More than nine months and countless African lives ago, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued what critics dismissed as toothless "pseudo-indictments" against two men identified as masterminds of the Darfur genocide—Janjaweed militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd al-Rahman (nom de guerre Ali Kushayb) and Sudan's ironically named "Humanitarian Affairs Minister" Ahmed Harun. Then, in a fairly obvious charade, the Khartoum regime announced it was putting Ali Kushayb on trial itself. A few months later, the Bush administration announced it was placing sanctions on Harun—but also on Khalil Ibrahim, one of the guerilla leaders resisting the genocide! Now, predictably, Kushayb has been freed by Khartoum for supposed "lack of evidence," while Harun continues on in his Orwellian position. The ICC issues a new report protesting Sudan's failure to turn over the two suspects—leaving rights groups to wonder if the charade will not continue interminably, as Darfurians continue to die. From Human Rights First, Dec. 6:

All the talk about how calm Iraq is now thanks to the surge only indicates how dumbed-down our definition of "calm" has become. A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station northeast of Baghdad Dec. 4, killing at least eight and wounding 30. The attack occurred as police were gathered at the station in Jalula, Diyala province, with Kurdish peshmerga troops who came to the area as part of a security crackdown. The dead included four Iraqi police, two Kurdish troops and two civilians, police said. (AP, Dec. 4) On Dec. 5, car bombs killed at least four across northern Iraq. The most deadly was in Kirkuk, where explosives hidden in a parked car killed three Kurdish troops in a passing convoy. (AP, Dec. 5) On Dec. 6, eight peshmerga troops and three gunmen from an unknown militant group were killed in a battle at Khanaqin, Diyala. (Reuters, Dec. 6)

An unpublished UN map leaked to the London Times in Kabul illustrates risk levels across the country for staff and aid workers with color shadings, revealing a sharp deterioration in security over the last two years. A similar map from March 2005 indicated only a strip along the Pakistan border and areas of mountainous Zabul and Uruzgan provinces in the south as too dangerous for aid workers. Now nearly all the ethnic Pashtun south and east is a no-go zone deemed "high" or "extreme" risk, and such pockets are also emerging in the north. (London Times, Dec. 5)

Perhaps the revolt against the hypertrophy of the technosphere has finally begun. We've already noted the rebellion at a Druze village in Israel against the local siting of a cellphone antennae, and the strike by New York City taxi drivers against the mandatory fitting of their cars with GPS. On Nov. 27, the New York Times' City Room blog reported on the case of Judge Robert M. Restaino of municipal court in Niagra Falls, NY, who in a fit of what the city's Commission on Judicial Conduct called "inexplicable madness," threatened to arrest all 70 people in his courtroom unless a cell phone that had gone off was turned over. Perhaps such draconian measures are called for, although a general abolition would be far preferable. On Dec. 4, the Times reported a startlingly hopeful development from the English countryside:

A we've noted before, the National Intelligence Estimate—a body made up of analysts from 16 US spy agencies—appears to be in the corner of the "pragmatist" wing of the ruling elites. Its new report, "Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities," finds Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and has not resumed it, despite initiating the uranium enrichment program at the Natanz facility. The front-page headline in the New York Times Dec. 4 calls the finding a "major reversal." USA Today states: "The estimate reverses claims the intelligence community made two years ago that Iran appeared 'determined to develop' a nuclear weapons program."

Basque activists arrested in the so-called "18/98" case began appearing before a judge in Bilbao Dec. 4, following a sweep that prompted angry protests over the weekend. Spain's High Court issued 46 arrest warrants for members of the Basque civil groups Ekin, Orain, Xaki and Fundación Joxemi Zumalabe, after a finding by magistrate Baltasar Garzón that they are fronts for the armed organization ETA. (EiTB24, Spain, Dec. 4) Thousands marched against the arrests in Bilbao Dec. 1, in a rally led by leaders of outlawed organizations, including the Batasuna party. (EiTB24, Dec. 2)

On Nov. 29, troops from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD), the National Police and the National Army attacked a group of Nasa indigenous people working on the La Emperatriz farm in Caloto municipality, in the southern Colombian department of Cauca, during the community's rituals for the "Liberation of Mother Earth." As the troops attacked the community with tear gas, men in civilian clothing emerged from among the police and ESMAD agents and began firing pistols at the community. Four community members were seriously wounded: Rodrido Pito from the Chocho community of the Huellas Caloto reservation; Antonio Conda from the Altamira community of the same reservation; Lorenzo Largo Dagua of the Gallinazas community of the Tacueyo reservation; and Delio Quitumbo of the La Palma community of the Toribio reservation. (Asociación de Cabildos Indigenas del Norte del Cauca-ACIN message posted, Nov. 29 on Colombia Indymedia)

From Newsday, Nov. 26:

Tour bus runs over woman in Chinatown
A New York City sightseeing tour bus ran over a woman on a Chinatown street yesterday, sending her to the hospital, where she was listed in critical condition.