From Shabelle Media Network via AllAfrica.com, Oct. 27:

More than 15 people mainly civilians and seven Ethiopian soldiers have been killed and many more have been injured after insurgents and government-allied forces battled with different sorts of weapons like, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other automatic rifles.

Libyan authorities expressed pessimism as key Darfur rebel factions failed to show up for the peace talks with the Sudanese government at the Mediterranean port of Sirte. On the eve of the AU/UN-mediated talks, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and Sudan Liberation Army Unity faction announced they would not attend. Another rebel commander, Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur, founder of the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), also said he would not travel to Libya for the talks. (Reuters, Oct. 28)

It seems that since the capitulation of warlord Khun Sa 11 years ago, his Mong Tai Army has collapsed back into its constituent entities—and that his former militia, the Shan State Army, is back in rebellion against the Burmese regime. From the BBC, Oct. 26:

The leader of a Burmese ethnic army has urged all opponents of the ruling junta to unite in the aftermath of last month's uprising. "All those battling the regime must co-operate," said Colonel Yawd Serk, of the Shan State Army (SSA). "If we cannot unite, and if the international community does not come to our help, then nothing will change in Burma for a decade."

From AFP via Pakistan's Daily Times, Oct. 28 (links added):

PALWAL — A serpentine column of India’s poorest of the poor is moving across cities, determined to reclaim their land taken over in the name of the country’s heady economic boom.

From AP, Oct. 27:

SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of people called for a swift end to the war in Iraq as they marched through downtown on Saturday, chanting and carrying signs that read: "Wall Street Gets Rich, Iraqis and GIs Die" or "Drop Tuition Not Bombs."

One day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of New York IMC journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, two primitive homemade explosive devices were thrown at New York's Mexican consulate in an apparent pre-dawn bicycle-by attack Oct. 26, shattering windows but causing no injuries. Police are drawing parallels to a similar incident at the British consulate in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005. In both cases, the devices were fake grenades sold as novelty items, but packed with black powder and detonated with fuses. In the 2005 case, video surveillance indicated two devices were thrown from a passing bicycle. In the Oct. 26 case, a witness reported seeing a hooded figure on a bicycle pass by the consulate. (NYT, AP, Oct. 27)

Bolivian President Evo Morales is facing converging crises on multiple fronts—from South American neighbors, from the Colossus of the North, and from internal opposition. Peru is seeking the extradition of Walter Chavez, a top adviser to Morales' successful 2005 campaign, on terrorism charges related to accusations that he extorted businessmen on behalf of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Chavez, a Peruvian former journalist, has lived in Bolivia since 1992 and was granted political asylum there in 1998. (Reuters, Oct. 26)

Ten prostitutes in the Bolivian highland city of El Alto sewed their lips together Oct. 24 as part of a hunger strike to demand that the mayor reopen brothels and bars ordered closed after angry protests by residents. Some 30 more are participating in the hunger strike, fasting inside a local medical clinic. "We are fighting for the right to work and for our families' survival," Lily Cortez, leader of the Asociación de Trabajadoras Nocturnas de El Alto (Association of Nighttime Workers of El Alto), told local television. "Tomorrow we will bury ourselves alive if we are not immediately heard. The mayor will have his conscience to answer to if there are any grave consequences, such as the death of my comrades." Prostitution is legal and government-regulated in Bolivia, but El Alto Mayor Fanor Nava says he is responding to a popular mandate in his move to shut the brothels. The sex workers are also demanding an investigation into recent arson attacks on bars and brothels in the city, and have threatened to march naked through the streets of La Paz, the nearby national capital. (Reuters; La Gaceta, Tucumán, Argentina, Oct. 25; AFP; La Razón, La Paz, Oct. 24)