Our July issue featured stories on the widely divergent ways in which Cuba and North Korea have responded to critical oil shortages since the Soviet collapse (a foreshadowing of a reckoning the whole planet will have to face, sooner or later), as well as the South American Regional Infrastructure Integration project (IIRSA). The July Exit Poll was: "Will 'peak oil' paralyze world commerce and industry before IIRSA can complete its gridding of the South American continent?" We received three intelligent responses.

Another turn of the screw. The NYPD unveils draconian new regulations in the ongoing crackdown on the Critical Mass bicyclists. The elitist New York Timess refuses to put this fine July 21 column by Clyde Haberman online for free, but we present it here in the interests of free speech and open discourse:

Thousands of people demonstrated across Latin America the week of July 17 to protest Israel's air and ground attacks in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip starting the week before.

About 500 protesters rallied on July 17 outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a demonstration organized by Argentine Arab associations, leftist groups and activist organizations, including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Anibal Veron piquetero ("picketer") organization of the poor and unemployed. "Today the state of Israel is applying state terrorism and a plan for extermination the way the [1976-1983] Argentine dictatorship did," Confederation of Arab Entities of Argentina vice president Roberto Ahuad told the French news service AFP.

From CNN, July 20:

Lebanese refugees pour across Syrian border
YABOSS, Syria — As many as 50,000 refugees from Lebanon poured through one border crossing into Syria alone Thursday, officials said, as the desperate and displaced fled to escape Israel's bombing campaign.

"¡Farouk Vive! ¡La Lucha Sigue!"
Vigil Commemorating the Life of Farouk Abdel-Muhti

New York-based Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti died suddenly of a heart attack on July 21, 2004, three weeks before his 57th birthday and 100 days after he was released from immigration detention. Federal agents and New York City police arrested Farouk in April 2002, just as he was beginning to work as a producer of segments on Palestine at New York's WBAI-FM. The US government then held him in a series of county and federal facilities for nearly two years—in clear violation of his constitutional rights—and refused to release him until ordered to do so by a federal district judge.

From Lebanon's Daily Star, July 19:

Latest targets of air blitz: milk and medicine
BEIRUT: Israel switched gears in its military campaign against Lebanon Monday and Tuesday, launching a series of debilitating air strikes against privately owned factories throughout the country and dealing a devastating blow to an economy already paralyzed by a week of hits on residential areas and crucial infrastructure.

From the International Middle East Media Center (IMEC), July 18:

Troops invade Nablus, occupy a building belonging to its municipality
Israeli soldiers operating in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus broke into a building belonging to the Nablus municipality and used it as military post. Soldiers also occupied a school and fired shells at several houses in Old City.

From DPA, July 18:

At least 47 people were killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon on Monday and 10 more bodies were found, pushing the death toll from the Israeli offensive to more than 200 over the past six days.