Like his pal Ahmadinejad in Iran, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez now loans credibility to 9-11 conspiracy theory, if this report is to be trusted. From England’s right-wing Daily Mail Sept. 13: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the United States could have… Read moreChavez weighs in on 9-11 conspiracy theory
On Sept. 14, the House of Representatives voted 283-138 in favor of a bill calling for construction of 700 miles of double-layered fencing along several sections of the 2,000-mile US border with Mexico: around Tecate and Calexico, California; along most… Read moreHouse passes border fence bill
From APRO, Sept. 14, via Chiapas95 (our translation, link added): Tuxtla Gutierrez – Hundreds of campesinos from various social organizations, members of the National Front of Struggle for Socialism (FNLS), today held 13 intermittent blockades of roads in Chiapas, in… Read moreChiapas: roadblocks in solidarity with Oaxaca
Hundreds of thousands of Mexicans marked Independence Day on Sept. 16 by holding a massive meeting, which they called the “Democratic National Convention” (CND), in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zocalo. The crowd voted up plans to carry on a… Read moreMexico: Democratic National Convention declares Lopez Obrador “legitimate president”
On Sept. 11 US magistrate Norbert Garney in El Paso, Tex., ruled that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should release Cuban-born Venezuelan national Luis Posada Carriles under supervision. Garney’s decision is a recommendation, and he sent it to district… Read morePosada Carriles to be freed?
On Sept. 6, Chile’s Senate voted 20-13 with two abstentions against a bill introduced by Socialist senator Alejandro Navarro which would have granted conditional release to jailed Mapuche activists. In May, four Mapuche political prisoners ended a 70-day hunger strike… Read moreChile: Mapuche prisoners betrayed
Now that’s the way to prove the Pope is wrong and Islam is a religion of peace! Way to go, guys! From Reuters, Sept. 17: Gunmen killed an Italian nun at a children’s hospital in Mogadishu on Sunday in an… Read morePapal link seen to Somalia violence
Yet more evidence that Central Asia, increasingly wary of US military designs in the region since 9-11, is radically tilting away from Washington. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan all opened their territories to US forces after 9-11, and Tajikistan, with its… Read moreTajikistan holds military manoeuvres with China
More grisly news from the amusingly eccentric despotism of Saparmurat “Turkmenbashi” Niyazov. It is good to see the outside world paying attention to what goes on in this hermetically-sealed dictatorship, but this case raises the usual dilemmas. Journalist Ogulsapar Muradova… Read moreTurkmenistan: UN scrutiny in journalist’s death
We can feel George Bush cringing. Why did Sacha Baron Cohen have to pick on Kazakhstan of all places, which the US sees as a strategic bulwark against both Russian and Islamist influence in Central Asia, and which Dick Cheney… Read moreKazakhstan: Borat puts Bush in tight spot
Kyrgyzstan briefly surfaced in the headlines following the case of Air Force Major Jill Metzger of North Carolina, assigned to the US base at Manas, who managed to escape after being kidnapped Sept. 5. But the US media pays little… Read moreKyrgyzstan: Uzbek refugees charge forced repatriation
Perhaps this was an exercise in surrealist performance art. From RFE/RL, Sept. 13: International rights organizations are criticizing UNESCO’s decision to award Uzbek President Islam Karimov the Borobudur gold medal for “strengthening friendship and cooperation between the nations, development of… Read moreUzbekistan’s murderous dictator gets human rights award
