A prominent French anti-globalization activist blamed the wave of urban unrest on failed government policies and the social and economic marginalization of immigrants. "Riots have nothing to do with Muslims, Arabs or African immigrants as propagated by the media," José Bové told IslamOnline.net Nov. 8. "The unrest has its roots in decade-old failed social policies to improve the situation in France's poor suburbs."

More than 500 troops of the Colombian National Police attacked a group of Nasa Indians who were occupying a plantation in the southwestern department of Cauca Nov. 10, leaving one dead and more than 40 injured. Belisario Camallo Guetoto, 16, was killed when police opened fire on the occupation at Finca Japio de Caloto. Yerson Mensa, 21, remains in critical condition after taking a bullet in his back.

The Association of Indigenous Cabildos of North Cauca (ACIN) states that contrary to press reports, police did not succeed in evicting the occupation, but have thrown up roadblocks effectively barring food and medical services from the finca. (ONIC communique, Nov. 11 via Red de Defensores no Institucionalizados)

Hundreds of heavily armed Maoist guerillas stormed a jail in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, killing at least four people and freeing about 350 prisoners, including many fellow guerrillas. The rebels entered Jehanabad town the night of Nov. 13 in small groups, cut off power and raided the prison in one of the biggest-ever attacks by Maoist guerrillas.

The following item is from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

Church leader accuses Israel

A Scottish church leader called Israel’s West Bank security barrier a “theft of land."

See our last posts on Israel/Palestine

A forensic team working in the mass graves of Bosnia announced it had found the remains of 227 victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre Nov. 11. Murat Hurtic, the lead excavator, said the exhumation at the village of Snagovo, 30 miles north of Srebrenica, had discovered "147 incomplete and 80 complete bodies."

From Palestine Monitor, Nov. 7:

Thursday, November 3, was the first day of the post-Ramadan Eid al-Fitr holidays, the feast of fast-breaking, a three-day festival of family visits, new clothes, gifts, and a break from work and school. On that day Ahmed al-Khatib, 12 years old, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.

He was wearing his new holidays clothes and, according to some witnesses, playing with a plastic toy gun he had received as a holiday gift. Israeli soldiers who were in the area saw the boy from about 130 meters away and shot him twice, once in the torso and once in the head.

Arutz Sheva, arch-reactionary organ of the Israeli settler movement, is clearly overjoyed by this Nov. 13 tidbit:

(IsraelNN.com) New York Senator and former US First Lady Hillary Clinton voiced her support for the Partition Wall Sunday.

Egypt's Coptic Christian minority is to launch its own satellite television this month. After deadly riots in Alexandria Oct. 21, many Copts see the creation of the channel as an essential tool to assert their long-repressed identity. But some fear the church's patronage of the channel could fan sectarian strife. Aghapy TV—from the Coptic word for "love"—is due to start broadcasting Nov. 14 on Telestar 12, a US-operated satellite network which spans Egypt and several African countries.