Following an extended debate, a Mexican Senate committee voted 11-3 late Oct. 18 not to dissolve the Oaxaca state government, while demonstrators demanding a solution to the five-month crisis announced plans to escalate protests. In Oaxaca City, a teacher was shot and killed by unknown assailants after leaving a late-night meeting with other teachers.

Even Bush appears to be facing the grim music from Iraq. Asked in an ABC News interview Oct. 18 whether he agreed with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's opinion that the violence in Iraq was "the jihadist equivalent of the Tet offensive," Bush responded: "He could be right. There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election." Attacks in Iraq killed about 40 people on Oct 19. The death toll for US troops rose to 72 for October, which could become one of their deadliest months in two years. (Stuff.com, Oct. 20) Iraq’s interior minister, Jawad al Bolani, has pledged to purge his offices of sectarian influence, but this has failed to stem the escalating violence. (NYT, Oct. 14) Recent proposals by Washington to partition Iraq may be merely accepting a fait accompli. The south already appears to be a Shi'ite sectarian zone in Iran's orbit, and the north is de facto an independent Kurdish state. All that remains is for a Taliban-style Sunni theocracy to be declared in the center. This Oct. 16 report from Britain's The Herald indicates this may have already come to pass:

Chiapas is now the third Mexican state to adopt a statewide alliance of popular organization with the aim of establishing parallel power on the model of the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, following Guerrero and Oaxaca itself. The launching of the "Popular Assembly of the People of Chiapas" (APPC) was announced in a statement by 15 social and labor organization, including local Section 7 of the national teachers union, local Section 50 of the health workers union, and the Frente Campesino y Popular de Chiapas, whose leader Romero Farrera Vicente pledged to hold meetings to build the new organization in every region of the state.(Cuarto Poder, Chiapas, Oct. 17)

An official investigation by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) has confirmed the participation of military troops in May's deadly police operation at the village of San Salvador Atenco. The CNDH reports it has uncovered a document in which the Federal Support Forces (Fuerzas Federales de Apoyo), an agency which provides back-up to state police forces in emergencies, called for troops of the Third Military Police Brigade to join Mexico state police in putting down the protests at Atenco. CNDH chief Jose Luis Soberanes Fernandez said that authorities must not only clarify the facts, but bring criminal charges against those responsible for the beating and sexual abuse of 26 detainees. (APRO, Oct. 17)

As odds for the legal removal of Gov. Ulises Ruiz seemed to narrow Oct. 16, Oaxaca activists camped out in Mexico City's historic center began a hunger strike aimed at pressuring the federal government to find a solution to the five-month crisis. Senate sources indicated to the daily El Universal that a bid to declare the Ruiz administration unable to govern will likely fail in the looming vote. The paper reports that a subcommittee majority has prepared a report concluding that no "disappearance of powers" is justified in Oaxaca. However, Government Secretary Carlos Abascal, who is charged with settling the Oaxaca conflict, seemed to differ with the Senate committee, saying, "The local authorities haven't had the capacity to maintain peace, order and security. That's why what's happening in that state is happening."

Now that it has pretty much been confirmed that North Korea did explode a nuclear bomb, if a very small one, comes the news that it may be ready to repeat the feat on short order. Yes, this is deeply disturbing, but Selig Harrison (who has a penchant for saying things the Washington elite doesn't want to hear) warned weeks before the blast that it was coming, and that it would be a tactic by Pyongyang to press Washington for direct negotiations—another possibility we have noted before. If this is true, Bush's intransigence essentially prompted North Korea to cross the nuclear threshold. From AlJazeera, Sept. 23:

From UPI, Oct. 17:

Hit-and-run deaths at 10-year high

WASHINGTON, DC -- Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington show that hit-and-run pedestrian deaths have risen 20 percent since 2000.

From the New York Times, Oct. 17:

BAGHDAD -- The blackened shells of five cars still sit in front of the Church of the Virgin Mary here, stark reminders of a bomb blast that killed two people after a recent Sunday Mass.