For the first time since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war (at least), no Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are making the sacred annual pilgrimage to Mecca this year. Saudi Arabia, seeking to bolster the (Fatah) administration on the West Bank, asked it to compose a list of Palestinian pilgrims—4,000 from the West Bank and 2,200 from Gaza. Egypt opened its border with Gaza to allow the pilgrims out, and the West Bank residents left two weeks ago. But the Hamas administration in Gaza insisted on submitting its own list. When the Saudis said they would not grant visas to those on the Hamas list, Hamas set up checkpoints along the Egyptian border and barred passage to those on the other list.

In the wake of mass protests in Mumbai where many called for military action against Pakistan, marchers in Islamabad had their turn to chant slogans against India and the US Dec. 4, when thousands filled the streets to protest US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to New Delhi. At the protest, led by the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba and Jammat-e-Islami, a favorite banner slogan was, "We are ready to sacrifice ourselves by launching Jihad against the enemies of our country." Many protesters claimed India itself planned the Mumbai attacks as a means of waging a war against Pakistan. (Press TV, Dec. 4)

Suicide bombings in Baghdad and Mosul took the lives of at least 32 Iraqis Nov. 1. The following day, three separate attacks in Mosul—two car bombs, including one at a crowded market, and an armed assault on Sunni Arab political leaders—left at least 11 dead and 41 injured. The attacks come amid a power struggle between Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kurdish regional government over al-Maliki's proposal to create new tribal councils that would answer to his government. Kurds are trying to expand their autonomous zone in the north, and Kurdish leaders fear the new councils could become local militias that the government could use against them in the north. (NYT, Dec. 3; DPA, Dec. 2; NYT, Dec. 1)

Thousands of people took to the streets of Mumbai Dec. 3 to demand India's leaders do more to protect them from terrorism in the wake of last week's attacks. A BBC reporter on the scene says many of the protesters called for military action against Pakistan. (AFP, BBC World Service, Dec. 4) Meanwhile, Muslims from Mumbai and several other Indian cities are preparing Dec. 8 demonstrations to oppose all those who spread terror in the name of Islam. In Mumbai, a silent vigil will be held at the scene of the attacks. The theme of the mobilization is "Killers of innocents are enemies of Islam." (Times of India, Dec. 4)

Sondhi Limthongkul, the media mogul who heads Thailand's anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy, warned that he's ready to call more protests despite the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat after a court order to dissolve his governing party. "The PAD will return if another proxy government is formed or anyone tries to amend the constitution or the law to whitewash some politicians or to subdue the monarch's authority," Sondhi told cheering supporters as the protest movement decamped from Bangkok's airport which it had occupied for several days. (LAT, Dec. 3)

A federal jury in San Francisco Dec. 1 cleared Chevron Corp. of responsibility in the 1998 shooting of Nigerian villagers by military forces during a protest at an offshore oil platform. Survivors of the incident, under the name "Concerned Ilaje Citizens," argued that the oil company should be held accountable for paying police and soldiers, and transporting them by helicopter to the oil platform, where they shot and killed two unarmed protesters and wounded two others.

Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Pristina, Kosova's capital, Dec. 2 to oppose the planned deployment of a European Union judicial mission that many Albanians fear will partition the country. The 2,000-strong mission would be deployed under a plan approved last week by the UN Security Council and accepted by Kosova's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Critics say the mission violates Kosova's sovereignty and fear that separate chains of command planned for Albanian and Serb police forces would entrench the country's partition along ethnic lines. (NYT, Dec. 3)

Twenty-four men at an Afghan refugee camp on the outskirts of the Pakistani port of Karachi are among those arrested on suspicion of involvement in the ethnic clashes still shaking city. At least 44 have been killed in the clashes which began Nov. 30, pitting local Urdu-speakers against Pashtuns from northwest Pakistan. The incidents were mainly blamed on activists from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP). Leaders from both the parties denied their members were involved in the violence. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif raised the specious possibility that India instigated of the Karachi violence as a response to the Mumbai attacks. (AFP, AlJazeera, Dec. 2)