Ricardo Lopez Espinosa, a community leader in the conflicted central Mexican village of San Salvador Atenco and a member of the local People's Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) was freed from jail in Molino de Flores Aug. 17 but still faces charges following his arrest two days earlier in connection with an attack on a state police patrol June 5. Lopez Espinosa denies involvement in the attack, and says his arrest by state police in Atenco was illegal. (La Jornada, Aug. 18 via Chiapas95)

From EFE, Aug. 14 via Chiapas95 (our translation):

MEXICO -- Mexico's Federal Preventative Police (PFP) today used blows and tear gas to break up a group of legislators who support leftist candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador at one of the gates of the federal Chamber of Depuites which they had been blockading.

From El Universal, Aug. 14 via Chiapas95:

OAXACA - Around 5,000 striking teachers and activists marched silently through the streets of this southern city on Sunday to demand that the murder of one of their number last week be resolved and that state Gov. Ulises Ruiz resign.

Unrepentant about the wall his own country is building on the West Bank, Uza Dayan wisely warns the US against emulating Israeli strategies in Occupied Aztlan. From Newsday, Aug. 16:

JERUSALEM -- Six years ago, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak sidled up to his army's chief of staff with a serious problem.

They've been after this guy for a long time. But if similar busts in the past are any indicator, his demise will merely set off a violent succession struggle—and do absolutely nothing to to reduce the flow of drugs into Gringolandia. From AP, Aug. 16:

Federal law enforcement agents arrested Mexican drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano-Felix, a leader of a major violent gang responsible for digging elaborate tunnels to smuggle drugs under the U.S. border, a Justice Department official said Wednesday.

Mike di Paola writes an excellent summary of the environmental and archeological damage from the Lebanese war for Bloomberg, Aug. 15. One of the coastal areas affected by an Israeli bombing-induced oil slick is the ancient Phoenician Canaanite harbor of Byblos. Di Paola writes:

Way to go, Mr. Sensitive. From Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 16:

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo on Tuesday--the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II--writing his name as prime minister in the shrine's visitors' book.

From the New York Daily News, Aug. 15:

Crash horror on N.J. Turnpike

A Queens couple and their 3-year-old daughter were among four people killed when an 18-wheeler hauling bricks spun out on the New Jersey Turnpike yesterday - but their other girl miraculously survived, cops said.