The Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, a militia group from Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta region, has seized a pumping station in protest of the arrest of its leader. More than 100 armed men in boats stormed the Idama flow-station, sources close to the Chevron oil company said.

Well, somebody, it seems, has found something more creative to do to protest the war in Iraq than march in orderly rows chanting monotonous slogans in unison. From New York Newsday, sept. 22:

NEW YORK -- A Manhattan judge Thursday dismissed the public nudity summons issued to an artist who was arrested after she protested the Iraq war by disrobing to display the words "STOP THE WAR" written on her naked body. [In Arabic too.—WW4 REPORT]

A recent story in New Jersey's Asbury Park Press sheds light on a highly esoteric group which can make a claim to being an indigenous American form of Islam, the Moorish Science movement. The story concerns Lee S. Crudup, who now goes by his "Moorish-American" name of Nature El Bey. Earlier this year, he was charged with—and acquitted of—failing to cooperate with Asbury Park police by giving a false name. He was convicted of not registering or insuring his car, and served 14 days in jail. He has now filed a federal suit, along with the Moorish Science Temple of America, accusing Asbury Park authorities of kidnapping him and illegally depriving him of his property under color of law. His numerous unorthodox legal arguments include that police have no right to stop citizens—only the sheriff, who holds the sole law enforcement office created by the state constitution, can do so, El Bey told the newspaper. But the larger issue seems to be the Moorish Science doctrine that Moorish-Americans constitute a separate nationality and are not subject to US law—or only to a strict constitutional interpretation. This doctrine has also brought followers of Moorish Science into frequent conflict with the IRS.

When a bomb exploded yesterday at the British embassy in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, causing minor injuries to a security guard, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader suggested it might be linked to Croatia's application to join the European Union. Britain is the current president of the EU, and one of several member states that has opposed Croatia's membership until it arrests its main war crimes fugitive, Gen. Ante Gotovina. (Reuters, Sept. 19) Croatian President Stipe Mesic condemned the incident as a "terrorist attack." But when an embassy employee, Damir Rovisan, was arrested today for smuggling in the device, Interior Minister Ivica Kirin said: "This indicates that this is not a terrorist act against the British embassy, but an act of an individual coming from criminal circles." Yet he admitted that no motive had been established for the bombing. (BBC, Sept. 20)

In a New York Times op-ed piece that ran Sept. 16 in the International Herald Tribune, Waleed Ziad of the Truman National Security Project questions Washington's interventionist consensus. In the piece, "Jihad's Fresh Face," Ziad writes:

The post-9/11 prevailing wisdom has held that military force and exporting democracy are the West's twin weapons against terrorism. Islamic fundamentalism is the product of a "medieval" mindset, we are told, and if we can deliver elections to the Arab world, our enemies will cower before the spirit of the Enlightenment.

New York City's Union Square Park, which had been a symbol of free speech in the aftermath of 9-11, has now become a symbol of censorship. This AP account appears in today's Newsday:

On Wednesday, Sept. 21 at 7:30 PM, WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg will speak on "The Politics of the Anti-War Movement" in an event sponsored by the New SPACE (New School for Pluralistic Anti-Capitalist Education):

Hard-left elements of the anti-war movement affirm the abstract right of the Iraqi people to resist the occupation, but fail to grapple with the realities of Iraq's actually-existing armed resistance. The more moderate elements dodge the question entirely. Yet there is an active left opposition in Iraq that opposes the occupation, the regime it protects, and the jihadi and Baathist "resistance" alike. It is this besieged opposition, under threat of assassination and persecution, which is fighting to keep alive elementary freedoms for women, leading labor struggles against Halliburton and other US contractors, and demanding a secular future for Iraq. For all the incessant factional splits in the US anti-war movement, providing this real, progressive Iraqi resistance concrete solidarity is not even on the agenda. How can we build an effective anti-war movement which is based on principles of international solidarity, and loan a voice to our natural allies in Iraq? Join us in a discussion with award-winning journalist Bill Weinberg.

While 11 candidates (out of some 3,000) were barred from Afghanistan's parliamentary elections for ties to warlordism, many veteran Mujahedeen commanders with pasts tained by human rights abuses—or even ethnic cleansing—seem to have slipped through the cracks. Reported Newsday Sept. 19: