From Aug. 11 to 16, agents arrested 42 foreign nationals in an ICE-led operation targeting street gangs in the metropolitan area of Salt Lake City, Utah. The sweep was carried out with the assistance of the US Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Attorney's Office, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Salt Lake City and Midvale police departments. One of the arrested immigrants was from Guatemala, one was from Honduras, three were from El Salvador and the rest were from Mexico. Of the total 42 people arrested, 10 face federal charges for reentry after deportation; one faces federal charges for illegal possession of a firearm; and 11 others are being prosecuted on state charges. The remaining 20 people were arrested on administrative immigration violations.

Barack Obama's choice of Joseph Biden, the veteran Delaware senator and head of the Foreign Relations Committee, as his running mate is a depressing capitulation to conventionality that dangerously undercuts his much-hyped theme of "change"—especially given his telling flub at a Springfield, Ill., rally: "Let me introduce to you, the next president—the next vice president of the United States of America: Joe Biden." (Reuters, Aug. 23) Don't look now, Obama, but your Freudian slip is showing. Biden is not merely a pillar of the Beltway establishment, but has his own disturbing flirtation with the now almost universally hated neocons—the very people Obama has thus far successfully positioned himself in opposition to...

Deadly violence is reported across Mexico Aug. 23. In Hidalgo, the bullet-riddled body of state police chief Raymundo Zamorano was found on a roadside a day after he was kidnapped at gunpoint while patrolling the streets of Pachuca in his official car. A Tabasco state police officer was gunned down at a police highway checkpoint near Villahermosa by hitmen in three pickup trucks. A second officer was wounded in the shooting. In Chihuahua state, 13 people, including four police officers, were killed—mostly in Ciudad Juarez, where prosecutors and judicial authorities were holding a regional summit. Among those killed in the city was Jesús Blanco, the new municipal police chief of Villa Ahumada. Two police were also killed in an armed attack on a checkpoint in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. In Valladolid, Yucatán, a taxi driver supposedly linked to the city's narcomenudista (low-level dealer) network was assassinated. (AFP, El Universal, El Universal, Aug. 23)

Afghanistan's interior ministry says US-led forces killed 76 civilians in an Aug. 20 operation—directly contradicting the US military, which said 30 suspected Taliban died. "Seventy-six people, all civilians and most of them women and children, were martyred during the operation by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province," the ministry said Aug. 22. "Nineteen women, seven men and the rest children all under 15 years of age," were killed in the operation, the statement said—one of the highest civilian deaths tolls since the 2001 US-led invasion.

A Los Angeles Times report, "US debates going after militants in Pakistan," mostly quotes unnamed US officials as saying direct intervention in Pakistan is being viewed with greater seriousness as the country spins out of control. One attributed quote is from Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said some two months ago a team of up to 30 advisors would be sent to Pakistan this summer to operate out of a base near Peshawar, where a "significant number" of Pakistani military and Frontier Corps personnel would be put through a counterinsurgency training program. (LAT, Aug. 23)

The International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI) has called for an international campaign on behalf of several labor activists in Iran who have been sentenced to public whipping, prison terms and even death—mostly for participating in a May Day march in Sanandaj, and protests against the march's repression. The sentences were announced earlier this month. IASWI provides the following list of persecuted activists:

Mauritanian authorities re-arrested ousted prime minister Yahya Ould Ahmed El Waghef Aug. 21 after he led a protest march in opposition to this month's military coup. Deposed president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi has been held by the army since the Aug. 6 coup. Waghef was freed five days later and vowed to campaign to restore Abdallahi to power. He was arrested as he traveled to the northern port of Nouadhibou for another march. The Aug. 20 march in Nouakchott, the capital, was one of the largest in Mauritania's history, bringing out some 15,000. A group of political parties and civil organizations opposed to the coup have formed a National Front for the Defense of Democracy (FNDD), which reports police have seized its campaign banners and prevented it from holding protests in recent days. (BBC, Reuters, Aug. 21)

Via NYC Indymedia, Aug. 19:

August 19, 2008, New York – A group of 52 local activists today announced a $2 million settlement in their lawsuit against the City of New York. The activists were illegally arrested on April 7, 2003 while protesting against the Iraq war in front of a military contractor's offices in midtown. The settlement in Kunstler et al v. New York City follows the dismissal in 2003 of all criminal charges brought against these individuals and four costly years of delays by the City in negotiating an end to the civil lawsuit.