From the New York Times, Dec. 28, via IHT: A recent series of indictments and revelations about corrupt federal agents has rocked the attorney general’s office here and undermined one of President Vicente Fox’s few solid accomplishments: the creation of… Read moreNarco scandals shake elite Mexican federal police force
From Newsday Dec. 28, via Sikhnews: From Queens to a rural district in his native India, word of the Yellow cab driver’s death spread quickly Tuesday. Gurbaj Singh immigrated five years ago to Richmond Hill, where he lived and died…. Read moreWHY WE FIGHT
Tensions are mounting between Russia and Ukraine over the former’s massive hike in the price of natural gas it sells to the latter. Ukraine has until now received cut-price gas in return for allowing Russia to pipe fuel across its… Read moreMoscow-Kiev tensions escalate
A very enlightening piece from the Dec. 28 Christian Science Monitor, “Kremlin reasserts control of oil, gas” by Fred Weir, points to Moscow designs to reassert its power in Eurasia, and possibly eventually on the global stage. This, in turn,… Read moreRussia flexes petro-muscle
From The Scotsman, Dec. 26: French police said about 100 vehicles were burned overnight, which marked an average weekend tally for urban violence and did not signify a flare-up of violence after riots last month. Some French regions have banned… Read moreFrance: car burnings back to “average”
More than 3,500 Congolese soldiers, supported by 600 UN troops and helicopter gunships, launched attacks Dec. 24 on guerillas operating in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sixteen government troops and some 35 guerillas are reported… Read moreUN troops, Congolese forces battle Uganda rebels
One of the real signs of hope in Afghanistan is that the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), until recently active only in the refugee camps in Pakistan, has been able to establish an open presence in the… Read moreAfghanistan: fund drive for RAWA orphanages
From AP, Dec. 23: PARIS — A French military tribunal opened an investigation Friday into allegations that French peacekeepers facilitated attacks on ethnic minority Tutsis during the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans, judicial officials said. A… Read moreFrench role in Rwanda genocide probed
From Indian Country Today, Dec. 16: PORTLAND, Maine – American Indian leaders from four tribes in Maine met with representatives of the Venezuelan Embassy and became the first tribes in the nation to begin working out details for the delivery… Read moreMaine tribes view Venezuela oil deal
For the second time this year, Republicans resorted to the sneaky tactic of slipping a provision to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling into a big appropriations package. Last time, it passed the Senate but the… Read moreRepublican blackmail fails to open ANWR
It seems the NYPD has ben busy infiltrating bicycle rides in the name of the War on Terrorism for the past year and change. From the Dec. 22 New York Times—fortunately the front page: Undercover New York City police officers… Read moreNYC: police infiltrate Critical Mass
More ironically positive developments in the José Padilla case. First, his lawyers demanded that the Justice Department charge him with a crime, rather than hold him in military custody indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.” Now that the Justice Department has… Read moreAnother ironic victory in Padilla case
