Did U.S. Use Germ Warfare Against DC Peace March?
Or Are We Just Being Bionoid...?

by Mark Sanborne

"Bionoia... Catch It!"

The Ecology of Pandemic and the Impending Bio-Police State

by Michael I. Niman

If there's any good to come out of the Gulf Coast tragedy, it's that Katrina is a harbinger warning of what the Bush junta has in store for us should an avian flu pandemic hit America. Katrina, like the tsunami that hit Asia nine months earlier, also demonstrates how greed, political priorities and development priorities compounded the killing power of otherwise "natural" disasters.

A Perfect Biological Storm

Is the Real Enemy Islamic Terrorism, or Bolivia's Indigenous Revolution?

by Benjamin Dangl

The recent shift to the left among Latin American governments has been a cause for concern in the Bush administration. The White House has tried in vain to put this shift in check. Presidential elections in Bolivia on December 18 are likely to further challenge US hegemony. Evo Morales, an indigenous, socialist congressman, is expected to win the election. How far will the US go to prevent a leftist victory in Bolivia? Some Bolivians fear the worst.

In the past year, US military operations in neighboring Paraguay, Bolivia's neighbor on the southeast, have complicated the already tumultuous political climate in the region. White House officials claim the operations are part of humanitarian aid efforts. However, political analysts in both Paraguay and Bolivia say the activity is aimed at securing the region's gas and water reserves—and intervening in Bolivia if Morales wins.

Detainees Launch Non-Violent Resistance Behind Pentagon's Iron Veil

by Tanya Theriault

The veil of secrecy at the US Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when tugged at, continues to reveal the inhumane treatment of detainees held there. Since January 2002, the US has been imprisoning men (at present 505) from some 30 to 40 countries—but primarily Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen—indefinitely, without legal process, as "enemy combatants," so as to dodge the requirements of the Geneva Conventions on torture. Reports of torture and abuse of prisoners at Guantanamo continue to come from a variety of sources. Amnesty International has called the detention of the inmates "unlawful and arbitrary," and found conditions at the prison to be "cruel, inhumane and degrading." The International Committee of the Red Cross took the rare, bold step of making public the abuse and mental deterioration of inmates as a result of their indefinite and often solitary imprisonment, calling interminable detention of prisoners "tantamount to torture." What is hidden about the detention camp at Guantanamo should terrify us, as what we know now to be true makes us tremble in shame.

And the Intractable Dilemma of International ANSWER

by Bill Weinberg

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

DEADLY HURRICANE HITS

More than a thousand people are feared dead in flooding and mudslides in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas as a result of Hurricane Stan, which hit the region on Oct. 4. Heavy rains continued in some areas at least until Oct. 8. The worst destruction was in western Guatemala, where at least 652 people were reported dead and 384 missing as of Oct. 10; whole indigenous communities were buried by mudslides in Solola and San Marcos departments. Another 133 people died in Mexico and the rest of Central America. Observers attributed much of the devastation to deforestation, and noted that poverty forces poor campesinos to live in vulnerable areas.

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

PATAGONIA, EL CHACO: CAMPESINOS UNDER ATTACK

On Sept. 15, police agents in the southern Argentine province of Chubut nearly beat to death campesino Simforoso Jaramillo, according to the Front of Mapuche and Campesino Struggle. The agents left Jaramillo with a fractured skull, broken rib, broken left arm, facial disfigurement and bruised back. He was taken to the Comodoro Rivadavia hospital where he underwent surgery and remains in a coma. (Adital, Sept. 20)

from Weekly News Update on the Americas

On Sept. 29, at least 5,000 Bolivian teachers staged a national strike and marched in La Paz to protest what they call a "virtual privatization" of education in Bolivia: the handing over of public school administration--with all its costs--to the country's municipalities. The education system change was part of an accord negotiated with Bolivian municipalities on the use of proceeds from a new 32% gas tax, the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons (IDH), which is expected to bring $417 million into government coffers in 2005. Under a hydrocarbons law passed last May by Congress, the municipal governments of Bolivia's 10 main cities will each receive about $26 million from the IDH. Following tense negotiations in early September, an agreement was reached to assign the funds, but only on the condition that the municipalities take over the cost and administration of public education in their areas. (Diario El Popular, Canada, Sept. 30)