, two… Read moreIraq: US troops raid Muslim Scholars Association
Zapatista leaders and family members held a small, private funeral for Comandante Ramona somewhere in the territory of the mountain hamlet of Oventic Jan. 7. The exact location was not revealed. (El Universal, Jan. 7) In a Jan. 9 communique,… Read moreZapatistas mourn Ramona; national tour rescheduled
Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), was found dead in his room at Port-au-Prince’s Montana Hotel on Jan. 7 after apparently shooting himself in the head, according… Read moreHaiti: UN mission head found dead
Talli Nauman writes for Mexico’s El Universal, Jan. 7 via Chiapas95: Representatives of the first peoples of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States have issued a joint communique’ they hope will set the new year’s agenda for protection of… Read moreIndigenous peoples set environmental agenda for US-Mexico border
