Three campesino leaders from San Salvador Atenco were each sentenced to 67 years and six months in prison on charges of kidnapping May 5. The sentences come almost exactly a year after a violent clash between Atenco residents and Mexican state and federal police troops. Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Alvarez and Héctor Galindo, leaders of the People's Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT), have five days to appeal the verdict. The charges are related to incidents in February and April 2006, when FPDT members allegedly held State of Mexico officials captive. Although the leaders were arrested in the aftermath of the May 2006 violence, the judge said his decision was based solely upon "the kidnapping and illegal detention of the state officials." (El Universal, May 6)

A group of students from Oaxaca’s autonomous State University allied with the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO) occupied Radio Universidad—the University radio station—on April 30. The students said it was a limited take-over to last until 8 PM, May 2. As of 4:45 Oaxaca time on that day, Internet connections for Radio Universidad were down. It was not apparent why. Nor was it known if the station was broadcasting or being jammed.

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa announced last week that he will increase military and security forces around oil facilities and allow the use of force to remove protestors. "We will not allow any more invasions of oil installations or the blockage of roads," said Correa while visiting the Amazon, which contains the country’s largest oil reserves. [Reuters, April 27]

Amnesty International published a report this week exposing Brazil's public security crisis. "Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have reached a tragic impasse. Criminal gangs ... have rushed to fill the vacuum left by the state, Balkanizing the cities into a patchwork of violent fiefdoms," the report ("From Burning Buses to Caveirões": The Search for Human Security") stated. [AI, May 2]

A thoroughly uncritical May 6 AP account of the controversial Dead Sea "recovery" program portrays the new progress on the project as a straightforward victory for diplomacy in the interests of ecology. Some excerpts:

GHOR HADITHA, Jordan — Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Arabs are slowly pushing through the tangle of their disputes and suspicions in a race to save a biblical and ecological treasure, the Dead Sea.

In a new video posted on the Internet by al Qaeda's propaganda arm, as-Sahab, the organization's number-two man Ayman al Zawahiri mocks the bill passed by Congress setting a timetable for the pullout of US troops in Iraq. "This bill will deprive us of the opportunity to destroy the American forces which we have caught in a historic trap," Zawahiri says. "We ask Allah that they only get out of it after losing 200,000 to 300,000 killed, in order that we give the spillers of blood in Washington and Europe an unforgettable lesson." (ABC, May 5)

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Lahore to cheer on the suspended chief justice, Iftakhar Mohammed Chaudhry. They threw flowers in the path of his motorcade, and banged drums to welcome him. Addressing a crowd of lawyers outside the city's High Court building, Chaudhry urged his supporters to continue their fight to protect the country's independent judiciary. Massive protests have been held almost weekly in major cities across Pakistan since the suspension. Chaudry is appealing his removal, and a judicial panel is reviewing the case. (VOA, May 6) Meanwhile, some 250 masked gunmen calling themselves Taliban set up checkpoints on roads in the Tribal Areas' Bajaur agency along the Afghan border. The gunmen stopped vehicles, confiscated tape players and cell phones, and warned clean-shaven males to grow beards under threat of "strict action." (DPA, May 6)

We hate to exploit this horrific double-tragedy for political propaganda. And maybe if Jocelyn Mercedes understands our point, she won't see it as exploitation—just providing the inevitable context. Ultimately, both of her loved ones were killed by the same thing. From Newsday, May 3:

A Bronx woman who lost her husband to the Iraq War suffered a second devastating loss Thursday when their baby was run over by her car, police said.