From the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, June 16th, 2005 (online at Stop The Wall):

Villagers of Marda Continue To Resist Settler Bypass Road

Thirty villagers were injured today during clashes with Occupation Forces in Marda, in the east of Salfit district. Villagers were demonstrating against the theft of their lands by the Apartheid Wall and the Jewish-only bypass road system that together will almost completely encircle the village.

Several hundreds villagers marched to lands in the northwest of Marda, which are being confiscated and uprooted by the Occupation for the route of a new settler bypass road. They were attacked on the way by Occupation Forces who fired tear gas, sound bombs and rubber bullets into the crowds of demonstrators.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, June 17, 2005, two Israeli activists protest the reversal of a recent decision by Britain's Association of University Teachers (AUT) in support of a limited academic boycott of Israel.

A British Union Reverses a Boycott

By Yehudith Harel & Anon.

Many Israeli academics and their supporters welcomed the reversal of the AUT boycott. However, we are Israeli human-rights activists who want to express our disappointment and to reaffirm our support for a comprehensive boycott of Israeli academic and cultural institutions. We do so because, in Israel, "academic freedom," the main argument raised against the boycott, is being used to legitimize racism of the worst kind.

Another escalation is reported in the persecution of the Mapuche indigenous people of Chile: the imprisonment of the editor of a Mapuche magazine on six-year-old charges related to a land occupation, effectively preventing him from travelling to Canada for a meeting of Native journalists. This June 16 account is from Reporteros Sin Fronteras (RSF) and the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX):

Almost completely overlooked by the world media, the insurgency of the Naxalites, India's Maoist guerillas, has been simmering since the 1960s, and now shows signs of gaining ground, as indicated by this June 17 report from the Indian news agency Rediff:

Naxalism: 13 states discuss strategy
A one-day meeting of top officials of 13 Maoist-affected states to chalk out strategies to tackle Naxalism commenced in Hyderabad on Friday.

More than 1,000 Kyrgyz troops fired tear gas June 17 to drive protesters from a key state building, foiling what the government said was an attempt by supporters of the ousted president to regain power. Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev blamed the riots on followers of his predecessor Askar Akayev, who fled into exile after a coup in March, and said he would personally defend his government "with a gun in my hands if necessary."

The Basque separatist group ETA called for the start of a peace process in a letter published June 17. "It is essential to open a democratic process without limits and involving everyone. ETA is totally prepared to become involved in such a process," Basque newspaper Gara quoted the group as saying in its open letter. But Spain's Socialist government insisted the group must lay down its arms first.

A Pakistani man and two Frenchmen of Pakistani origin, who were at first suspected of helping would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid, were instead found guilty of links to the Jammu and Kashmir separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba June 16. The Paris court sentenced the main defendant, Ghulam Rama, 67, a Pakistani who headed the Chemin Droit (Straight Path) humanitarian group in France, to five years in prison. Two men who apparently trained for insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir with Rama's help, Hassan el-Cheguer and Hakim Mokhfi, both 31, were given four-year prison sentences. They were all charged with criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise, a sweeping charge widely used in terror cases in France that carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

There was a powerful explosion outside the emergencies ministry in Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, June 13. Vehicles were damaged in the blast, and the ministry's windows blown out, but no casualties were reported. "I do not exclude that this was a terrorist act," Interior Minister Khumdin Sharipov told reporters. Earlier this year, a car bomb outside the same ministry killed the driver and injured three people. No-one claimed responsibility for that blast. Sharipov said this time the explosive was planted in a wheelbarrow. He said three people had been detained in connection with the attack, but gave no further details. Tajikistan suffered a five-year civil war from 1992-97, following the break-up of the former Soviet Union, and remains volatile. (BBC, June 13)