One day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of New York IMC journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, two primitive homemade explosive devices were thrown at New York's Mexican consulate in an apparent pre-dawn bicycle-by attack Oct. 26, shattering windows but causing no injuries. Police are drawing parallels to a similar incident at the British consulate in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005. In both cases, the devices were fake grenades sold as novelty items, but packed with black powder and detonated with fuses. In the 2005 case, video surveillance indicated two devices were thrown from a passing bicycle. In the Oct. 26 case, a witness reported seeing a hooded figure on a bicycle pass by the consulate. (NYT, AP, Oct. 27)

Bolivian President Evo Morales is facing converging crises on multiple fronts—from South American neighbors, from the Colossus of the North, and from internal opposition. Peru is seeking the extradition of Walter Chavez, a top adviser to Morales' successful 2005 campaign, on terrorism charges related to accusations that he extorted businessmen on behalf of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Chavez, a Peruvian former journalist, has lived in Bolivia since 1992 and was granted political asylum there in 1998. (Reuters, Oct. 26)

Ten prostitutes in the Bolivian highland city of El Alto sewed their lips together Oct. 24 as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after angry protests by residents. Some 30 more are participating in the hunger strike, fasting inside a local medical clinic. "We are fighting for the right to work and for our families' survival," Lily Cortez, leader of the Asociación de Trabajadoras Nocturnas de El Alto (Association of Nighttime Workers of El Alto), told local television. "Tomorrow we will bury ourselves alive if we are not immediately heard. The mayor will have his conscience to answer to if there are any grave consequences, such as the death of my comrades." Prostitution is legal and government-regulated in Bolivia, but El Alto Mayor Fanor Nava says he is responding to a popular mandate in his move to shut the brothels. The sex workers are also demanding an investigation into recent arson attacks on bars and brothels in the city, and have threatened to march naked through the streets of La Paz, the nearby national capital. (Reuters; La Gaceta, Tucumán, Argentina, Oct. 25; AFP; La Razón, La Paz, Oct. 24)

With all the focus on the crisis over Kurdish separatist rebels taking refuge in northern Iraq, largely overlooked are the multiple reasons that Turkey's Kurds have to be discontented. We noted two years ago the pressures on eastern Turkey's peoples from the Ataturk Dam. Now more Kurdish lands are being expropriated for the Ilisu Dam, as noted by a recent European fact-finding mission to Anatolia. From Kurdish Media, Oct. 23:

With an Iraqi delegation in Ankara to discuss the standoff over PKK rebels in northern Iraq, Turkish war planes and helicopters reportedly bombed guerilla bases within Iraq's borders Oct. 26. However, even as the state-run Anatolia news agency reported the air-strikes, top military commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said that day that Turkish leaders will wait until Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets President Bush in Washington on Nov. 5 before deciding whether to mount a cross-border offensive into Iraq. "The armed forces will carry out a cross-border offensive when assigned," private NTV quoted Gen. Yasar Buyukanit as saying. "Prime Minister Erdogan's visit to the United States is very important. We will wait for his return." Turkey's deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek said his government has demanded the extradition of Kurdish rebel leaders based in Iraq's north. Asked what the US military was planning to do, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon, commander of US forces in northern Iraq, said: "Absolutely nothing." (AP, Oct. 27)

Pakistani security forces backed up by helicopter gunships engaged militants at the madrassa of extremist cleric Maulana Fazlullah at Kabal in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province Oct. 26. The gun-battle apparently began when a patrol was fired on, and ended when security forces seized what was described as a militant training camp near the seminary. The cleric, known as "Maulana Radio" for his illegal broadcasts urging Taliban-style rule, is thought to have 4,500 armed followers. The fighting was in the Swat district, where a bomb attack on a truck carrying members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary near Mingora one day earlier killed 17 militiamen and three civilians, damaging several shops.

The Colombian armed forces committed 955 extrajudicial executions between July 2002 and June 2007, according an investigation [online at Latin America Working Group] carried out by a coalition of 11 Colombian human rights organizations and released this month. Of these killings only two have resulted in a judicial conviction. The number of killings by Colombia's armed forces represents a 65% increase over the previous five-year period from 1997 to 2002.

Predictably, a front-page Wall Street Journal story Oct. 25 bashes native plant advocate Richard Halsey of the California Chaparral Institute as a culprit behind the devastating Southern California fires that have left half a million displaced. The article also approvingly cites LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky blasting the California Coastal Commission for adopting Halsey's sentimental ideas. Writes the Journal: "In the 15 or so wildfires that have ravaged hundreds of square miles in Southern California in the past few days, chaparral has been the primary fuel. Whipped by strong winds, the fire has spread across this vegetation, consuming some 1,500 homes along the way."