From AP, via the New York Times, Jan. 10: President-elect Evo Morales of Bolivia met with President Hu Jintao of China in Beijing and called China an “ideological ally,” a day after he invited it to develop Bolivia’s vast gas… Read moreBolivia: Evo woos China on gas investment
From DPA, Jan. 9, via United Arab Emirates’ Khaleej Times: ISLAMABAD – Pakistan on Monday said it has launched a strong protest with the Afghan-based Coalition Forces over weekend firing from across the border that killed eight people in the… Read moreAfghan war spills into Pakistan
From Newsday, Jan. 9: [A] French engineer abducted Dec. 5 apparently was dumped on a Baghdad street by his fleeing captors and recovered by U.S. troops, who turned him turned over to the French Embassy on Sunday, according to Iraqi… Read moreIraq: jihadis don’t read newspapers
From Arab Monitor, Jan. 8: US occupation troops burst into the Umm al-Qura Mosque compound in western Baghdad and ransacked the offices of the headquarter of the Association of Muslim Scholars. The troops arrested a member of the Association, two… Read moreIraq: US troops raid Muslim Scholars Association
Zapatista leaders and family members held a small, private funeral for Comandante Ramona somewhere in the territory of the mountain hamlet of Oventic Jan. 7. The exact location was not revealed. (El Universal, Jan. 7) In a Jan. 9 communique,… Read moreZapatistas mourn Ramona; national tour rescheduled
Lt. Gen. Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, the Brazilian head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), was found dead in his room at Port-au-Prince’s Montana Hotel on Jan. 7 after apparently shooting himself in the head, according… Read moreHaiti: UN mission head found dead
Talli Nauman writes for Mexico’s El Universal, Jan. 7 via Chiapas95: Representatives of the first peoples of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States have issued a joint communique’ they hope will set the new year’s agenda for protection of… Read moreIndigenous peoples set environmental agenda for US-Mexico border
On Jan. 6, just as the Zapatista national tour (dubbed the “Other Campaign” in reference to the presidential campaigns now underway in Mexico) had reached the town of Tonala, in the Pacific coastal zone of Chiapas state, word arrived that… Read moreZapatista tour halts for funeral of Comandante Ramona
Chadian gunmen killed an African Union peacekeeper and wounded at least 10 others in an attack in the Darfur region near the Sudan-Chad border, Sudanese authorities said Jan. 7. It was not clear whether the attackers were from the Chadian… Read moreChad in “state of war” with Sudan; World Bank yanks pipeline loan
On Dec. 30, a Border Patrol agent shot 20-year old Guillermo Martinez Rodriguez, a native of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, as he and his brother, Agustin Martinez Rodriguez, were fleeing back into Mexico. The brothers had sought to enter the US… Read moreUS-Mexico tension over border death
The Zapatista rebels' "Other Campaign"—thusly named in reference to the presidential campaigns now underway in Mexico—has held rallies at various locations around the state of Chiapas since it took off from the jungle village of La Garrucha on New Years… Read moreZapatista “Other Campaign” on the road
As if the controversy over the Basque country wasn’t enough, now a Spanish general rattles the proverbial sabre over moves by Catalonia, Spain’s most industrialized region, to seek greater autonomy from Madrid. A lovely irony: as the world waits for… Read moreSpain: top general warns of war over Catalan autonomy
