The northern Israeli village of Pekiin turned into a battleground Oct. 30 as clashes between police and Druze protesters left some 16 police officers and a similar number of medics and residents injured. One resident was in serious condition after being shot in the stomach, and a police officer was reportedly hospitalized with serious head wounds. The clashes broke out after a force of more than 100 police entered the village before dawn to arrest five men suspected of having vandalized a cellphone antenna installed in the neighboring community of New Pekiin. When the force tried to carry out the arrests, they were attacked with rocks and metal bars by masked Druze youth, and police responded by opening fire. The villagers believe that radiation from the antenna causes cancer. (NYT, Oct. 31)

You know, every time we start to develop a soft spot for a politician, he wastes no time in disabusing us of our comfortable illusions. The most recent case in point is New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. After taking flack from the xenophobes for his plan to make driver's licenses available to undocumented immigrants, he shared a stage with Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff in Washington Oct. 27 to announce changes to the program, bringing it into compliance with the federal REAL ID Act—and creating a special class of licenses for out-of-status immigrants. From NY1, Oct. 29:

We have noted before that, contrary to contemporary assumptions, the first "terrorism" identified by that name was a state phenomenon: that of the Jacobins in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution—which, ironically given its radicalism, was the origin of the modern bourgeois state. On the New York Times op-ed page Oct. 28, François Furstenberg, professor of history at the University of Montreal, makes the unlikely but convincing case that Bush is the heir to Robespierre:

Already facing war crimes charges in Germany, Donald Rumsfeld—like Henry Kissinger before him—now runs into a spot of legal bother in France. From RINF Alternative News Media, Oct. 28:

Former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld fled France today fearing arrest over charges of "ordering and authorizing" torture of detainees at both the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the US military’s detainment facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, unconfirmed reports coming from Paris suggest.

From Shabelle Media Network via AllAfrica.com, Oct. 27:

More than 15 people mainly civilians and seven Ethiopian soldiers have been killed and many more have been injured after insurgents and government-allied forces battled with different sorts of weapons like, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other automatic rifles.

It seems that since the capitulation of warlord Khun Sa 11 years ago, his Mong Tai Army has collapsed back into its constituent entities—and that his former militia, the Shan State Army, is back in rebellion against the Burmese regime. From the BBC, Oct. 26:

The leader of a Burmese ethnic army has urged all opponents of the ruling junta to unite in the aftermath of last month's uprising. "All those battling the regime must co-operate," said Colonel Yawd Serk, of the Shan State Army (SSA). "If we cannot unite, and if the international community does not come to our help, then nothing will change in Burma for a decade."

One day ahead of the one-year anniversary of the death of New York IMC journalist Brad Will in Oaxaca, two primitive homemade explosive devices were thrown at New York's Mexican consulate in an apparent pre-dawn bicycle-by attack Oct. 26, shattering windows but causing no injuries. Police are drawing parallels to a similar incident at the British consulate in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005. In both cases, the devices were fake grenades sold as novelty items, but packed with black powder and detonated with fuses. In the 2005 case, video surveillance indicated two devices were thrown from a passing bicycle. In the Oct. 26 case, a witness reported seeing a hooded figure on a bicycle pass by the consulate. (NYT, AP, Oct. 27)

Bolivian President Evo Morales is facing converging crises on multiple fronts—from South American neighbors, from the Colossus of the North, and from internal opposition. Peru is seeking the extradition of Walter Chavez, a top adviser to Morales' successful 2005 campaign, on terrorism charges related to accusations that he extorted businessmen on behalf of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). Chavez, a Peruvian former journalist, has lived in Bolivia since 1992 and was granted political asylum there in 1998. (Reuters, Oct. 26)