From AFP via Pakistan’s Daily Times, Oct. 28 (links added): PALWAL — A serpentine column of India’s poorest of the poor is moving across cities, determined to reclaim their land taken over in the name of the country’s heady economic… Read moreIndia: landless peasants march on New Delhi
From AP, Oct. 27: SAN FRANCISCO – Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: “Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs… Read moreSan Francisco tops Sept. 27 anti-war mobilization
One day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of New York IMC journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, two primitive homemade explosive devices were thrown at New York’s Mexican consulate in an apparent pre-dawn bicycle-by attack Oct. 26, shattering… Read moreNYC: improvised explosives hit Mexican consulate
Bolivian President Evo Morales is facing converging crises on multiple fronts—from South American neighbors, from the Colossus of the North, and from internal opposition. Peru is seeking the extradition of Walter Chavez, a top adviser to Morales’ successful 2005 campaign,… Read moreBolivian government under pressure cooker?
Ten prostitutes in the Bolivian highland city of El Alto sewed their lips together Oct. 24 as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after angry protests by residents. Some 30… Read moreProstitutes strike in Bolivia
With all the focus on the crisis over Kurdish separatist rebels taking refuge in northern Iraq, largely overlooked are the multiple reasons that Turkey’s Kurds have to be discontented. We noted two years ago the pressures on eastern Turkey’s peoples… Read moreTurkey seizes Kurdish lands for Ilisu Dam
With an Iraqi delegation in Ankara to discuss the standoff over PKK rebels in northern Iraq, Turkish war planes and helicopters reportedly bombed guerilla bases within Iraq’s borders Oct. 26. However, even as the state-run Anatolia news agency reported the… Read moreTurkey bombs Iraq —then backs off (for now)
Pakistani security forces backed up by helicopter gunships engaged militants at the madrassa of extremist cleric Maulana Fazlullah at Kabal in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province Oct. 26. The gun-battle apparently began when a patrol was fired on, and ended when… Read morePakistan: security forces battle neo-Taliban in NWFP
The Colombian armed forces committed 955 extrajudicial executions between July 2002 and June 2007, according an investigation [online at Latin America Working Group] carried out by a coalition of 11 Colombian human rights organizations and released this month. Of these… Read moreColombia: army killings escalate
Predictably, a front-page Wall Street Journal story Oct. 25 bashes native plant advocate Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute as a culprit behind the devastating Southern California fires that have left half a million displaced. The article also approvingly… Read moreEcology scapegoated in Southern California disaster
The “Old Order” Amish of the Pennsylvania Dutch country still refuse to use automobiles. Maybe they have the right idea. From AP, Oct. 22: INDIANAPOLIS — A tire blowout may have caused a van carrying passengers from an Amish community… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
This Patrick Cockburn report is entitled “Baghdad may be unable to stop attacks by PKK fighters,” but the more relevant question may be whether the regional Kurdish government which is the real power in northern Iraq has any real desire… Read moreDoes Baghdad have power to crack down on PKK?
