Near-simultaneous bombs exploded at courthouses in the northern Indian cities of Lucknow, Varanasi, and Faizabad Nov. 23, killing at least 13 lawyers (nine in Varanasi; four in Faizabad), and leaving over 50 injured. All three cities are in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where lawyers declared earlier this year they will not defend terrorist suspects. The explosives were apparently packed on parked bicycles at the court complexes. Authorities say they suspect militant groups trying to spark violence between India's Hindu majority and Muslim minority. Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city, was the site of terror attacks on a Hindu temple and a train station last year. Faizabad is near the site of the attack on the Babri Mosque in 1992, which sparked widespread Hindu-Muslim riots. (Jurist, NDTV, Nov. 23)

The Iranian town of Boroujerd, Luristan province, is tense and divided following the Nov. 10 destruction of a hosseinieh or monastery belonging to the Gonabadi Sufi order by the police and Basij paramilitary forces. According to Mohsen Yahyavi, the conservative parliamentary representative for Boroujerd, the trouble began when Sufis abducted and beat several youths affiliated with a nearby mosque. The Sufis, however, tell a different story. One young female follower of the order told IPS: "Religious vigilantes had once before tried to bulldoze the hosseinieh and succeeded in destroying parts of its walls. This time on the night before the hosseinieh was completely destroyed, the Basij militia and the vigilantes staged a bogus attack on a nearby mosque where there was a gathering to criticize Sufi beliefs. The attack was then blamed on the Sufis to justify the attack on the hosseinieh."

Iran's hardline daily newspaper Jamhouri Eslami made a rare attack on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making espionage accusations against a former nuclear negotiator, Hossein Mousavian, and saying that influential politicians were using their power to have him cleared. Mousavian was an aide to former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "Lately defaming political rivals has become common in the country and has replaced lawful behaviour," the newspaper wrote in an editorial. "We want to reject this kind of behavior as immoral, illegal, illogical and un-Islamic and remind wise figures that such a trend is dangerous for the country."

A statement by the Organization for Women's Liberation—Iran, Nov 8:

We condemn the war against people in Iran!
The risk of a military attack against people in Iran is imminent. The US administration is adamant about an attack against Iran. The US government is trying to gain support of other states and the public opinion in the US for the attack. The French foreign minister has defended military attack against Iran. They claim war is inevitable if Islamic regime is to be prevented from producing nuclear weapons. On the other hand the Islamic regime is flaring up the fire of war. Both sides have escalated their war propaganda. Economic sanctions against Iran too are adding to the prospect of death and devastation.

Your tax dollars at work. From the marijuana advocacy site CelebStoner, Nov. 14:

California crop report: Nearly three million pot plants destroyed
California not only leads the nation in pot production, but also in plant eradication. With the outdoor harvest over, the state's Department of Justice announced on Nov. 13 that 2.9 million cannabis plants were destroyed this year. That's an increase of 1.2 million plants since last year and a total increase of 1.8 million plants since 2005.

Some 800 students from Mexican teachers colleges occupied the state legislature building in Chilpancingo, capital of the southern state of Guerrero, at about 3 PM on Nov. 14. The students—largely young women from 16 teachers colleges, chiefly those in Saucillo, Chihuahua, and Tamazulapan, Oaxaca—held the sit-in to support demands by students and alumni of Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College in Guerrero for 75 teaching positions for alumni and for retention of the degree in primary education, which the state government has decided to abolish. The students said they had tried for months to arrange a meeting with Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), to discuss their demands. The president of the legislature's governing committee, Carlos Reyes Torres, also of the PRD, called for the police to remove the protesters. At about 5 PM some 500 agents of the State Preventive Police (PPE), with air support from a helicopter, marched into the building and tried to remove the protesters. The confrontation lasted about two hours, with police hurling tear gas canisters and clubbing students, while the students hurled firecrackers at the agents.

Tens of thousands of protesters occupied the Gen. San Martin bridge, which links the Argentine province of Entre Rios to Uruguay, on Nov. 11 to protest Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez's decision to let the Finnish company Botnia start operating a paper mill it has built in Fray Bentos, across the Uruguay River from Gualeguaychu, Entre Rios. Argentine environmental activists have been protesting plans for the mill for four years and have blocked traffic between the two countries at the San Martin bridge, at Concordia and at Colon.

On Nov. 13 Puerto Rican environmental activist Alberto de Jesus ("Tito Kayak") ended a week-long protest at a small island near San Juan with a spectacular escape from a police operation that included four launches, motorboats and a helicopter. De Jesus had occupied the top of a 200-foot-high crane; he and the environmental organization Friends of the Sea were attempting to block completion of the Paseo Caribe tourist complex on what they said was public land with historic value. The sit-in was opposed by a builders association and construction unions. There was at least one demonstration by Paseo Caribe supporters, and at least seven shots were fired at De Jesus during the week.