Daily Report

Thailand: "anti-democracy" protesters win

Sondhi Limthongkul, the media mogul who heads Thailand's anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy, warned that he's ready to call more protests despite the resignation of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat after a court order to dissolve his governing party. "The PAD will return if another proxy government is formed or anyone tries to amend the constitution or the law to whitewash some politicians or to subdue the monarch's authority," Sondhi told cheering supporters as the protest movement decamped from Bangkok's airport which it had occupied for several days. (LAT, Dec. 3)

Chevron acquitted in Nigeria human rights case

A federal jury in San Francisco Dec. 1 cleared Chevron Corp. of responsibility in the 1998 shooting of Nigerian villagers by military forces during a protest at an offshore oil platform. Survivors of the incident, under the name "Concerned Ilaje Citizens," argued that the oil company should be held accountable for paying police and soldiers, and transporting them by helicopter to the oil platform, where they shot and killed two unarmed protesters and wounded two others.

Partition fears in Kosova

Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Pristina, Kosova's capital, Dec. 2 to oppose the planned deployment of a European Union judicial mission that many Albanians fear will partition the country. The 2,000-strong mission would be deployed under a plan approved last week by the UN Security Council and accepted by Kosova's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. Critics say the mission violates Kosova's sovereignty and fear that separate chains of command planned for Albanian and Serb police forces would entrench the country's partition along ethnic lines. (NYT, Dec. 3)

Pakistan: Afghan refugees arrested in Karachi clashes

Twenty-four men at an Afghan refugee camp on the outskirts of the Pakistani port of Karachi are among those arrested on suspicion of involvement in the ethnic clashes still shaking city. At least 44 have been killed in the clashes which began Nov. 30, pitting local Urdu-speakers against Pashtuns from northwest Pakistan. The incidents were mainly blamed on activists from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party (ANP). Leaders from both the parties denied their members were involved in the violence. Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif raised the specious possibility that India instigated of the Karachi violence as a response to the Mumbai attacks. (AFP, AlJazeera, Dec. 2)

India: more terror in Assam

Five were killed and 35 others injured Dec. 2 in two separate attacks in the Karbi Anglong district of India's eastern Assam state. A bomb went off inside a second-class coach of a passenger train at the Diphu railway station at about 8 AM, killing three, including a five-year-old child. Thirty-five others were injured, 10 of them seriously. Elsewhere in the district, two motorcycle-borne militants with an AK–47 gunned down a couple at the Dolamora village later that morning.

Anomalies emerge in Mumbai terror —of course

India's intelligence apparatus is rapidly zeroing in on its usual suspect Pakistan in the Mumbai attacks. The Times of India reports Dec. 2:

All the 10 terrorists, suspected to have been involved in the Mumbai attacks, were trained by ex-army personnel even as the lone arrested terrorist has admitted to being a Pakistani, the police on Tuesday said.

Tijuana: army officers take over police force

Tijuana's Public Security Secretary Alberto Capella was ousted Dec. 1 and replaced by his second-in-command, army Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola, following three days of violence that left 37 people dead in the border city. Another army officer, Capt. Gustavo Huerta, has been appointed the new number two on the city's police force. Mayor Jorge Ramos' office said that putting army officers in charge will help "regain security" in Tijuana. Among the 37 killed over the weekend were two children aged four and 13—and nine headless corpses dumped in a patch of wasteland. More than 200 people have been killed in the past month in Tijuana. (AP, The Guardian, Milenio, Dec. 2)

Mexico: teachers make gains against "privatization" plans

As protests by teachers continued in several southern and central Mexican states, on Nov. 28 the State Institute of Public Education of Oaxaca (IEEPO) announced plans to work with Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE) to produce an alternative to the government's new Alliance for Quality Education (ACE). The alternative program will be carried out "in accordance with the characteristics of the state," IEEPO director Abel Trejo Gonzalez said. This is first time a state government has distanced itself from the ACE, which is promoted by Mexican president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa and SNTE national president Elba Esther Gordillo Morales. Teachers have protested against the ACE since August, calling it an opening to privatization. A strike by Section 22 set off a major uprising in 2006 that paralyzed much of the state for five months. (Mexico Solidarity Network Weekly News and Analysis, Nov. 30; La Jornada, Nov. 29)

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