Colombia’s main opposition party, the Polo Democratico, has issued a strong statement against Plan Colombia. The communique is also a grim assessment of Alvaro Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, heavily influenced by Washington. The Polo cites the increase of human rights… Read moreColombian democratic opposition rejects Plan Colombia
Rodrigo Lara Restrepo, chief of the Colombian presidency’s anti-corruption program, resigned Dec. 12—days after Miami’s El Nuevo Herald reported documents showing his father, Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, had warned before his 1984 assassination that relatives of current President Alvaro… Read moreColombia’s Uribe linked to 1984 assassination of justice minister
On Dec. 13, an observer who works for an international body set up to monitor Colombia’s demobilization process received a death threat while visiting a poor neighborhood in Medellín. Since 2004, the Mission to Support the Peace Process (MAPP), under… Read moreOAS Peace Mission official threatened in Colombia
Peru's creation of Yaguas National Park—covering nearly 870,000 hectares of rainforest along the remote border with Colombia—is being hailed as a critical advance for protection of global biodiversity. The territory in the Putumayo river basin is roughly the size of Yellowstone National Park, but with more than 10 times the diversity of flora and fauna. Despite new areas brought under protection, forest is still being rapidly lost in Peru. A recent analysis of satellite images by th Andean Amazon Monitoring Project (MAAP) found 143,425 hectares of forest were lost across the Peruvian Amazon during 2017. (Image: Inhabit.com)
Bolivia’s new constitution, which is being attacked by the lowland oligarchs as centralizing too much power in the hands of President Evo Morales, actually devolves many powers to “indigenous nations and peoples,” recognizing their right to “free determination and territoriality.”… Read moreBolivia’s constitutional crisis: rival “decentralizations”
Survivors and their supporters gathered in the mountain hamlet of Acteal in southern Mexico’s conflicted Chiapas state Dec. 22 to mark the tenth anniversary of the massacre of 45 unarmed Tzotzil Maya peasants by a paramilitary group linked to the… Read moreSurvivors accuse Mexican state at Acteal massacre commemoration
Workers march in Baghdad Striking teachers rally Iraq’s teachers and healthcare workers are uniting with other public-sector employees to demand the government take action on improving working conditions, and pledge to begin a campaign of public sit-ins in Baghdad Dec…. Read moreIraq: public-sector workers launch sit-in campaign
The empire strikes back—against California. From the Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 21: The Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to refuse California’s request to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles is all but certain to provoke lawsuits that could tie the matter up… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Pakistan’s security forces have been waging a “secret war” in the Baluchistan region since the death of tribal leader Mir Balaach Marri in combat last month. Peter Tatchell writes in The Guardian, Dec. 21: “The often indiscriminate attacks on civilian… Read morePakistan’s army wages “secret war” against Baluchistan
“Al-Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Dec. 21. “There is no question that some of the areas in the frontier area… Read moreGates: al-Qaeda in Pakistan borderlands
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he agreed with the idea of an international force for the Occupied Territories, proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Paris donors’ conference Dec. 18. The an-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, military wing of the… Read moreGaza resistance pledges to fight international forces
Another development in the ongoing church-vs.-state conflict over the Orthodox patriarchate in the Holy Land, with (as ever) the struggle over West Bank lands and the future of Jerusalem in the background. From the Jerusalem Post, Dec. 19, emphasis and… Read moreGreek patriarch pawn in secret war for fate of Jerusalem?
