On May 29 and 30, the Medellín anti-militarist group Red Juvenil (Youth Network) received e-mail messages from the address redesnegras (at) hotmail.com, reading "DEATH TO ANARCHISTS DISGUISED AS PACIFISTS, NO MORE COMMUNIST DRUG CONCERTS, NO MORE WARNINGS." It named eight people associated with Red Juvenil, and was signed "GRUPO AGUILAS NEGRAS". The Aguilas Negras (Black Eagles) are a paramilitary network which has survived the "demobilization" of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The e-mail handle "redesnegras" means "black networks." On May 17, Red Juvenil held a free rock concert in Medellín's Parque Boston. Two days before that, the group's office was broken into. (Red Juvenil statement, received via e-mail, June 6)

We've noted before Barack Obama's alarming bellicose tendencies. They were out in profligate display at his notorious address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference in Washington June 4. Here's the most ominous one from the Washington Post's transcript:

Police in Tibet arrested 16 Buddhist monks and accused them of involvement in bombings on April 5, 8 and 15 in villages near Qamdo. All three bombings involved homemade explosives and caused only property damage, authorities said. (NYT, June 6) While the claims were picked up by the NY Times, ongoing harsh repression in Tibet is noted only by the India-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD). On May 30, Chinese security forces arrested twelve monks of Dingri Shelkar Choedhe Monastery during a night raid for resisting the "patriotic re-education" campaign—meaning they had refused to denounce the Dalai Lama. (TCHRD, May 31)

An Iranian government spokesman confirmed that a group of Bahai religious leaders have been arrested—but said that the charges against them related to security and not religion. The spokesman, Gholam Hossein Elham, said the group had "acted against the country's interests" and had links with Israelis, according to the state news agency IRNA. Elham did not mention the number of people arrested, but Bahai exile groups abroad say the sect's entire leadership, consisting of seven senior members, was arrested last month and in March. (NYT, June 5)

The New York Times deigns to cover the conflict in Western Sahara (which the paper calls "nearly forgotten"—true enough, thanks in large part to the "newspaper of record") June 4—on the occasion of a Washington press affair featuring former residents of the Polisario Front's refugee camps in Algeria, who complained bitterly of authoritarianism and corruption by the camp's administrators. Dissidents are persecuted and international aid shunted to the black market by Polisario commissars, they said. The refugees, now receiving Moroccan aid in occupied Western Sahara, were generally circumspect about what political future they supported for the territory—but one openly said "We would like the Western Sahara to remain part of Morocco, of course." Only towards the end of the piece are we told the press affair was organized by the Moroccan American Center for Policy—loaning credence to Polisario Washington representative Mouloud Said's gripe to the Times: "These people are brought by the Moroccan public relations companies here, so they have to mislead."

Middle East Development LLC, the Dubai-based construction company controlled by Tarek Mohammad bin Laden, half-brother of Osama bin Laden, announced it is seeking to raise $190 billion to build two new cities in Djibouti and Yemen and a 28.5-kilometer bridge linking them. This land link, across the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, would be the first joining the Arabian peninsula to Africa. Comments Bloomberg, June 2:

From banned Basque political party Batasuna, received via e-mail, June 3:

Faced with the events which occurred in Tibet, Batasuna firstly wants to express its solidarity with the Tibetan people and begs to stop the repression against the protests made by the men and women of Tibet.

On May 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out its largest ever mass arrest at a single worksite, seizing 389 of the 970 employees at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. ICE took the workers, most of them Guatemalan, to the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa for processing. (AP, May 16)