From Amnesty International, Aug. 23: Evictions crisis deepens for Palestinian villagers The Israeli army has increased efforts to force Palestinian villagers out of the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank, by destroying villagers’ homes and restricting their movement… Read moreAI protests Jordan Valley evictions
From Amnesty International, Aug. 23: Iran: Authorities thwart campaign for gender equality Women’s rights activists in Iran face imprisonment. Activists campaigning for gender equality in Iran are unable to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and association, as shown… Read moreAI protests arrests of women activists in Iran
From Fox News, Aug. 28: Washington Post, Other Newspapers Won’t Run ‘Opus’ Cartoon Mocking Radical Islam A popular comic strip that poked fun at the Rev. Jerry Falwell without incident one week ago was deemed too controversial to run over… Read moreCartoon wars back on?
We recently posed the question of whether the relentless bloodshed in Iraq is fundamentally a national liberation struggle or a sectarian civil war. Which does it look like to you? From AP, Aug. 28: 31 killed at Iraqi religious festival… Read moreShi’ites clash in Karbala; Sunni mosque attacked in Fallujah
From the New York Times, Aug. 25: Head-On Collision in Connecticut Kills 4 Teenagers and Injures 3 Adults BRISTOL, Conn. — Four teenagers from nearby towns who had met on MySpace never made it home from an evening swim at… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Two days after launching aerial attacks on Shi’ite enclaves in Baghdad, the US is accused of air raids on police stations in the Kurdish autonomous zone. Jabar Yawer, spokesman for the Kurdish peshmerga militia, said a US helicopter attacked two… Read moreIraq: US attacks Kurds?
Opium production in Afghanistan has hit a record $3 billion this year, accounting for more than 90% of the world’s illegal output, according to a new report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Production is concentrated mainly… Read moreUN: Afghan opium bumper crop
The self-declared “autonomous municipality” of San Juan Copala and the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) announced they will hold a national meeting of autonomous municipalities, to take place at the indigenous mountain village September 15-16. APPO also said they… Read moreAPPO, Zapatistas hold national meetings on autonomy
The president of the Inter-American Human Rights Commission (CIDH), Florentín Meléndez, interviewed the brothers Flavio and Horacio Sosa Villavicencio, leaders of the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), at the maximum security prison of Altilplano, in the state of Mexico,… Read moreOaxaca: state government reprimanded on human rights
Mexican federal agents and Chiapas state police evicted several families Aug. 19 from the predios (collective farms) of Nuevo Salvador Allende and El Buen Samaritano, in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. Six family heads were detained, accused of environmental crimes… Read moreChiapas: more evictions from Montes Azules
The Colombian Army’s Third Brigade, based in Cali, was deeply penetrated by drug trafficking mafia, according to a recent criminal investigation. “What the prosecutors’ investigation has shown as it progresses,” reported Bogota’s Semana magazine Aug. 4, “is that ‘Don Diego‘… Read moreColombia: SOA instructors served narco mafia
Starting Aug. 20, Presidents George W. Bush and Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met in Montebello, Canada, to discuss North American integration. The purpose was to advance the little-known second phase of the North American Free Trade… Read moreEnergy, security top secretive NAFTA talks
