Milagros Salazar writes for IPS, via Upside Down World, Sept. 20: For the second time in Peru, a mining project was rejected by local communities in a popular referendum. More than 90 percent of those who came out to vote… Read morePeru: communities say “no” to mining
From Rights Action via Upside Down World, Sept. 20: Communities affected by Canadian-US transnational mining corporation Goldcorp’s (formerly Glamis Gold) San Martin open pit gold mine in the Siria Valley [of Honduras] are denouncing the company’s plans to release water… Read moreHonduras: Canadian mining company threatens campesino lands
From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), Sept. 20: The Iraqi minister of oil (Shehristani) has requested the Iraqi Prime Minister Almaliki to arrest the leaders of the Anti-oil Law Front (Subhi Albadri; chairperson. Hassan Juma; president of GUOE and Front… Read moreIraq: oil union leaders threatened with arrest
Donald Trump signed an executive order to continue operations at the Guantánamo detention center—not only allowing those currently detained to remain detained, but also permitting the US to bring new persons to the facility. The order comes the same day Trump pledged "to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay" in his State of the Union address—to applause from Republican lawmakers. It also comes nearly nine years to the day after Obama's executive order to begin the process of closing the facility. (Photo: Wikimedia)
Blackwater security guards who protect US diplomats in Iraq have been involved in at least seven serious incidents—including some which resulted in the deaths of innocent civilians—Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Sept. 19. The revelation came as al-Maliki announced… Read moreDoes Iraq have authority to expel Blackwater?
From South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, Sept. 17: Israel has enforced a news blackout on what may be its air force’s most audacious raid since its jets destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981. The Israeli government has made no… Read moreNorth Korean nuke link behind Israel’s Syria raid?
Spanish high court judge Baltasar Garzón ordered preventive detainment Sept. 11 for Juan Mari Olano, leader of the Askatasuna prisoner support organization who was arrested during an illegal demonstration at San Sebastián in the Basque country two days earlier. Olano… Read moreBasque march for amnesty attacked by police
Colombian authorities have decided to hold a top drug lord and a former paramilitary boss, both wanted by the US, in prisons fashioned on navy warships. But authorities were embarrassed Sept. 14 when they picked up the wrong prisoner in… Read moreColombia holds drug lords on floating prisons —but can’t keep ’em straight
A US court in Washington DC Sept. 17 ordered Chiquita Brands International to pay a $25 million fine to settle charges that it underwrote a terrorist organization in Colombia. Chiquita had agreed to the fine when it pleaded guilty in… Read moreChiquita fined $25 million in Colombia terror case
After 16 months in hiding, three leaders of the People’s Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), Martha Pérez Pineda, David Pájaro Huertas and Ulises del Valle Ramírez, returned to the central Mexican village of San Salvador Atenco to lead… Read moreMexico: Atenco leaders come in from clandestinity
A striking schoolteacher named Wilfredo Lara was killed Aug. 27 while participating in a road blockade at Macuelizo, in Santa Bárbara department of western Honduras. An angered motorist, who apparently opened fire on the blockade with a handgun and hit… Read moreHonduras: teacher killed in protest
On Sept. 12, some 150 activists (according to the Chicago Tribune) marched through the House of Representatives’ Rayburn Office Building, chanting for an end to deportation raids. The protesters had arrived in buses from Chicago, New York, Rhode Island and… Read moreImmigrants protest ICE raids
