On Aug. 27 Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice voted 11-3 to uphold an April 2007 law in the Federal District (DF, Mexico City) allowing voluntary abortion during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The Catholic Church and the governing center-right… Read moreMexico: Supreme Court upholds abortion law
On Aug. 21 Alberto Cervantes Juarez, first criminal court judge in Texcoco for the central Mexican state of Mexico, sentenced campesino leader Ignacio del Valle Medina to 45 years in prison for allegedly kidnapping state officials and state and federal… Read moreMexico: new sentences in Atenco case
Most of the 23,000 school teachers in the central Mexican state of Morelos went on strike on Aug. 13 to protest the local implementation of a national plan called the Alliance for Quality of Education (ACE). The teachers, in Local… Read moreMexico: Morelos teachers strike
On Aug. 28 a federal criminal court in the northwestern Argentine province of Tucumán sentenced former generals Antonio Domingo Bussi and Luciano Benjamin Menendez to life in prison for the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of ex-senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in… Read moreArgentina: two generals get life
Cuban punk rocker Gorki Aguila, lead singer of Porno para Ricardo, charged with “social dangerousness” because of his songs denouncing and deriding the government, was released with a $28 fine after calling upon his fans to hold a public protest…. Read moreCuba: dissident punk rocker scores political win
President Hugo Chávez announced a measure to nationalize wholesale gasoline distribution in Venezuela—despite the lobbying of British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, whose local subsidiaries currently control the business. Under the measure, which received initial approval in the National Assembly… Read moreChávez to nationalize oil distro, move towards “Gas Revolution”
In a critical decision on Aug. 27, one of Brazil’s supreme court judges voted in favor of maintaining Raposa Serra do Sol (RSS) as a continuous indigenous land. Although the other judges on the court still need to vote on… Read moreBrazil: judge upholds demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol
Our August issue featured the story “Hokkaido: The Anti-Climate Summit” by Walden Bello of Foreign Policy in Focus, arguing that the G8 nations derailed meaningful efforts to address global climate change at the July summit in Japan. Bello protests that… Read moreClimate change and economic growth: our readers write
On Aug. 25, dozens of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested approximately 595 workers in a raid on an electric transformer manufacturing facility owned by Howard Industries, Inc. in Laurel, Miss., a town of 20,000. The agents sealed… Read moreICE raids Mississippi factory; 595 arrested
On the weekend before the Republican National Convention, law enforcement agencies in the Twin Cities temporarily detained dozens of people and issued a series of search warrants aimed at groups organizing protests. Attorneys for the National Lawyers Guild said those… Read morePre-emptive sweeps in Twin Cities
Buried in a White House proposal for hearing legal appeals from detainees at Guantánamo Bay, is a provision that calls on Congress to “acknowledge again and explicitly that this nation remains engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the… Read moreBush calls on Congress to “institutionalize” GWOT
Iraq has signed its first major oil deal with a foreign company since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime—a 20-year, $3 billion contract with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop fields in southern Wasit province. The deal marks… Read more“Liberated” Iraq signs first foreign oil deal —with China!
