The Chamber of Representatives of the Colombian Congress voted 62-43 the night of June 14 to approve a law recognizing civil unions. The law would allow same-sex couples to register if they have lived together for two years and are… Read moreGay rights advance in Colombia —Brazil next?
On June 12, more than 150 ICE agents executed search and arrest warrants at three sites in Portland, Oregon, connected with the Fresh Del Monte company and its Portland fruit and vegetable processing facility, arresting about 165 workers and three… Read moreICE raids spark protests in Portland, New Haven
At least 35 have been killed in a suicide attack on a police bus in Kabul June 17—the deadliest attack since the Taliban regime fell. Most of the dead were instructors going to work at the city’s police academy, but… Read moreAfghanistan: suicide bombings escalate
Ehud Barak is to be approved as Israel’s new Defense Minister June 17, following the resignation two days earlier of Amir Peretz in the wake of the routing of Fatah forces from the Gaza Strip and the seizure of control… Read moreEhud Barak plans Gaza invasion —demise of the “Bush Doctrine”?
Work crews and police arrived early June 15 to demolish twelve more homes at the village in Karasai district outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, where an embattled Hare Krishna commune is based. “The houses were literally crushed into dust,” Hare Krishna spokesperson… Read moreKazakhstan escalates Hare Krishna crackdown
The government of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca apologized for the first time June 15 for a police raid on striking teachers in the central plaza of the state capital one year ago that led to Mexico’s worst political… Read moreOaxaca: government issues apology for repression
Calling a nuclear or radiological strike against New York “the ultimate nightmare scenario,” New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, speaking at a DC conference on nuclear terrorism June 13, called upon Congress to pay the full $40 million price… Read moreNYC: nuclear paranoia advances, civil rights retreat
The neo-conservative Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) happily informs us: The editor of the Syrian daily Al-Watan, Wasah Abd-Raba, accused the Lebanese majority of sacrificing murdered Lebanese MP Walid ‘Eido in order to continue its plan to destroy and… Read moreLebanon: conspiracy vultures descend on corpse of Walid Eido
Jonathan “Jack” Idema, the last of three imprisoned US citizens convicted of illegal detention and torture in Afghanistan in 2004, was released June 2, Afghan authorities have confirmed. Idema, a former member of the US Army Special Forces, was arrested… Read moreAfghanistan: US citizen convicted of torturing detainees released
Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, in closing arguments against 27 of the 29 accused in Madrid 3-11 attacks, took time to criticize what he called the “parallel process based on unfounded suspicions” of involvement by the Basque separatist group ETA. In his… Read moreProsecutors diss ETA theory in Madrid trial
Supposed Jemaah Islamiyah leader Abu Dujana was arrested June 9 by Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorist Detachment 88 in a raid in the southern Java town of Yogyakarta, authorities say. The reportedly Afghan-trained Dujana is accused of assisting and harboring Jemaah Islamiyah… Read moreJemaah Islamiyah funds Mindanao insurgents?
In a “mega-march” extending more than 10 kilometers, thousands of teachers from the Section 22 union and their supporters in the Popular People’s Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) marched through southern Mexico’s Oaxaca City June 14 to mark the first anniversary… Read moreOaxaca: “mega-march” commemorates start of uprising
