After the UK froze a planned $36.1 million aid package, Ethiopia has freed 336 prisoners seized in a crackdown following clashes with police over elections which left 36 dead. But more remain behind bars. The main opposition group, the Coalition… Read moreElectoral violence, ethnic war in Ethiopia
Thank goodness the New York Times put this on the front page, above the fold yesterday. We have excised out two information-free propaganda paragraphs about the “implicit gamble” that anti-terrorist aid to authoritarian states “can backfire”–as if keeping down the… Read moreUzbek units in May massacre received US aid
An action call from the International Solidarity Movement — two of the main Palesinian non-violent organizers in the occupied West Bank village of Bil’in, which holds weekly protests against Israel’s “separation barrier” being built illegally on its farmland, have been… Read morePalestinian non-violent organizers arrested by Israel
A former Taliban official now living on Long Island pleaded guilty in US District Court in Manhattan June 16 to tax fraud and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Noorullah Zadran, 53, of Huntington Station, faces up to 8 months in… Read moreEx-Taliban big cops plea in New York
You almost have to admire the chuztpah of the Bush gang. Not only are they refusing the close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, they are actually planning to expland it–and Halliburton gets the contract! This from the AP: Halliburton Gets… Read moreGitmo to expand; Halliburton gets contract
Dorothy, an Israeli activist, forwarded the following message from Fareed, a villager in Qira, in the Salfit region of the West Bank, south of Nablus and near the major Israeli settlement of Ariel. The town faces an acute water shortage… Read morePalestinian village water supply choked off: action call
We get very little new about the new intifada in Western Sahara, and here’s one of the reasons why: Morocco is effectively barring journalists from the occupied territory. This from Reporters sans Frontières via allAfrica.com, June 17: Journalists in Western… Read moreJournalists under attack in Western Sahara
This June 18 BBC account on Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s approaching 60th birthday provides a good brief overview of the recent escalating violence in Burma: No happy returns for Suu Kyi By Tony Cheng BBC News, Bangkok… Read moreAung San Suu Kyi faces 60th birthday under house arrest
From the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, June 16th, 2005 (online at Stop The Wall): Villagers of Marda Continue To Resist Settler Bypass Road Thirty villagers were injured today during clashes with Occupation Forces in Marda, in the east of… Read morePalestinian village protests land confiscation, attacked by occupation forces
In the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 17, 2005, two Israeli activists protest the reversal of a recent decision by Britain’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) in support of a limited academic boycott of Israel. A British Union Reverses a… Read morePro-academic boycott piece by Israeli activists
Another escalation is reported in the persecution of the Mapuche indigenous people of Chile: the imprisonment of the editor of a Mapuche magazine on six-year-old charges related to a land occupation, effectively preventing him from travelling to Canada for a… Read moreChile: Mapuche editor imprisoned
Almost completely overlooked by the world media, the insurgency of the Naxalites, India’s Maoist guerillas, has been simmering since the 1960s, and now shows signs of gaining ground, as indicated by this June 17 report from the Indian news agency… Read moreIndia: Maoist insurgency gains ground
