"Death to Denmark!" Does it get any more surreal than this? From the foreign press on the escalating anti-cartoon protests:

Police clobbered stone-throwing protesters with batons and fired tear gas in the Pakistanian city of Peshawar on Wednesday - Pakistan's third consecutive day of violent protests over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, witnesses said.

From the London Times, Feb. 12:

The CIA’s top counter-terrorism official was fired last week because he opposed detaining Al-Qaeda suspects in secret prisons abroad, sending them to other countries for interrogation and using forms of torture such as “water boarding

At least it makes the front page of the New York Times. From the Feb. 13 edition:

Years After 2 Afghans Died, Abuse Case Falters

By TIM GOLDEN

FORT BLISS, Tex. In the chronicle of abuses that has emerged from America's fight against terror, there may be no story more jarring than that of the two young men killed at a United States military detention center in Afghanistan in December 2002.

Gee, we sure wish this was getting more headlines! The first paragraph is annoyingly sarcastic (the global protests he refers to, of course, have unfortunately not occurred). But the last paragraph is spot on! Why do so few on the supposed left "get it"? From Nick Cohen in The Observer of Feb. 12:

From AP, Feb. 3:

Guatemala's long-running problem with vigilantes took an unusual turn this week when police arrested seven armed Christian fundamentalists accused of extortion as they distributed religious leaflets and collected money on a local highway.

As Subcommander Marcos and other Zapatista leaders tour Mexico, their home turf in the southern state of Chiapas remains torn by ongoing low-level violent conflcts.

Last month, the Good Government Junta El Camino del Futuro, one of the regional Zapatista coordinating bodies, issued a statement warning of an escalating conflict with the rival campesino groups ORCAO and ARIC-Oficial (both linked to the PRI political machine), accusing the groups' followers of invading the lands of the Zapatista community Rosario, autonomous municipality Francisco Gomez. On Jan. 17, the invaders broke the windows of the community's church, burned the home of a Zapatista supporter, and took him hostage overnight. He was released only after being forced to sign a statement pledging to cede his lands. In a horseback raid on the 18th, the invaders attempted to steal Rosario's maize crop. (Camino del Futuro communique, Jan. 18)

This communique from the TDR-EP, one of the guerilla organizations active in the mountains of Oaxaca and Guerrero, indicates the profusion of armed campesino groups in the region—even if we can question TDR-EP's claim to command many of them. From Proceso magazine's news agency APRO, Jan. 26:

The clandestine group Democratic Revolutionary Tendency-Army of the People (TDR-EP)--a schism from the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)--under the leadership of Comandante Arturo, issued "a truce" Jan. 1, 2006 to "ensure conditions for the favorable development of a civil and peaceful initiative of 'The Other Campaign' of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN)."

The Zapatista "Other Campaign" is making its way up the Mexican isthmus. Leaving behind the Maya realms of Chiapas and the Yucatan, in recent weeks it has passed through the states of Tabasco, Veracruz and, most recently, Oaxaca. At each stop, Subcommander Marcos—dubbed "Delegate Zero" for the tour—met with local activists and campesino leaders, addressing local issues. He and his fellow rebel leaders also visited political prisoners in all three states.