In his tour of Mexico’s northern state of Sonora, Zapatista Subcommander Marcos made public the existence of “forced labor camps,” where mostly indigenous migrant laborers from Chiapas, Oaxaca, Guerrero and southern Veracruz live in “inhuman conditions” and “virtual slavery.” “They… Read moreMarcos: forced labor camps in Sonora
File under “Well, duh.” From Reuters, Oct. 22: HOUSTON – Halliburton Co , the world’s No. 2 oilfield services group, on Sunday posted a 25 percent rise in earnings, beating Wall Street forecasts, on robust spending by producers on oil… Read moreHalliburton profits soar
Can you say deja vu? How about chutzpah? From BBC, Oct. 24: North warns against Ortega vote Ex-White House aide Oliver North—at the centre of a 1980s scheme to finance Contra rebels in Nicaragua—has warned the country not to return… Read moreOliver North meddles in Nicaragua —again!
Thousands of people marched in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Oct. 8 to demand the release of four Puerto Rican political prisoners being held in US jails. Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydee Beltran Torres have been jailed… Read morePuerto Rico: march for political prisoners
Paraguayan foreign minister Ruben Ramirez announced on Oct. 2 that in 2007 Paraguay will stop granting US troops immunity from prosecution. The change in policy is an effort to coordinate policies with the other member nations in the Mercosur economic… Read moreParaguay: US troops lose immunity
Late on Oct. 4, Julian Andres Hurtado Castillo was shot to death outside his home in the Las Granjas neighborhood of the Colombian city of Cali, in Valle del Cauca department. The killers–apparently paid professionals–were a man and a woman… Read moreColombia: student leader murdered
Arthur Neslen on the UK Guardian’s Comment is Free blog Oct. 25 outlines various intellectual responses to the ascendance of the frightening Avigdor Lieberman to the Israeli cabinet. One which he overlooks is the “smokescreen” response, put forth by the… Read moreAvigdor Lieberman: “fascism” or “smokescreen”?
From Reuters, Oct. 25: Berlin: IAF jets fire shots over German ship off coast of Lebanon Two Israel Air Force warplanes and a German navy vessel have clashed off the Lebanese coast, the Defense Ministry in Berlin said on Wednesday… Read moreIsraeli war planes and German navy clash off Lebanon coast
If this turns out to be true, we wager the beneficiary will be Iyad Allawi. From UPI, Oct. 23: CAIRO — Iraqi army officers are reportedly planning to stage a military coup with U.S. help to oust the government of… Read moreUS planning Iraq coup d’etat?
In a class-action lawsuit filed on Sept. 25, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and the Stanford Law School Immigrants’ Rights Clinic charged that ICE routinely holds immigrants longer than six months… Read moreImmigrants’ lawsuit challenges detention
Continuing on his tour of Mexico’s north, Zapatista Subcommander Marcos stopped in Sonoyta (the Sonora border town across from Lukeville, AZ), where his caravan drove into the desert and stopped at the fence demarcating the international border, where signs warned… Read moreSubcommander Marcos crosses into USA!
After a heated all-night assembly, on the morning of Oct. 22 delegates of 70,000 teachers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca voted down a proposal to end a strike that has paralyzed the capital city, also named Oaxaca, for… Read moreOaxaca: vote to end strike overturned
