On Oct. 20 Raul Ojeda Zubieta, center-left candidate for governor of the southern Mexican state of Tabasco, charged in a press conference that Andres Granier Melo, candidate for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), had won in the Oct. 14 state election through the "manipulation and addition" of 89,689 votes. Demanding a recount, Ojeda said that in addition to buying votes and stuffing ballot boxes, the PRI had conspired with other parties, principally the center-right National Action Party (PAN), to shift votes from their candidates to Granier to give him his margin of victory. (La Jornada, Oct. 21)

The Permanent Human Rights Assembly (APDH) of Ecuador is protesting the Oct. 15 killing of two Ecuadoran campesinos by the Colombian armed forces. Blanca Vega and her son Hector Monar were traveling by boat along the San Miguel river en route to vote at their polling place when they were shot to death by Colombian troops. In Bogota, Gen. Freddy Padilla, commander of Colombia's military forces, claimed the two were "insurgents" traveling in "guerrilla" boats and were killed in an armed confrontation. (APDH, Oct. 18 via Resumen Latinoamericano)

Could someone possibly please explain what this one is all about? A rather opinionated report from the right-libertarian Liberty Forum, Oct. 20:

Thessalonica - The Greek Government will move, as early as this weekend, to have armed police forcibly remove the monks of the Holy and Sacred Monastery of Esphigmenou from their monastery property. Over 150 police have been deployed on Mt. Athos, an unprecedented number in a community entirely populated by peaceful and defenseless monks.

Even Donald Rumsfeld is starting to make cut-and-run noises. As the Bush White House holds a high-level strategy session on Iraq Oct. 21, the Defense Secretary told reporters: "It's their country, they're going to have to govern it, they're going to have to provide security for it, and they're going to have to do it sooner rather than later. The biggest mistake would be to not pass things over to the Iraqis, create a dependency on their part, instead of developing strength and capacity and competence." (GulfNews, UAE, Oct. 21) But we say such talk is purely for public consumption.

Uribe uses this as an excuse to call for a military rather than negotiated solution to the hostage crisis. But the families and supporters of some of the FARC's hostages aren't buying it. From Merco Press, Oct. 21:

But, as we noted as long ago as 2003, the Shining Path guerilla movement has fractured, with a new ultra-hardline element refusing to accept the ceasefire call issued (whether under coercion or not) by Abimael "Chariman Gonzalo" Guzmán upon his arrest in 1992. From Latinamerica Press, Oct. 19:

Our friend Ivo Skoric of the Balkans Pages interviewed WW4 REPORT Editor Bill Weinberg via e-mail last weekend for the Croatian alternative e-zine H-Alter, as the first in a series of interviews with American left-wing bloggers. The interveiw appears in both English and Croatian:

From the Washington Post, Oct. 20:

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases
Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.