Farzad Kamangar, a teacher, trade unionist and rights activist from Iran's Kordistan province, sentenced to death on what his attorney calls "absolutely zero evidence," could be hanged today, his supporters say. Sources report that he has been taken from his cell at Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution. Security officers at the prison are reported to have informed him that he is to be executed imminently, taunted him and called him a martyr.

From Radio Australia, Nov. 26:

10 arrested over acid attack in Afghanistan
Afghan police have arrested 10 men accused of spraying acid in the faces of several schoolgirls and teachers. The attack happened outside a girls' high school in the southern city of Kandhar.

From the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), Nov. 3:

To the Kurdish Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government:

We demand the repeal of polygamous marriages and all other discriminatory laws against women in Kurdistan.

Much has been made of the fact that the bomber was a woman, but note that the victims were overwhelmingly women as well. From The Guardian, Nov. 25:

Woman in suicide attack as 19 die in Baghdad bombings
A volley of explosions killed 19 people in Baghdad yesterday, including five who were caught up in a suicide attack by a woman whose bomb vest was apparently detonated remotely.

Defend femicide, get a cabinet position. From The Guardian, Nov. 12:

"Anti-women" cabinet riles Pakistan activists
Two notorious politicians accused of brutal attitudes towards women have been made cabinet ministers in Pakistan, causing outrage among human rights activists.

The Czech Republic's Prima TV is claiming evidence that members of the security forces took part in an attempted attack on the Roma ghetto in the town of Litvinov last week. Some 500 black-masked protesters shouting racist slogans marched Nov. 17 in the town in the country's northern rust belt where unemployment is at 12%, double the national average. Organized by the nationalist Czech Workers Party, the marchers threw cobblestones and petrol bombs at police, who fought back with teargas and mounted charges. Fourteen people were injured.

Bolivian President Evo Morales ended martial law in the northern department of Pando Nov. 23, more than two months after government supporters were killed in the region amid strikes and protests by the opposition. The decision by Morales clears a legal barrier for the government to hold a Jan. 25 referendum on a new constitution. "As of midnight, martial law was lifted," said government minister Alfredo Rada. Earlier this month, Bolivia's electoral court warned it would not allow the referendum to go forward if martial law was still in effect in the remote department of Pando. The prefect of Pando at the time martial law was declared, Leopoldo Fernández, remains under detention. (Reuters, Nov. 23)

President Hugo Chávez's Venezuelan United Socialist Party (PSUV) scored a string of victories in key state and municipal elections Nov. 23. "A new stage is beginning. For me, as the leader of the Venezuelan socialist project, the people are telling me: 'Chávez, keep on the same path,'" he said after the results were announced the next morning. But in what Colombia's El Tiempo called a "hard blow" to Chávez, the opposition won in Zulia and Miranda, the country’s two most populous states, as well the mayoral race in Caracas. Some 45 percent of the population will now be governed by policitians from the opposition. The PSUV, whose candidates won 21 out of 23 state elections in 2004, still controls 17 governorships. (AFP, Notimex, Bloomberg, Nov. 24)