From American Friends Service Committee, Feb. 7: PHILADELPHIA – The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker humanitarian service organization, has nominated two Colombian groups for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their extraordinary commitment to nonviolence in the midst… Read moreColombian peasant, indigenous groups nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Earlier this month, a delegation from the Bush adminisation met with President Alvaro Uribe in Bogota to evaluate what Uribe is calling “Plan Colombia II.” The delegation was led by assistant secretary of state for hemispheric affairs Tom Shannon and… Read moreUribe boasts “Plan Colombia II”; Bush policy unchanged
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo stepped down Feb. 19, four days after the Supreme Court ordered the arrest of her brother Senator Alvaro Araujo and 12 other legislators for their ties to the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), the… Read moreColombia: foreign minister resigns as para scandal heats up
Some long-belated progress in the struggle of another stateless ethnicity left off the map in the colonial and post-colonial carve-ups. From Reuters, Feb. 21: ALGIERS – The Malian government and Tuareg rebels agreed on Tuesday to start implementing an Algerian-brokered… Read moreMali: Tuareg rebels agree to disarm
Among the world’s many escalating cycles of terror and militarization that fail to make headlines is that in Northeast India, the scene of multiple tribal and ethnic struggles which the government has long been attempting to crush or co-opt. We… Read moreIndia: police torch homes in Northeast border dispute
That certainly seems to be the implication of these statements from the Tehran regime. Oh and by the way, it sure didn’t take long to get a conviction, did it? From UPI, Feb. 19: Man hanged in public in Iran… Read moreIran: CIA behind Baluchistan terror?
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC by its French initials) has been very busy lately. With little note in the world media, Tunisia last month apparently squelched a plot to attack the US and British embassies. It ended… Read moreNYT: North Africa “staging ground for terror”
Another ominous sub-plot in the struggle for Iraq’s oil—and a step closer to the brink for a region that has thus far managed to avoid complete embroilment in Iraq’s civil war. From AP via the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA),… Read moreIraq: Turkey demands delay in Kirkuk referendum
From IRIN via Electronic Iraq, Feb. 20: BAGHDAD – Umm Muhammad Jalal, 39, starts every day walking to a river 7km away from her temporary home in a displacement camp on the outskirts of Fallujah, 70km west of the capital,… Read moreIraq: critical water shortage in Fallujah
We strongly suspect that the front-page Feb. 19 story in the New York Times—based entirely on anonymous “studies” and quotes from anonymous “officials”—purporting huge hydrocarbon deposits in Iraq’s Sunni center (“Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise” by… Read moreIraq: oil lure fails to chill out jihadis
Despite a long activist campaign against India’s controversial Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada River, authorities have just announced the project’s completion. From Planet Ark World Environment News, Feb. 1: AHMEDABAD – India completed construction of a highly ambitious… Read moreIndia: completion of Sardar Sarovar dam announced
The Feb. 18 fire bombing that killed 68 mostly Pakistani passengers and destroyed two coaches on the Samjhauta Express about an hour after the train left New Delhi was an obvious attack on one of the most visible symbols of… Read moreIndia, Pakistan pledge “anti-terrorist” cooperation after deadly train attack
