Dozens of workers trapped in the besieged offices of a newspaper in Oaxaca managed to publish on Sunday despite what they call a bogus strike organized by politicians to silence the daily for its criticism of the state government. The standoff at Noticias, the largest daily circulation newspaper in the state of Oaxaca, began before dawn on Friday (June 17) when hundreds of people, apparently including police in civilian clothing and other outsiders, surrounded the offices and declared a strike seeking a 25% pay raise. Genaro Altamirano, the assistant director of Noticias, said the newspaper's 102 union employees had no desire to strike and had agreed to a 6% pay raise. He said the "strike" was organized by a union headed by state Deputy David Aguilar Robles from Oaxaca's ruling party, the PRI. Speaking by telephone from inside the newspaper's offices, Altamirano said he and 30 other employees had been prevented from leaving and were rationing food and water. "Who knows when we'll get out of here," Altamirano said.

Excerpt from a report by Moroccan news agency MAP (via M&C News):

Laayoune, 19 June: Hundreds of citizens today Sunday held a protest at the Hassan I Airport in Laayoune against the scheming intentions and provocative attempts of the Spanish pro-separatist activists who are trying to visit the town despite the Moroccan authorities' refusal to let them step on national soil.

From the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), June 20:

The local leader of Hamas was arrested in an often lawless frontier area where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet. Brazilian and Paraguayan news agencies confirmed June 17 that Saiel Bashar Yahya Al Atary and 21 others described as Islamic terrorists had been arrested by Brazilian federal police in the city of Foz de Iguazu. The men were charged with being part of an international ring that committed credit card fraud, counterfeited documents and was involved in drug trafficking.

Israeli security forces suppressing non-violent protest in Bil'in have been using a sound weapon lately called "the screamer," which emits piercing noises to incapacitate and disperse crowds as a non-lethal crowd control measure. According to Ha'aretz, on June 20 the use of the device sparked violence at an otherwise peaceful protest:

Some 15 demonstrators and three members of the security forces were lightly injured Friday during a demonstration against the separation fence near the village of Bil'in west of Ramallah. Hundreds of Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli leftists, took part in the demonstration, which began quietly, but turned violent after the IDF operated a device that emits powerful sound waves. Soldiers and police shot rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at the crowd, and the Palestinians threw stones. (Ha'aretz, June 20)

Is the current fighting along Iraq's Syrian border actually a prelude to a US invasion of Syria? Certain voices in the Arab world seem to think so. This from UPI, June 15:

AMMAN, Jordan -- The United Arab Emirates' al-Bayan reported Wednesday the United States was massing troops on the Syrian-Iraqi border and Damascus complained of repeated U.S. military penetration into Syrian territory. The pro-government daily quoted unidentified Arab officials as saying Egypt and Saudi Arabia "have reliable information from Damascus of U.S. military mobilization on the Syrian-Iraqi border." They said U.S. forces have repeatedly entered Syrian territory on the "pretext of chasing infiltrators and Iraqi insurgents." The sources told the paper the Syrian leadership told Cairo and Riyadh it was "exercising self-restraint in the face of these American provocations and will not be pulled into any attempt aimed at finding a pretext to attack Syria." They added Egypt and Saudi Arabia will express their "grave concern over the growing U.S. administration's threats against Syria" during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the Middle East that starts at the end of the week.

The Inuit of Alaska and Canada's far north, whose traditional way of life depends on hunting seals and polar bear—and therefore on cold—are not so sanguine about global warming. Thanks to TruthOut for passing on this interesting June 16 Reuters story:

Inuit to File Anti-US Climate Petition
Oslo - Inuit hunters threatened by a melting of the Arctic ice plan to file a petition accusing Washington of violating their human rights by fuelling global warming, an Inuit leader said on Wednesday.

Even as the US moves to restore military ties with Indonesia, harsh repression continues in areas of the archipelago where indigenous peoples are fighting for sovereignty. This from Survival International, June 15:

INDONESIA: Fifteen years in prison for flying a flag
Two Papuan activists, Filep Karma and Yusuk Pakage, have been sentenced to 15 and 10 years in prison respectively for raising the Papuan flag on 'Papuan independence day', December 1st, 2004. For this ‘crime' they were charged with 'treason against the state'.

This editorial, to appear in the International Herald Tribune June 20, was (in slightly longer form) in the New York Times June 18:

Guantánamo and who we are
The New York Times

MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2005
It was a relief to watch last week's hearing by Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary Committee on the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and to hear Specter, a Republican, declare that it was time for Congress to do its job and finally bring the American chain of prison camps under the law.

At the hearing, four military and civilian officials overseeing the processing of prisoners could not, or would not, provide the most basic information - such as how many detainees there are and what countries they came from. Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, a military lawyer, later courageously testified that he was assigned to represent one of the prisoners for the sole purpose of extracting a guilty plea. He provided a written order that contradicted the denials of the man who assigned him, Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, who oversees the military tribunals George W. Bush created after 9/11 to screen selected prisoners away from public and judicial scrutiny.