A man splashed his own blood on a column outside the federal courthouse in Binghamton, NY, where four anti-war protesters were on trial for engaging in a similar protest at a military recruiting station. Gary Kline, 50, of Montour Falls, walked past police officers and splashed the blood on a column outside the Binghamton Federal Building. He then made handprints on the surface. Local police released Kline, saying any charges would have to come from federal prosecutors.

From the UK's New Statesman, Sept. 19, via the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA):

As the country wakes up from 25 years of conflict and despair, a young female politician is taking on the warlords and winning. F Brinley Bruton reports from Farah Province
August temperatures in Farah Province, on the border with Iran, can hit 50 C, beating residents into a submissive slouch. But on a Friday in Farah's capital, the offices of Malalai Joya, who is running for parliament, crackle with life. All activity focuses on a woman who is slumped in a chair, her head bowed and the side of her face swollen. Her mouth hangs slack and her tongue worries at her crooked teeth.

From New York City's Pakistan Post, Sept. 15. Translated from the Urdu by Mohammad Jehangir Khan for the International Press Association.

A Pakistani man died of heart attack on September 9 while waiting for his deportation in a New Jersey prison, sources said.

Shehzad Tanveer, 42, who came to the United States about 13 years ago, was believed to be worried about his financial predicament awaiting him in Gujranwala, Pakistan before his death.

Days after receiving similar treatment in New York, Cindy Sheehan and entourage met with police harassment in DC. Writes Sarah Ferguson for the Village Voice Sept. 21:

On Sept. 22, a student protest at Cali's Universidad del Valle was brutally attacked by the Colombian National Police special anti-riot unit, the Mobile Anti-Disturbance Squad (ESMAD), which brought in an armored vehicle and fired live ammunition, hurled tear-gas cannisters and beat students with clubs. One chemistry student, Jhony Silva Aranjuren, 21, was mortally wounded and died later in the hospital; several others were also wounded. The students were protesting the cut-off of potable water to the Corregimiento de Villa Gorgona, a village in Candelaria municipality outside Cali, and aggressions against the civil population. (Red de Defensores No-Institucionalizados, Sept. 22)

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.