Tijuana Cartel gunmen and fought a three-hour battle with Mexican federal police and army troops in the border city Jan. 17, using machine guns and grenades and firing on a helicopter. One gunman was killed and four police officers were… Read moreCartel wars rock Tijuana
Local Oaxaca activist Simon Sedillo in a Jan. 15 report that appears on the Enemigo Comun blog: On January 15th, 2007, before the beginning of a youth march for the liberation of political prisoners, Urban Paramilitaries (porros) initiated a series… Read moreOaxaca: paramilitaries attack university
Refuting widespread media portrayal of the “erosion” (desgaste) of the rebel Zapatista movement, Jorge Santiago, director of the local group Economic and Social Development of the Indigenous Mexicans (DESMI), which has been working with Maya communities in the Highlands of… Read moreChiapas: Zapatistas “stronger” —despite paramilitary backlash
With the world's attention elsewhere, unsettling signs of a re-ignition of the Balkan conflict are mounting. Former KLA commander Hashim Thaci was elected prime minister of Kosova on Jan. 9 and vowed: "I assure you that within a few weeks… Read moreKosova: precedent for Vermont?
Israel’s decision to completely seal off Gaza Strip crossings has intensified the suffering and privation faced by Gaza residents. Gaza hospitals say they are forced to bury Palestinians killed in IDF strikes draped in flags and bed sheets because of… Read moreGaza under siege —again
Further evidence of the humbling of the neocons comes in George Bush’s hailing of the new Iraqi law allowing former Baath Party members into public life. The party was declared illegal by the US-led administration after the invasion of 2003… Read moreIraq: oil greases bogus “unity”
A woman carried out a suicide bombing near a Shi’ite mosque in Iraq’s Diyala province Jan. 16, killing at least eight people. The attack provoked local Shi’ite militia fighters to use mortars against a nearby Sunni village in retaliation. Shi’ite… Read moreAshura terror in Iraq
Hundreds of Islamic militants armed with mortars and rocket-launchers overran a fort at Sararogha, in Pakistan’s tribal borderlands Jan. 15, killing some 20 paramilitary troops of the South Waziristan Scouts and taking several more captive. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (Taliban Movement… Read moreNATO to intervene in Pakistan?
From Amnesty International, Jan. 15: Iran: Death by stoning, a grotesque and unacceptable penalty As nine women and two men in Iran wait to be stoned to death, Amnesty International today called on the Iranian authorities to abolish death by… Read moreAmnesty International protests stoning in Iran
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Jan. 16 he believes NATO forces currently deployed in southern Afghanistan “don’t know how to do counterinsurgency operations.” Most of the NATO troops in the south are British, Canadian and Dutch, while those in… Read moreCanadian death toll hits 78 in Afghanistan
In a victory for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda after weeks of bitter partisan struggle, Japan’s Diet Jan. 11 approved legislation reauthorizing the naval refueling mission that the Self-Defense Forces launched in 2001 in support of US-led military operations in Afghanistan…. Read moreJapan returns to Afghan mission
Hamas has called for a general strike throughout the Palestinian territories Jan. 16 to mourn those killed in today’s Israeli raids in the Gaza Strip that left 19 dead and scores injured. At a press conference in Gaza City, Hamas… Read moreHamas calls for general strike to protest Gaza “massacre”
