After last month's deadly Con Ed blast, another eerie sense of deja vu for jittery New Yorkers—this one cutting even closer to home. From AP via Newsday, Aug. 20:

Investigators probe cause in fire that killed 2 NYC firefighters
NEW YORK - Fire marshals went back into a condemned ground zero skyscraper Monday in hopes of learning more about a blaze that killed two firefighters as details emerged about numerous unsafe working conditions at the troubled demolition site.

About 50 demonstrators gathered outside the Mexican consulate in New York City on Aug. 18 in an attempt to prevent Oaxaca governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz from participating in a press conference and a meeting with local Mexican community leaders. Ruiz has been the target of militant protests by Oaxacan unionists, social activists and indigenous groups for more than a year. Many of the New York protesters were friends and colleagues of New York-based journalist Brad Will, who was killed in Oaxaca in October 2006 while covering the protests. Gov. Ruiz was scheduled to visit New York as part of tour to US cities by the migration committee of the National Governors' Conference (Conago).

Mineworker Reynaldo Hernandez Gonzalez was killed and several workers were injured on Aug. 13 in a violent confrontation between rival groups of miners at Grupo Mexico's La Caridad mine in Nacozari, in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. There were 15 arrests, and about 20 workers reportedly disappeared. The violence broke out when a group of fired workers who were loyal to the main mineworkers union, the National Union of Mine and Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMRM), returned to the mine to demand that they be rehired. Apparently they fought with supporters of a company union.

An Aug. 13 statement from the National Lawyers Guild calling for repeal of the "Protect America Act" signed into law by George Bush Aug. 6:

Congress put its stamp of approval on the unconstitutional wiretapping of Americans by amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the "Protect America Act of 2007."

Freedom's on the march. From Reuters, Aug. 18:

BAGHDAD — Rare footage from inside a Baghdad prison camp shows hundreds of inmates packed into wire-mesh tents, protesting their innocence.

The Iranian military has shelled territory in Iraqi Kurdistan intermittently over the past three days, wounding two women and forcing the evacuation of 200 families, local officials reported Aug. 18. Hussein Ahmed, the mayor of Qal'at Dizah, a town close to the Iranian line, said several thousand Iranian soldiers could also be seen near the border. There was no immediate comment from Tehran or Baghdad on the reports. Jabar Yaour, undersecretary at the Ministry for Peshmerga Affairs in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, said the shelling took place across a range of about 50 kilometers (30 miles). "Damage has occurred in Kurdish villages on the Iraqi side and resulted in the evacuation of more than 200 families from these villages," Yaour told Reuters.

On Aug. 16, a Miami federal jury convicted Jose Padilla on charges of aiding terrorist operations abroad, together with co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi. "We are so pleased with the verdict," said acting Deputy Attorney General Craig S. Morford. "Frankly, America is a better place today." (LAT, Aug. 17) But the charges were a far cry from the "dirty bomb" hype that occasioned his arrest as an "enemy combatant" in 2002. Furthermore, the case against him was still dubious at best. Padilla's attorney Andrew Patel, interviewed on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now the day after the verdict, provided an overview of the numerous irregularities and extreme measures in the case. Some 300,000 telephone calls and other communications were intercepted in the investigation, with 130 introduced as evidence; Padilla's voice is actually heard on only seven, with his name referenced on another dozen. In an echo of tactics used against Lynne Stewart, the government introduced portions of a CNN interview with Osama bin Laden—while disingenuously instructing the jury not to conisder it as evidence against Padilla. Finally, the most incriminating piece of evidence, a "mujaheddin data form" Padilla had allegedly submitted to join al-Qaeda, was actually filled out in more than one handwriting. Goodman also interviewed psychiatrist Angela Hegarty, who examined Padilla last year and concluded that the extreme isolation, sensory deprivation and torture he had suffered while held in military custody as an "enemy combatant" had left Padilla essentially brain-damaged. Padilla's lawyers also charged the psychological damage was augmented by LSD and other psychoactive drugs he had been given as a "truth serum." Patel pledged to appeal the verdict.

Colombia's Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos confirmed that Israeli military advisors are helping his government fight guerillas, the Bogota newsweekly Semana reports. According to Semana, "A group of former Israeli military officials is counseling the military's top brass on intelligence issues." The weekly said the Israelis were hired by the Colombian Defense Ministry to improve the army's intelligence capabilities and the command-and-control structure.