From US Labor Against the War (USLAW), May 9:

Leading Iraqi Labor Leaders to Tour U.S.
First woman union leader, head of oil workers union to visit 12 cities
June 4-29, 2007
Atlanta, Berkeley, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Washington, DC

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two leaders of Iraq's labor movement, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, President of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, and Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Federation of Oil Unions, will tour a dozen U.S. cities between June 4 and June 29, 2007. During their visit, they will address members of Congress, labor audiences and the general public about the impact the U.S. occupation has had on the labor movement and daily lives of working people in Iraq. They will speak about reconstruction and will explain why the labor movement is opposed to the proposed hydrocarbon law favored by the Bush administration and oil corporations which would put foreign oil corporations in effective control of 2/3 of Iraq's undeveloped oil reserves. They will also describe the likely consequences if the occupation continues, what might occur if it abruptly ends and prospects for a stable, democratic, non-sectarian future for Iraq.

Some 900 German federal police troops raided 40 sites in Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony, in a move against 21 anti-globalization militants allegedly suspected of setting up an organization to launch arson attacks at the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm next month. Arrests were made, but authorities would not say how many. (FT, Reuters, Xinhua, May 10)

The conservative Washington Times exploits the arrest of four Kosovar Albanian youth in the apparent Ft. Dix terror conspiracy, raising once again Slobodan Milosevic's specter of a Balkan jihad. Good timing, just as Kosova is poised to become Europe's first Muslim-led state. Perhaps the WT's perverse glee will be shared by their counterparts on the "left"—like Ed Herman and Noam Chomsky. Bill Gertz writes May 9:

What a bizarre irony. The international press are playing up the lovefest between the once-implacable enemies who have united to revive the "devolved" government at Stormont for the first time since the power-sharing assembly was suspended in October 2002: new First Minister Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) (who in 1998 was forcibly ejected from his Europarliament seat for calling Pope John Paul II the "anti-Christ"—to his face!) and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin (a former IRA commander who was convicted on "terrorism" charges in 1973). Meanwhile, protesters who gathered outside the Stormont parliament building to condemn the swearing-in ceremony as a sell-out included both veteran IRA militants who decried the betrayal of Republicanism and a group called "Justice for Protestants" made up of Ulster Defence Regiment veterans—paradoxically united by their mutual desire to avoid uniting with each other. Just to add to the fun, a group of anti-war protesters also showed up to protest Tony Blair's appearance at the affair. (Canberra Times, May 10; Belfast Telegraph, May 9; RTE News, May 8; BBC News Profile: Martin McGuinness)

"Socialist villages"? Sounds to us more like keeping a restive population under control to faciliate a stable investment climate for tourism and other capitalist development—akin to the "model villages" the right-wing Guatemalan dictatorship imposed on the Maya peasantry in the '80s. Why does the Beijing regime maintain this propaganda charade? Are we the ony ones who grasp the cognitive dissonance? From McClatchy Newspapers, May 6:

The ugly regime in Uzbekistan is certainly giving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty all the grist they need for their propaganda mill. May 9:

Umida Niyazova fought for democracy and human rights in her native Uzbekistan.

But from a cage in a Tashkent courtroom on May 8, Niyazova made a "confession" that amounted to an apparent repudiation of all she stands for. She even criticized Human Rights Watch, the U.S.-based rights organization for which she had worked as a translator.

A US helicopter opened fire on an elementary school in Diyala province May 8, killing seven students and wounding three, according to Iraqi security sources and local residents. Iraqi sources said the helicopter was fired on from the ground and hit the school when it returned fire. Spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the military was investigating the reports.

An air raid killed 21 civilians in Afghanistan's southern province of Helmand May 8, the provincial governor charged. "Twenty-one civilians, including women and children, were killed" in the raid on a village in Sangin district, Gov. Assadullah Wafa said. AlJazeera TV said it was not clear whether the raid was by NATO's International Security Assistance Force or the separate US-led coalition. NATO denied knowledge of the raid.