Infuriated by a delay in service, hundreds of Argentines attacked trains and facilities of the TCB company in two stations outside Buenos Aires on Sept. 4. Protests started when a commuter train broke down near the Castelar station west of the capital, stopping service to Buenos Aires. Hundreds of people trying to get to work threw stones at train company offices, blocked trains headed in the other direction, and set a conductor's cabin on fire. In the neighboring station of Merlo, passengers set an entire eight-car train on fire, along with a ticket machine. About 100 helmeted riot police arrived after an hour, dispersing the crowds with tear gas and rubber bullets; about 20 people were arrested.

Bolivia's President Evo Morales ordered the expulsion of the US ambassador Sept. 10, charging him with inciting violent opposition protests. "The ambassador of the United States is conspiring against democracy and wants Bolivia to break apart," Morales said at the presidential palace in La Paz. The move came as protesters across Bolivia's east seized government offices, oil facilities and three regional airports. Government offices were ransacked in Santa Cruz, and more than 50 injured in battles with the security forces. The government singled out the Comité Cívico Cruceño, which is leading a campaign for repeal of the new hydrocarbon tax, as behind the protests.

Four protesters descended from a redwood at UC Berkeley Sept. 9, after 21 months—648 days—of occupying a contested campus grove. Protesters sought to stop construction of a $124-million athletic center, but a court injunction on the construction was recently lifted. All four tree-sitters were arrested, though campus officials said no felony charges would be filed. Five protesters were also arrested on the ground, charged with offenses including battery and resisting arrest. The tree-sitters' tree—one of a collection of 42 oaks, redwoods and others that protesters sought to save—is scheduled to be felled immediately.

When Russia's President Dmitri Medvedev formally recognized the Georgia's separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, activists in the Russian autonomous region of Tatarstan reacted quickly. The All-Tatar Civic Center published an appeal for Moscow's recognition of Tatarstan's independence. Rashit Akhmetov, editor of Zvezda Povolzhya, an opposition newspaper in Kazan, Tatarstan's capital, said, "Russia has lost the moral right not to recognize us."

Spanish Judge Balthasar Garzón has ordered government and religious authorities across Spain to turn over information about those killed at the hands of Francisco Franco's fascist forces following his 1936 military uprising. Garzón hopes to draw up a comprehensive list of victims in a bid to document human rights abuses outside of the theater of war. There is no official record of how many died on the Republican side during the three-year Civil War, which claimed the lives of some 500,000 Spaniards. More were killed for opposing Franco during his 36-year dictatorship. While the Franco regime honored its own dead, those of the losing side remained buried in unmarked graves across Spain.

A NATO air-strike in Afghanistan's Khost province missed its target Sept. 9, striking a house, killing two civilians and wounding 10. NATO said their forces were targeting an insurgent position when a weapon accidentally misfired, veering one and a half miles of course. "An immediate investigation into the cause of the incident has been launched and further details will be forthcoming once established," a NATO statement said. (BBC, ABC, Reuters, Sept. 9)

Iraqi state employees affiliated with the General Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI), following a campaign of demonstrations in central Baghdad that began Aug. 24, won an agreement from the Ministry of Finance to meet demands for improvement of living conditions and to rescind recently announced cuts in pay and benefits. The government also agreed to discuss workers' demands for public access to parliament sessions. Government talks are to begin with GFWCUI president Subhi al-Badri and vice president Saeed Nima. (GFWCUI via US Labor Against the War, Sept. 8)

Just in time for the elections, Bush orchestrates some "good news" in Iraq—the announcement of a pull-out of 8,000 troops early in '09 (NYT, Sept. 9), and the beginning of a turn-over of control of Anbar province and responsibility for paying and "directing" the Awakening Council militias to the Iraqi government (NYT, Sept. 1). Both these developments are not as rosy as the headlines make them appear, if you take the time to read (and analyze) the small print. The Times tells us the troop pull-out would leave 138,000 troops in Iraq by March—"still several thousand more than were there in January 2007, when Mr. Bush announced the 'surge' that brought the total over 160,000." Since nobody else does, we have to keep reminding that the end of the "surge" will leave more troops in Iraq than when "major combat operations" were declared over five years ago. In May 2003, Bush pledged that the 135,000 troops then in Iraq would be reduced by 100,000 over the next four months, leaving only a division to control Baghdad. But we're not supposed to talk about that.