Guatemalan human rights activist Amilcar Mendez and his wife, Miriam Dardon, began an open-ended hunger strike on Jan. 12 in Guatemala City to protest impunity for the 21,509 homicides that took place in the four-year administration of outgoing president Oscar… Read moreGuatemala: rights activists on hunger strike
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met with Cuban president Fidel Castro Ruz on Jan. 15 during a 24-hour visit to Cuba and met twice with interim president Raul Castro, who has headed the government since the summer of… Read moreLula shows Fidel the “love”
Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on a visit to Colombia Jan. 18 that the US is concerned about a Venezuelan military buildup, pointing to “what Mr. Chávez has done militarily in recent years and… Read moreChávez arming Colombian guerillas?
In the wake of his successful negotiation of the release of two hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has launched an initiative for the FARC and its junior counterpart, the National Liberation… Read moreFARC: “terrorists” or “belligerents”?
Two dozen heavily armed special police from the Venezuelan Interior Ministry searched the Hebraica community center in Caracas last month, ostensibly looking for weapons or evidence of “subversive activity.” There were no arrests or seizure of property. The Venezuelan Jewish… Read moreAnti-Semitism in Venezuela —again?
Mexican federal police backed up by the army’s elite Airborne Special Forces Group (GAFES) detained at least six municipal police in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, in a surprise pre-dawn raid on their headquarters Jan. 19. Nuevo Laredo… Read moreNuevo Laredo: federales arrest local police
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”
