Lopez Obrador, the leftist presidential candidate who is leading militant protests in Mexico to challenge what he calls a fraudulent defeat in the July 2 elections, takes his case to the New York Times op-ed page Aug. 11:

Recounting Our Way to Democracy

by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador

NOT since 1910, when another controversial election sparked a revolution, has Mexico been so fraught with political tension.

Protesters held four people captive for hours Aug. 11, charging they were behind the assassination of a protester in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. The Federal Agency of Investigation said protesters were finally induced to turn the captives over to its agents at a local television station that had been seized by the protesters. The protesters demand the four be charged in the death of Jose Jimenez, 50, who was killed the previous day during a march by the Popular Assembly of the State of Oaxaca (APPO) calling for the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. The shots were fired from a house as the march of some 8,000 protesters passed; protesters later set fire to the house. Jimenez, a mechanic and the husband of a striking teacher, was dead on arrival at hospital. APPO, which accuses the governor of using force to repress dissent and rigging the 2004 election to win office, charged Ruiz was behind the shooting. The governor denied the allegations and condemned the violence. (Seattle Times, AP, Aug. 12; La Jornada, Aug. 11) The Oaxaca state government has threatened to arrest all APPO leaders. Four have already been arrested, and APPO charges three more were "disappeared" the night of Aug. 10 (La Jornada, Aug. 11) One of the arrested APPO leaders, German Mendoza Nube, is a paraplegic who suffers from diabetes. Witnesses say he was beaten with a rifle butt when he was arrested by plainclothes state police. (La Jornada, Aug. 10)

What a conundrum. The Pakistani state has long cultivated Lashkar-e-Taiba to make trouble in India-controlled Kashmir. But now it seems to have gotten out of control, and Islamabad, under pressure from Washington, has been induced to crack down. Yet every measure against the militants (who doubtless still have their sympathizers and adherents in the apparatus) brings Pakistan closer to an Islamist coup. Is the world ready for a nuclear-armed Taliban? From Reuters, Aug. 10:

Note that this is being portrayed openly as a tit-for-tat to counter-balance the scheduled execution of those convicted in the Bali bombings. Note also that the Indonesian military itself has been accused of enflaming the Sulawesi violence through proxy militias. And note that the Pentagon has openly broached intervention in the Sulawesi conflict. From Asia News, Aug. 10:

Received from the Iraq Freedom Congress:

Lets Make Zaafaranyia a Safe and Peaceful Town

For decades, people in the town of Saafaranyia, like all other Iraqi cities lived together in peace away from any kind of hatred and it was an example for humanism and peace. Recently criminal hands have reached this town trying to destabilize it using sectarian incite which rip the society into pieces and turn cities to a front for sectarian fight. Recently many leaflets have been distributed threatening families, ordering them to leave their houses.

Received from Houzan Mahmoud of the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq:

Appeal to all human rights, labour and political organisations worldwide
Support the protest movements of people in Kurdistan!

Urgent action required to support thousands of people in Iraqi Kurdistan
demanding basic rights

Over the last few days Iraqi Kurdistan has seen a wave of protests and gatherings of people in several towns. The protests started in Darbandikhan and Chamchamal - (August 7th) this protest movement has already spread to other places like Kefri, Sulaymania and Kalar.

Iraq's northern Kurdish autonomous zone, heretofore an island of relative stability, now also appears to be infected by the sectarian strife tearing apart the rest of the country. This attack took place in Basra, but the struggle for control of northern Kirkuk was at issue. From Reuters, Aug. 11:

Gunmen storm Kurdish offices in southern Iraq

KERBALA - Gunmen angered by criticism of a Shi'ite cleric ransacked offices of President Jalal Talabani's Kurdish party in southern Iraq on Friday after a newspaper claimed the cleric was fanning sectarian tensions.

Another heroic blow by the Iraqi resistance... against Shi'ite pilgrims. From the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 11 (links and annotation added):

NAJAF, Iraq — A suicide bomber struck Thursday at a checkpoint near a revered Shiite Muslim mosque here, killing 35 people and threatening to further agitate sectarian violence as U.S. and Iraqi troops intensified operations in Baghdad to rout militias and death squads.