by Sandra Cuffe, Rights Action

"Why are we gathered here tonight?" asked community elder Roberto Caal, looking around at the dozens of women, men and children gathering under the palm-thatched roof of the open-air community hall in Barrio Revolución, in the municipality of El Estor, in eastern Guatemala.

"We have come to recuperate our land once again," he explained. "This land is for our sons and daughters."

Fears of "Civil War" as Constituent Assembly Deadlocks

by Federico Fuentes, Green Left Weekly

from IRIN

The Mauritanian government must take additional measures to ensure a new law criminalizing slavery has an effect, human rights activists say.

"The new law is a very positive first step. It is only a first step though," said Romana Cacchioli, Africa Program Coordinator for the British nongovernmental pressure group, Anti-Slavery International. "We don't eradicate slavery just by introducing a law."

Washington's New Terror War Flashpoint?

by Mohamed Al-Azaki

MARIB, Yemen - "After the Spaniards, who will be next to die in this vibrant, 'living museum,' as Yemenis call their country?" So asked one member of a group of Italian tourists leaving Yemen after the horrible attack.

It is a dreadful question after the al-Qaeda car bomb attack detonated near the Sun Temple archeological site in Marib province, some 150 km east of the capital Sana'a, killing eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis on July 2.

The Mearsheimer-Walt Thesis Deconstructed

by Bill Weinberg, WW4 REPORT

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy is this month to be released as a book—for which authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are said to have received a $750,000 advance from Farrar, Straus & Giroux. On this occasion, we present again the critique we ran last year of the work as it appeared in Middle East Policy Journal, then the latest version. This time the writer, who used the pseudonym "William X," reveals himself as WW4 REPORT editor Bill Weinberg

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

Far-Right Militias Survive "Peace Process" and "Para-Politics" Scandal

by Memo Montevino, WW4 REPORT

Occupied Iraq's Not-So-Distant Mirror

by Bill Weinberg, Middle East Policy

Book Review:

The Great Syrian Revolt
and the Rise of Arab Nationalism
by Michael Provence
University of Texas, Austin, 2005