The Feb. 8 NY Times featured an op-ed by Shirin Ebadi, Iranian dissident attorney and winner of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, co-authored with Hadi Ghaem of Human Rights Watch: "The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran". Ebadi is skeptical… Read moreIranian Nobel Laureate dissident blasts US intervention
A traditional Punjabi festival of the approaching spring, Basant, is the source of controversy in Pakistan, where Islamic clerics went to court in an unsuccessful bid to have the celebrations banned and revelry in Lahore left at least 17 dead…. Read moreIslamists protest Pakistan spring festival
What an irony: Just after the tsunami’s horrific toll has (briefly) focused world attention on Indonesia’s grisly counter-insurgency war in Aceh, the US State Department is moving to approve restoration of official Pentagon ties to Indonesia’s military. Indonesia’s participation in… Read moreUS to resume Indonesia military ties
On Feb. 5, the eve of Guerrero gubernatorial elections, suspected guerillas of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) attacked police posts in Acapulco, leaving four dead, including a 15-year-old boy who was making a call at a payphone. (AP, Feb. 5)… Read morePurported guerilla attacks mar Mexican elections
Guerillas of the Baluchistan Liberation Army threatened to blow up Pakistan’s most important oil and gas facility at Dhodak, in the central province of Punjab. The statement, phoned into several newspapers Feb. 6 by a spokesman called Azad Baluch (an… Read moreBaluchi rebels threaten Pakistan oilfields
For the fourth time in a week, a public speech by Ward Churchill was cancelled for "security reasons"–this time at his own University of Colorado. Each school he was scheduled to appear at reported an avalanche of calls and e-mails… Read moreChurchill cancelled at four more colleges
Newly-confirmed US Atttorney General Alberto Gonzales may begin his term as an indicted war criminal. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed new documents January 31 with the German Federal Prosecutor looking into war crimes charges against high-ranking US… Read moreGonzales may face war crimes charges in Germany
Reporters Without Borders issued a statement Feb. 5 protesting a "smear campaign" against Moroccan journalist Ali Lmrabet, who has been accused of "treason" in numerous pro-government media outlets since he ran a piece in the Spanish daily El Mundo on… Read moreMorocco: journalist threatened for Western Sahara reportage
The UN’s IRIN news agency reports that Nigerian troops shot and killed four villagers who were protesting at the main export terminal run by ChevronTexaco in the Niger Delta Feb. 4. Over 200 protesters from the village of Ugborodo near… Read moreNigeria: protesters shot at Chevron terminal
The largely invisible suffering of Afghanistan’s internal refugees made a rare appearance in the US media Feb. 4 with a NY Times story and front-page (below-the-fold) photo. The article noted that eighteen people have died in the refugee camps outside… Read moreAfghan refugees: still in plight
The Irish Republican Army announced Feb. 2 it is withdrawing from the Northern Ireland peace talks and rescinding its disarmament proposal, accusing both London and Dublin of bad faith by blaming the IRA for a $50 million Belfast bank heist… Read moreIRA quits peace talks; Ulster back to brink?
Indian Country Today, the national weekly run by the Oneida Nation in upstate New York, ran a story Feb. 3 casting doubt on Ward Churchill's claims to be a Native American. The account by Indian Country Today staff writer Jim… Read moreIs Ward Churchill really an Indian?
