Having receded from the global headlines, the pro-democracy protesters have not receded from the streets of Hong Kong. Nov. 6 saw new clashes with police in street occupations that have now persisted for more than a month and a half. The skirmish came in the commercial district of Mong Kok, after police attempted to arrest a man they said was shining his mobile phone light in their eyes. In the ensuing confrontation, at least one protester was left bleeding from the head. (AP, Nov. 6) That night in New York City, the Lower Manhattan office of the New America Foundation hosted a screening of Lessons in Dissent, a new film focusing on two teenagers who have emerged as leaders of the Hong Kong protests, Joshua Wong and Ma Jai. The film was released just before the Occupy Central movement finally went into action, but depicts the precursor struggle in 2012, when students organized against proposed constitutional reforms in the territory that would limit freedom, and a mandatory "national education" curriculum they saw as propaganda for the Chinese Communist Party. The protests were successful; the constitutional changes were shelved, the new curriculum made optional. The film's two protagonists are still at it—Wong having risen to global attention.

Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga troops have entered the battle for the ISIS-besieged Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria, after having been allowed to pass through Turkish territory to approach the town from the north—the only remaining access. The sound of heavy weaponry the Peshmerga fighters brought with them from Iraq echoed across the Syrian-Turkish border, according to a team from the independent Kurdish news agency Rudaw on the Turkish side. And US-led coalition planes coninued to strike ISIS positions outside Kobani in the most intense bombing in weeks, with local witnesses counting between five and seven air-strikes overnight. Peshmerga forces are now fighting alongside the PKK-aligned People's Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that has been leading the defense of Kobani.

Via Facebook, Oct. 31:

Global Rally Against ISIS — For Kobanê — For Humanity
ISIS [has] launched a major multi-front military campaign against the Kurdish region of Kobanê in northern Syria. This is the third ISIS onslaught on Kobanê since March 2014. As the ISIS was unsuccessful on the two previous occasions, they are attacking with larger forces and want to take Kobanê.

The US has started to air-drop weapons and medical supplies to Kurdish militia defending the north Syrian town of Kobani against ISIS forces—the first such drops to resistance fighters in Syria. In a statement Oct. 19, US Central Command said C-130 cargo planes made multiple drops of arms and supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq. (AP) And in an astonishing development that reveals the degree of pressure on Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan agreed to allow Kurdish fighters to cross into Syria. (AP, BBC News) A critical distinction, however, is that Ankara is only allowing Iraqi Peshmerga troops to pass through Turkish territory to reach Kobani from the north. The accounts say nothing about allowing PKK fighters to pass. And Erdogan is even now continuing to oppose US arming of the People's Protection Units (YPG), the PKK-aligned militia that is defending Kobani. (Chinatopix)

ISIS militants have captured the headquarters of Kurdish fighters defending the northern Syrian town of Kobani, with the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura warning that thousands will likely be massacred if the town falls. Massively outgunned Kurdish militia are struggling to prevent ISIS forces from closing off the last escape route for civilians still in the area, prompting an appeal for urgent military aid. US warplanes have intensified air-strikes against ISIS positions at Kobani, but ISIS now controls 40% of the town, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "The capture of the headquarters will allow the jihadists to advance on the border post with Turkey to the north of the town," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. "If they achieve that, they will have the Kurdish forces inside Kobani completely surrounded."

On Sept. 18 Chilean authorities arrested three supposed anarchists, Juan Alexis Flores Riquelme, Nataly Casanova Muñoz and Guillermo Durán Méndez, on charges of participation in the Sept. 8 bombing at a shopping center in Santiago's Escuela Militar subway station; 14 people were injured in the lunchtime blast. Public defender Eduardo Camus, who is representing the defendants, said they denied involvement. The arrests took place during an operation by more than 200 agents of the carabineros militarized police which included searches in six homes in the working-class Santiago-area communes of La Granja, San Bernardo and La Pintana. So far there have been some 200 bombings and attempted bombings in Chile in the past 10 years; most caused no injuries.

The UN refugee agency reports that up to 70,000 Syrian Kurds have crossed into Turkey over the past 24 hours to escape the ISIS advance on the town of Kobani (Ayn al-Arab). A Kurdish commander on the ground said ISIS forces had advanced to within 15 kilometers of the town. Most of the refugees are women, children and the elderly. Turkey opened a stretch of the border to allow the refugees to cross over. But Turkish security forces later fired water cannon and tear-gas at crowds that gathered in support of the refugees on the border. Authorities said they wanted to stop Kurdish PKK fighters entering Syria, while local TV said Kurds had been trying to deliver aid. (AP, Reuters, Al Jazeera, BBC News)

Fourteen people were injured, four of them seriously, when a homemade bomb exploded at 2 PM on Sept. 8 in a shopping center restaurant at the busy Escuela Miltar subway station in Santiago, the Chilean capital. In response, President Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist Party of Chile (PS) leader who began her second term on March 11, held a special security meeting in the La Moneda palace on Sept. 9; she called for increased vigilance and for modifications to the Antiterrorist Law, a measure passed during the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The bombing came shortly before the 41st anniversary of the Sept. 11, 1973 coup in which Pinochet's military overthrew Socialist president Salvador Allende Gossens.