Followers of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr insist their leader is still in Iraq, disputing claims by US officials that he has fled to Iran to avoid a new offensive against militants. Four Sadr aides said he was still in… Read moreWhere is Moqtada al-Sadr?
From the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, Feb. 14: An Ahwazi Arab teacher, Reisan Sawari, died while on hunger strike on Tuesday. Sawari had been held in solitary confinement for a year and was protesting against his conditions. He was a… Read moreIran: teacher dies on hunger strike
From the Barre-Montpelier Times-Argus, Feb. 14: MONTPELIER — Vermont’s Legislature became the first in the country Tuesday to pass a resolution calling for an immediate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Although the Senate passed the measure without… Read moreVermont passes anti-war resolution
A year ago, al-Qaeda issued a call for its followers to target oil infrastructure throughout the Islamic world. Now it threatens to take the campaign global, calling for attacks on US suppliers in the western hemisphere—especially invoking Canada, Mexico and… Read moreAl-Qaeda: target global oil infrastructure
Italian police claim to have averted a major terrorist incident after the arrest of 15 men and women in northern Italy, who they said were members of the Red Brigades. The alleged leader of the plot, Alfredo Davanzo, 50, imprisoned… Read moreItaly: armed left re-emerges?
The passing of Turkmenistan’s wacky despot Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov and the country’s first-ever multi-candidate (although not multi-party) elections have brought no surprises so far. In the weeks prior to the Feb. 11 vote, Turkmen officials announced that foreign journalists would… Read moreTurkmenistan: pseudo-elections bring no surprise
Eighteen people were killed when a bomb exploded next to a bus owned by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the southeast city of Zahedan, the official IRNA news agency reports. “In this act 18 Zahedan citizens have been martyred,” said Qassim… Read moreTerror strikes Iran: Baluchistan blowback?
The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) said in a statement issued Jan. 30 that it is adding 350 Nepalese soldiers to its force in order to fight crime in Port-au-Prince. The light infantry battalion of Nepalese soldiers began… Read moreHaiti: UN to increase force by 350
On the early morning of Jan. 25 some 100 state and municipal police agents removed workers and campesinos who for more than two weeks had been blocking access to the Los Filos gold mine near the community of Carrizalillo in… Read moreMexico: campesinos block gold mine
Tens of thousands of Mexicans filled Mexico City’s huge Zocalo plaza on Jan. 31 in the first large demonstration against the center-right government of President Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, who took office on Dec. 1 and now faces popular anger over… Read moreMexico: march for “new social pact”
On Jan. 31, rightwing paramilitaries murdered community activist Yolanda Izquierdo in the city of Monteria, capital of Cordoba department in northern Colombia. Izquierdo had been receiving death threats since December, when she attended the first preliminary hearing where paramilitary leader… Read moreColombia: displaced activists murdered
On Feb. 7, some 20,000 Paraguayan campesinos held protests at 10 sites around the country as part of a national mobilization to draw attention to the low income they receive from agricultural production and to demand solutions to their plight…. Read moreParaguay: campesino protest repressed
