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?
Dear Friends, From the perspective of three decades-plus in the progressive media, I’m writing to let you know what an incredibly important resource World War 4 Report is—and why we need to support it now if we want it to… Read moreA message from Judith Mahoney Pasternak
From the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), Dec. 19: Bush Administration Trains Members of Indonesian Terrorist Groups Human rights advocates have learned that the US is training members of Kopassus, the notorious Indonesian Special Forces unit with a… Read morePentagon trains Indonesian “terrorists”
The Technical Investigative Corps (CTI) of Colombia’s Fiscalía General has opened an official probe of Chiquita and the local banana companies Probán, Unibán and Sunisa-Del Monte for their links to paramilitary groups in the conflicted banana-growing zone of Urabá. Those… Read moreColombia’s prosecutor probes Chiquita
Brazilian Bishop Luiz Cappio of Barra, Bahia, announced during mass Dec. 20 that he was ending his 23-day hunger strike against a massive government water diversion project. President Luiz “Lula” Inacio da Silva said the previous day that the project… Read moreBrazil: bishop suspends hunger strike in river struggle
Panama’s National Assembly Dec. 20 voted unanimously to declare the anniversary of the 1989 US invasion a day of “national mourning,” and established a commission to determine how many people were killed in the episode. “This is a recognition of… Read morePanama declares “national mourning” on invasion anniversary
Haitian women’s organizations are now demanding reparations from Sri Lanka and an investigation by Haitian authorities of alleged sexual abuses by troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). In November Haitian women’s groups and human rights groups… Read moreHaiti: UN probes sex abuses
