Niger's military reports killing at least five "armed bandits" in a remote Saharan region still largely outside state control more than 10 years after the end of a rebellion by desert nomads. A defense ministry statement said soldiers seized three vehicles, automatic rifles, munitions and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in the March 1 clashes near Ouraren in Arlit province, 1,280 kilometers northeast of the capital Niamey. Military sources said that armed men also attacked two public buses, injuring two passengers and robbing others that day on the road between the main regional towns of Arlit and Agadez. "Search operations" are said to be underway.

OK, Fox News may be touting this story for bad, Islamophobic reasons. One of the ironies of our times is that jingoistic propagandists like Fox are bashing US allies like Saudi Arabia, while "progressives" in the West are lining up with reactionary political Islam—even if it means cutting slack for US client states. Are we the only ones who feel like we're through the looking glass here? March 6:

From the Center for Constitutional Rights via Buzzflash, March 6:

US to Put 14 Ghost Detainees From CIA Black Sites Before Sham Tribunals at Guantanamo
Today the Center for Constitutional Rights issued a statement in response to the news that CCR's client, Majid Khan, one of the 14 so-called high value detainees at Guantánamo who were kept in secret CIA prisons and tortured before being transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, would be brought before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal despite having been denied access to counsel:

Jumal Juma, coordinator of the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, writes for Electronic Intifada, March 5:

Open Letter to the People of Six Nations
On the anniversary of the Six Nations Land Reclamation we express our solidarity to you and to all those that are defending today their land and livelihoods against theft and colonization.

Seven Colombian soldiers and 11 guerillas were killed over the March 3-4 weekend in the heaviest combat in recent months. Gen. Alejandro Navas, commander of the military's Omega joint task force, said engagements began early March 3 with a large column from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Puerto Rico, Meta department, on the eastern plains. (Reuters, March 4)

From Friends of Brad Will, March 1:

Friends of Murdered US Journalist in DC Advocate for Investigation and End to Impunity

The Friends of Brad Will attended the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere Oversight Hearing Overview of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America on March 1st to press for the appropriate investigation of the murder of US journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, Mexico in October of 2006. The Friends of Brad Will is a national network working with the Will family for justice and accountability in his murder, and for an end to the impunity of human rights violations in Oaxaca, Mexico.

On Feb. 26 the Center for Economic and Political Investigations of Community Action (CIEPAC), a non-governmental organization based in San Cristobal de las Casas in the southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, received a note reading: "Enjoy your last day. We will kill you I am looking for you and now we have found you." This followed a series of incidents of surveillance and harassment directed at CIEPAC's members over several months. The organization is asking "national and international organized groups in solidarity [to] maintain your vigilance in anticipation of events that might occur shortly, continue your solidarity with social movements in Mexico, and denounce the continuous violations to human rights that are affecting civil society in this country." (CIEPAC bulletin, Feb. 26)

Armed with clubs, rocks and machetes, at least 3,000 Nahuatl indigenous people blocked roads in Soledad Atzompa municipality in the central eastern Mexican state of Veracruz on Feb. 26 and 27 to demand the removal of the military from the 14 municipalities in the Sierra de Zongolica. They also demanded social services and materials for the villages in the region, and punishment for four soldiers accused of the rape of 73-year-old Ernestina Ascension Rosario, who died on Feb. 26 of the injuries she sustained in the assault. In the Feb. 27 demonstration the protesters detained state public safety secretary Juan Manuel Orozco, state prosecutor Emeterio Lopez and other officials for a half hour and damaged their vehicles.