Mexico

Mexico: narco-tank factory busted in Tamaulipas

Soldiers patroling the Mexican border town of Ciudad Camargo discovered a warehouse where two armor-plated “tanks” were being constructed. Authorities have intercepted 100 such “narco-tanks,” which the press has dubbed “The Monsters.”

Iran

Iran: contract workers demand rights

A deadly explosion at the Abadan refinery has crystalized the precarious situation facing Iranian oil workers, who are mobilizing to demand an end to neoliberal measuresthat deny them the right to unionize.

North Africa

Libya: mercenaries fighting on both sides?

Following recent charges that Israeli spook firms are recruiting mercenaries for Qaddafi come claims that the CIA is recruiting mercenaries for the Libyan rebels. Yet the rebel government had apparently arrested a team of these “mercenaries”…

The Andes

Afro-Colombian community leader assassinated in Medellín

Ana Fabricia Córdoba, a leader of displaced Afro-Colombians seeking return of their usurped lands, was slain by an unidentified gunman on a city bus in Medellín. Her daughters received a phone threat that they would “end up the same way.”

Palestine

West Bank mosque torched in “price tag” attack

The mosque in the village of Maghayer near Ramallah suffered damage and threatening graffiti in a pre-dawn vandal and arson attack—with scrawled slogans calling it a “price tag” by Israeli settlers.

The Caribbean

Haiti: US cables released, new housing dangers revealed

WikiLeaks is releasing 1,918 previously unpublished diplomatic cables concerning Haiti to the weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté—the first revealing the details of US pressure to keep Haiti out of the Venezuela-led PetroCaribe program.

Southern Cone

Argentina: indigenous activists fast for land rights

The government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner finally agreed to negotiate seriously with Qom (Toba) protesters after 16 community members started an open-ended hunger strike in Buenos Aires.