On Dec. 15, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mexican immigrant Martin Barrios on an outstanding deportation order at his home in the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, Illinois. A spokesperson from Centro Sin Fronteras, a Chicago-based immigrant rights group, said Barrios was arrested around 6:30 AM while still in his pajamas, in front of his US citizen wife and their three US-born children. Barrios has lived in the US for 18 years; he was ordered deported after a legal representative improperly filed an application to adjust his status.

A little more than a year ago, when the media noted a lesser milestone—2,000 US troops killed in Iraq—we pointed out that the media's habit of only counting the deaths of US troops as opposed to all US-led forces actually paints far too rosy a scenario. This September, when the media noted that combined US troop deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan had exceeded the 9-11 toll, we pointed out that Afghans killed in the US bombing campaign—overhwlemingly civilians—had surpassed the 9-11 vicitms in December 2001. Also note that a year ago, Congressional liberals were talking about reducing the US troop presence in Iraq to a still-hefty 100,000 by year's end. Today there are 130,000, with more apparently on the way. From AP, Dec. 26:

Predictable but depressing. Given the current popularity of "dual loyalty" insinuations against American Jews (even in supposedly progressive cricles), you'd think there'd be a little Jewish outrage over essentially identical arguments being used against American Muslims. This Dec. 28 column by Jonathan Tobin from Pennsylvania's Jewish Exponent (barely) pays lip service to such concerns, but ultimately (and idiotically) cannot contain its glee that the loyalty of a Muslim congressman is being questioned:

A potential opening for the kind of universalism that could go a long way towards chilling the planet out—and taking the wind out of al-Qaeda's Iberian franchise. But the local Catholic hierarchy isn't going for it. Maybe the Pope will exercise better judgement? From the Italian news agency AKI, Dec. 28:

The Bishop of the southern city of Cordoba, Juan Jose Asenjo, has turned down a request from its Muslim community to be allowed to pray with Christians in its cathedral - a former mosque. Asenjo was quoted as saying the joint use of consecrated places of worship would "generate confusion" and lead to "religious indifference".

A pretty astounding figure. But as we noted the last time it happened, in May: when resource hyper-exploitation co-exists with dire poverty, such incidents are absolutely inevitable. From IRIN, Dec. 28:

LAGOS - The Nigerian Red Cross has taken the lead in responding to the latest pipeline blast in Lagos on Tuesday that killed at least 269 people and left scores of others severely burned.

From La Jornada, Dec. 28 via Chiapas95:

The nation's top electoral court ruled Wednesday that irregularities preceding the Oct. 15 gubernatorial election in Tabasco were not serious enough to affect the outcome.

A communique from the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) "Intergalactic Commission," Dec. 24 (our translation):

Compañer@s, Herman@s: In a few days more will be Dec. 30, 2006, the start of the "Encuentro de los Pueblos Zapatistas con los Pueblos del Mundo" (Meeting of the Zapatista Villages with the Peoples of the World), which will end Jan. 2, 2007.

Ali Mohamad Gedi, prime minister of Somalia's Federal Transition Government (FTG) announced his parliament will declare a period of martial law to maintain control of the country after Ethiopian and FTG troops wrested the capital from Islamists Dec. 28. "This country has experienced anarchy and in order to restore security we need a strong hand, especially with freelance militias," he said, speaking from Mundul Sharey, a village some 40 km southwest of Mogadishu. FTG spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said the Islamists had fled to the southern port city of Kismayu and that the administration now controlled 95% of Somalia. (Reuters, Dec. 29)