AP reported Aug. 2 that federal investigators used provisions of the USA Patriot Act to search and bug a 360-foot tunnel under the US-Canadian border, and eavesdrop as hundreds of pounds of British Columbia-grown marijuana was brought through it. Agents… Read morePatriot Act protects Americans from hydroponic marijuana
We Are All Rotten Apples by Nirit Ben-Ari On August 4, Eden Natan-Zada, an Israeli soldier wearing a military uniform and carrying a gun given to him by the army, opened fire on passengers on an Egged bus in the… Read moreDissident Israeli view on the Shfaram attack
At least three are dead in a land dispute between Tzeltal Maya ejidos (collective farming communities) in Mexico’s conflicted southern state of Chiapas. More than 20 families have been displaced following the violence between the ejidos of El Chamizal and… Read moreLand, resource conflicts in Chiapas
The National Council of Resistance of Iran reports that on Aug. 3 thousands took to the streets of Saqez, capital of Iran’s Kurdistan province, against the clerical regime, and in solidarity with uprisings in other cities in the region, including… Read moreUprisings rock western Iran
NYC activist Robert Lederman offers the following commentary on the below Aug. 5 AP story on plans to conduct simulated bio-chemical warfare attacks in the city: I don’t want to be an alarmist but isn’t this the exact pattern of… Read moreBio-chem warfare tests in NYC
Both houses of Congress have now voted to extend the most onerous measures of the PATRIOT Act, which is due to expire in December. (IHT, Aug. 1) But these measures still may not survive judicial review. From Immigration News Briefs,… Read moreJudge: Patriot Act provisions unconstitutional
Writing for Toward Freedom Aug. 2, Benjamin Dangl provides an overview of regional press coverage of the new US troop presence in Paraguay. Dangl finds that the troop contingent—ostensibly sent in support of humanitarian missions like road-building—is actually about policing… Read moreParaguay: Pentagon base to police Bolivia?
Amnesty International has released testimony from two Yemeni men now detained in their own country, who were recently transfered there from Guantanamo Bay but also told of being held at a secret US detention facility at an unknown location where… Read moreTestimony claims secret CIA archipelago
In his Aug. 4 video-communique, al-Qaeda bigshot Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the 7-7 bombings were payback for British participation in the United States’ “policy of aggression against Muslims.” While not directly taking credit for the London bombings, he promised more… Read moreAl-Zawahiri: It’s Iraq, stupid!
The L.A. Times had this week two op-eds on Hiroshima. That’s way above average; the NY Times, for example, had none. Instead, the NY Times editors managed to harness the August 6 holocaust to score a political cheap shot in… Read moreHiroshima, or how we learned to build a love-hate relationship with the Bomb
Tricked into enlisting, US soldier found most soldiers would rather self-mutilate than serve in Iraq. Dateline: Sunday, July 24, 2005 as told by Joshua Key, and written up by Annick Cojean for Le Monde, translation at straightgoods.ca I am a… Read moreU.S. army deserter’s log: Zombies in the Fog of War
Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history August 6 and August 9 will mark the 60th anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in… Read moreLest we forget…
