Pakistan's security forces have been waging a "secret war" in the Baluchistan region since the death of tribal leader Mir Balaach Marri in combat last month. Peter Tatchell writes in The Guardian, Dec. 21: "The often indiscriminate attacks on civilian settlements are taking place mostly in the Kahan and Dera Bugti regions, and involve the deployment of heavy artillery, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships. Pakistan's attacks have reportedly, so far, resulted in deaths of at least 100 men, women and children. More than 200 houses and other buildings, including schools and clinics, have been bombed and burned to the ground. Many farm animals were also killed in the attacks, depriving already poor people of their livelihood."

"Al-Qaeda right now seems to have turned its face toward Pakistan and attacks on the Pakistani government and Pakistani people," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Dec. 21. "There is no question that some of the areas in the frontier area have become areas where al-Qaeda has re-established itself." (LAT, Dec. 21) He spoke one day after Congress slapped restrictions on military aid to Pakistan, withholding $50 million of the administration's $300 million request until Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certifies Islamabad is restoring democratic rights. (WP, Dec. 21)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he agreed with the idea of an international force for the Occupied Territories, proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Paris donors' conference Dec. 18. The an-Nasser Salah Addin Brigades, military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, vocally rejected the idea, spokesman Abu Abeer saying: "We will not receive any international forces with flowers; instead we will be ready to blow [up] our bodies in these forces as we will consider them a new occupation which we must get rid of by any means." Later, the an-Nasser Brigades called on Abbas to resume dialogue with Hamas "before it is too late." (Ma'an News Agency, Dec. 18)

Dear Friends,

From the perspective of three decades-plus in the progressive media, I'm writing to let you know what an incredibly important resource World War 4 Report is—and why we need to support it now if we want it to continue.

From the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), Dec. 19:

Bush Administration Trains Members of Indonesian Terrorist Groups
Human rights advocates have learned that the US is training members of Kopassus, the notorious Indonesian Special Forces unit with a long record of human rights violations. The similarly-brutal Brimob, the para-military mobile police brigade, is receiving training as well.

Brazilian Bishop Luiz Cappio of Barra, Bahia, announced during mass Dec. 20 that he was ending his 23-day hunger strike against a massive government water diversion project. President Luiz "Lula" Inacio da Silva said the previous day that the project will go forward, as Brazil's Supreme Court overruled a federal judge who had ordered construction halted. Brazil's largest public works project is to divert water from the Rio Sao Francisco through 700 kilometers of canals to towns and farms in the arid northeast, where Lula was born. Bishop Cappio, who had been hospitalized the previous day, "decided to interrupt the fasting, but not the fight," said his assistant Adriano Martins. (Reuters, BBC, Correio da Bahia, Dec. 20)

Haitian women's organizations are now demanding reparations from Sri Lanka and an investigation by Haitian authorities of alleged sexual abuses by troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). In November Haitian women's groups and human rights groups had reported that at least 111 Sri Lanka MINUSTAH soldiers were repatriated because of their involvement in the abuses. The United Nations now acknowledges that Office of Internal Oversight Services started an investigation after reports in August of abuses in Port-au-Prince's impoverished Martissant neighborhood, but it has failed to make its findings public or share them with the Haitian government.

After a two-day trial, on Dec. 12 Haitian judge Emmanuel Tataye sentenced Jean Remy Demosthene and Joubert Saint Juste to life at hard labor for the Dec. 3, 2001 murder of journalist Brignol Lindor in the southwestern city of Petit-Goave. A third defendant, variously referred to as "Fritzner Doudoute," "Fritznel Doudoute" and "Lyonel Doudoute," was held over while his identity was being verified. A fourth defendant, Simon Cetoute, was acquitted; he apparently was arrested instead of his son, who is deceased. The judge has ordered six other defendants to turn themselves in.