Former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), top officials in the government of current Mexican president Vicente Fox Quesada and a leader of Fox's center-right National Action Party (PAN) were involved in a conspiracy in 2004 to remove Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the center-left Party of the Democratic Party (PRD) from contention in the July 2, 2006 presidential election, according to a tape played on the "Hoy por Hoy" ("Nowadays") radio program on Aug. 18. The tape allegedly records a confession by one of the conspirators, Argentine-born business magnate Carlos Ahumada Kurtz, when he was in custody in Cuba in March and April 2004; he is currently imprisoned in Mexico City on corruption charges.

The 9,500 workers at Volkswagen's giant plant in the state of Puebla went on strike Aug. 18 after rejecting the company's offer of a 4.5% pay raise coupled with demands for increased "labor flexibility." Talks remained stalled on Aug. 19, but the workers reportedly expected the strike not to last more than 72 hours, as was the case in 2004.

Some 60 masked and mostly armed men, including "porros" (provocaterus) and municipal police, took over the local office of the Oaxaca daily newspaper Noticias in the town of Santa Cruz Amilpas Aug. 20. The municipal government is in the hands of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), but nine days earlier, a group loyal to the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO), which is demanding the resignation of the state's PRI governor, Ulises Ruiz, had seized control of the town hall. (La Jornada, Aug. 21 via Chiapas95)

From AP via the Houston Chronicle, Aug. 21:

Volunteers plan to man Texas border

SAN ANTONIO — Hundreds of volunteers plan to keep watch over the Texas-Mexico border near Laredo beginning Sept. 11, aiding the U.S. Border Patrol's effort to stop illegal immigration.

From New Jersey's Herald News, Aug. 16, also online at DeleteTheBorder.org:

Detainee report 'too damning' to release?

Nearly eight months after the Department of Homeland Security said it would issue the first official report on the treatment of immigrants in federal detention, immigrant-rights advocates are wondering what's taking so long.

On Aug. 15, at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, immigrant activist Elvira Arellano told supporters she would not report to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office that day for deportation, as she had been ordered to do by 9 AM. Instead, she announced she would take sanctuary in the church, with the support of the pastor and her fellow parishioners, in an effort to remain in the US with her seven-year-old son, a US citizen. (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 15)

Sometimes you have to look at your opponent's propaganda to get a realistic sense of your own side's weaknesses—call it an inoculation against groupthink. A case in point is this Aug. 21 analysis of the recent court ruling on the Bush telephone surveillance program from TCS Daily (for "Technology, Commerce, Society"). For the suppoedly "libertarian" wing of the free-market right, these guys show little outrage at government snooping. But this piece does reveal why the Detroit district court's ruling is ultimately a weak defense of freedom. The note of "optimism" that this piece ends on is worrisome. Emphasis added.

Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos raided a supposed Hezbollah stronhold in the Bekaa Valley Aug. 20 in what Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora called a "naked violation" of the UN-backed truce. Three Hezbollah guerrillas were reportedly killed in a dawn firefight with the Israeli commandos. The Israeli army said it had suffered one dead and two wounded. Israel said the operation aimed to disrupt weapons supplies to Hezbollah from Syria and Iran. Both countries deny arming the group. (Taipei Times, Aug. 20)