From Human Rights Watch, Feb. 14:

King Abdullah should halt the execution of Fawza Falih and void her conviction for "witchcraft," Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Saudi king.

Former IRA fugitive Pól Brennan will remain in the Homeland Security Department's Port Isabel Processing Center near Los Fresnos, TX, until at least March 11, after he was forced to ask a US immigration judge to postpone a hastily scheduled hearing so that his San Francisco-based lawyer could fly down to represent him. Brennan said he was only notified about the hearing scheduled for 9 AM Feb. 6 the previous night. Upon requesting the postponement, he was told he would have to wait over a month for another opportunity to request release on bail. (Irish Echo, Feb. 13)

New Delhi has rushed a high-level team of senior Home Ministry officials to eastern Orissa state after some 600 Naxalite guerillas carried out simultaneous raids on several police stations in Nayagarh district late Feb. 15, killing 15 and looting large quantities of arms and ammunition. The dead included a village paramilitary guard, a civilian and 13 police. Ten more were injured. Orissa police are now combing the Kupari forests, where the guerillas fled. Andhra Pradesh police and paramilitary forces have also joined the hunt. The security forces are backed up by helicopter gunships, with Delhi saying air strikes are being considered if Naxalite strongholds can be located. (The Hindu, The Statesman, Feb. 16)

A joint press release from US Labor Against the War and Oil Change International, Feb. 15:

Stop the Theft of Iraq’s Future – Iraqi Oil for the Iraqi People
In Iraq, the on-going war and occupation has led to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, widespread devastation, relentless insecurity and crippling poverty. Foreign oil companies are scrambling to use this opportunity to secure access to massive profits from Iraq’s large untapped oil reserves at the expense of the Iraqi people.

Police arrested 24 in Spain's Basque region Feb. 14 in a strike called by the outlawed Batasuna party to protest the banning of other parties supposedly linked to the armed group ETA. Strikers, mostly teachers and academics, held banners reading: "No to the violence of persecution, no to the banning of ideas." Some chained themselves together and attempted to block traffic by placing cement-filled oil drums on the road leading into the northern city of Bilbao. Another two hung themselves by harnesses from a bridge over a commuter line, stopping trains from running. (AlJazeera, Feb. 14)

Some 20 FARC guerillas are dead and 30 more injured in ongoing clashes over the past week at the Colombian village of Chaparral, Tolima department, officials say. High casualties were reportedly due to aerial bombardment of rebel positions by Colombian warplanes. Authorities said the clashes began when army troops occupied Chaparral in response to the deaths of several soldiers stationed there by FARC landmines. National Police also announced the confiscation Feb. 13 of 5.2 tons of marijuana that had allegedly belonged to the local FARC column. (DPA, Feb. 15)

In a new report, Human Rights Watch charges that Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is adept at documenting abuses—but has failed to prevent them. Said HRW Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco: "While it does a decent job documenting abuses and identifying problems, it doesn't take crucial steps needed to bring about change. The (commission) should be a catalyst for human rights progress, not merely a chronicler of the status quo." The 128-page report focuses on the police crackdown on peasant protesters at Atenco village, the rapes and killings of villagers by troops in Michoacán and Coahuila states, and the unsolved murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez. Too often, the report found, the commission merely recommend fixes to government agencies and then failed to check if they were ever implemented. The study found that backroom deals remain the norm. (Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13)

Rival mass tributes were held in Beirut Feb. 14 despite bad weather to commemorate the third anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the Feb. 12 car-bomb slaying of senior Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addressed his followers at the Mughniyeh funeral: "Zionists, if you want this kind of open war, then let the whole world listen: Let this war be open." (Lebanon Daily Star, Feb. 15) CNN news anchor Jim Clancy theorizes that Mughniyeh, who was on the US "Most Wanted Terrorists" list, faked his own death. (CNN, Feb. 14)