From Gush Shalom, Nov. 3:

Gaza: Stop the Siege! Stop the War!
A month of protest: November 4—December 2, 2006

The situation in Gaza has reached emergency levels—inadequate water, electricity, and medicine; widespread hunger, poverty, and unemployment; schools and other services out of operation; and constant bombardments and attacks by the Israeli military. The problem is the siege of the Gaza Strip by Israel and the sanctions imposed by the international community, made worse by ongoing IDF attacks. If this siege continues, we will see spreading disease, malnutrition, and anarchy.

Mexican federal police pushed through barricades on roads leading to Oaxaca's state university Nov. 2, firing tear-gas canisters and water cannons at protesters, who fought back with rocks, slingshots and molotov cocktails. But the police stopped short of crossing onto the campus. At least eight people were injured in the fighting, including a newspaper photographer who was "hit by fireworks" launched by protesters, according to the New York Times. Flavio Sosa, a leader of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) pledged "we will not surrender." (WP, NYT, Nov. 3; La Jornada, Nov. 2)

From LA's NBC4-TV, Nov. 2:

FORT HUACHACA, Ariz. — The federal government has unveiled a new multimillion-dollar gadget to patrol and protect the U.S.-Mexican border.

From Turkey's Zaman, Nov. 2:

A 92-year-old retired Turkish archaeologist has been acquitted in a rights trial in which she was accused of "inciting hatred by insulting people based on their religion.”

Our October issue featured the story "Save Darfur: Zionist Conspiracy?" by Ned Goldstein, exploring propaganda exploitation of the genocide in Sudan by Israel and US imperialism. A companion feature by WW4 REPORT Editor Bill Weinberg, "From Darfur to Mauritania," noted the survival of slavery and persecution of Black African peoples across the entire Sahel region—while also noting how the region's conflicts are exploited by rival multinational oil interests. The October Exit Poll was: "Should the UN intervene in Darfur, or is it all a Zionist/imperialist conspiracy for 'regime change' in Sudan?" We received the following responses:

From AP, Oct. 30:

MARSEILLE -- France's interior minister sent riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille yesterday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, gravely burning a young woman.

Pakistan's army admitted Oct. 31 it had killed up to 80 in an early-morning strike on a supposedly al-Qaeda-linked madrassa in a tribal area near the Afghan border. The military action sparked protests in the area, and in the neighbouring North-West Frontier Province, where a local minister belonging to the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami resigned. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, the religious coalition that rules the province, announced it would organize nation-wide protests beginning Oct. 31. Qazi Hussein Ahmed, leader of JI and the MMA, rejected the military claim that the madrasa was harboring militants and said a number of children were among the dead. He asserted that the army had acted under pressure from the US.

An Oct. 24 explosion at the University of Atlantico left four students dead and four wounded in the city of Barranquilla, capital of Atlantico department on Colombia's Caribbean coast. (Some sources say three students were killed and five wounded.) The police announced on Oct. 25 that the wounded students would be investigated for their presumed responsibility in the explosion. Another two students have also been arrested in connection with the incident.