From the Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 9:

Coca grower leader threatens to kill five journalists
Reporters Without Borders today condemned death threats made against five journalists in the northwestern province of Tocache by Sergio Gonzales Apaza, the leader of the "Saúl Guevara Díaz" group of cocaleros (coca growers). The cocaleros have been on strike since 2 November in protest against the eradication of their crops by the government, which accuses them of cooperating with drug traffickers.

From the LA Times, Nov. 10:

Emergency declared in Bay Area oil spill
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday for the San Francisco Bay Area as an oil spill continued to coat some of the state's most storied coastline and imperil marine wildlife.

Three days before the Nov. 7 opening of the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, a hacker broke into the website of Chile's presidency and planted the flag of Peru, leaving the site inoperable for some 18 hours. AP reports the intruder left a message—"Long live Peru," followed by "an expletive." Chile's less squeamish Noticias 123 identifies the full epithet as "Viva el Perú, mierda" (Long live Peru, you shit). AP helpfully informs us: "The Santiago daily El Mercurio on Monday reported that officials believe the hacker was a Peruvian." (No, ya think?) The move comes as officials are taking steps to redress Peru's long-standing grievances against its southern neighbor. BBC reports Nov. 7 that Chile has returned 3,778 books—many dating back to the 16th century—to Peru's national library, which was pillaged by Chilean soldiers during their 1881 occupation of Lima. BBC smarmily notes, "there was no talk of a fine." Peru lost territory to Chile in the 1879-83 War of the Pacific, and Bolivia lost access to the sea.

Uzbekistan's incumbent President Islam Karimov was unanimously nominated to run for a third seven-year presidential term this December by his Liberal Democratic Party Nov. 6. Karimov is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, and the New York Times writes that "election officials have not yet explained the legal mechanism justifying his nomination." (NYT, Nov. 7; Interfax, Nov. 6) Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch is urging the UN Committee Against Torture, now convening in Geneva, to condemn Uzbekistan for flagrantly violating the global ban on torture. In a 90-page report issued Nov. 7, "Nowhere to Turn: Torture and Ill-Treatment in Uzbekistan," HRW accuses the Uzbek government of using a wide range of methods against detainees, including beatings with truncheons, asphyxiation with plastic bags and gas masks, electric shocks, and sexual humiliation. HRW director Juliette De Rivero said that ill treatment of detainees in Uzbekistan is "endemic." (RFE/RL, Nov. 7)

In contrast to their Cold War counterparts of yesterdecade, who openly embraced any dictator who was "our son of a bitch," today's neocons often seem to really believe their own rhetoric about how their global project is expanding democracy. This is why the auto-golpe in Pakistan puts them in such a pickle. Compounding their discomfort is the similar power-grab that US-backed President Mikhail Saakashvili is now attempting in Georgia—just two weeks short of the fourth anniversary of the "Rose Revolution" that put him in office. At the time of the Rose Revolution, the kneejerk anti-America crowd squawked about how it was all the work of the CIA and George Soros. Now Saakashvili is squawking about how the current wave of protest is all the work of Russian secret agents. Funny how those in power never seem to think anyone would have any legitimate reason to be pissed off at them.

Ten years after New York City's notorious Abner Louima case, police in Egypt appear to be emulating the brutal techniques of Rudolph Giuliani's NYPD. Two Cairo police officers were convicted this week of torturing a man in their custody—after a cellphone video of the man being sodomized with a stick appeared on the Internet. As the man, a 22-year-old bus driver who had been detained after trying to break up a fight between the police and a cousin last year, screamed in pain, onlookers taunted him and threatened to spread the video among his co-workers to humiliate him. The video made its way to Egyptian blog sites and YouTube, and widespread outrage followed. The officers were sentenced to three years in prison. Rights groups say torture is routinely used in Egypt's police stations. (NYT, Nov. 6)

The Pentagon has, astutely, chosen an African American as first chief of the new Africa Command, Gen. William "Kip" Ward—and his first official visit to the continent was, of course, to chief US ally Ethiopia. Meeting with African Union leaders in Addis Ababa Nov. 8, Ward explicitly addressed widespread fears of the US establishing a permanent military presence on the continent. "Any notion of a militarization of the continent because of this? Absolutely false; not the case," said Gen. Ward. "Africa Command is not here to build garrisons and military bases." (BBC, Reuters, Nov. 8)

In our last post on China, we noted that it is now the key nation falling under the rubric of the 1992 Pentagon "Defense Planning Guide" drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby which said the US must "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role." In our last post on the global struggle for control of oil, we noted that the national company PetroChina is rapidly gaining on Exxon as the world's largest oil company. Now, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, after meeting in Beijing with his counterpart, Gen. Cao Gangchuan, tells a news conference he had raised "the uncertainty over China's military modernization and the need for greater transparency to allay international concerns." In its coverage of the meeting, the New York Times Nov. 6 said "Pentagon officials describe China as a 'peer competitor'..." An analysis on the visit in the previous day's edition quoted Michael J. Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies saying, "If you are sitting in the Pentagon, China is a potential peer competitor."