The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions announced in Geneva that it will review the arrests of followers of the Popular People's Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO) in Mexico. On the eve of leaving for the Working Group's session in Geneva, president of the Center for the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI), Maurilio Santiago Reyes, told a press conference in Oaxaca City, "The UN will come to realize...that activists were detained arbitrarily, beaten and tortured physically and psychologically." (La Jornada, Sept. 10) The state of Oaxaca has agreed to create a special fund to indemnify victims of torture and illegal arrest. The move was taken in response to Recommendation 15/2007 issued by Mexico's National Human Rights Commission (CNDH). (La Jornada, Sept. 12)

From CBS News, Sept. 15:

Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested...

Talk about a vicious cycle. Global warming opens the long-sought Northwest Passage, which will mean easier access to the Arctic and its resources (including oil), thereby exacerbating...global warming. It should also exacerbate the geopolitical struggle over the far north. Russian authorities have already announced they will open new ports on the Arctic Sea as major petroleum hubs for the 21st century. (Barents Observer, Sept. 11) From Science Daily, Sept. 14:

In a blow to the auto industry, US Judge William K. Sessions III ruled Sept. 12 that the state of Vermont can set limits on car emissions that contribute to global warming, rejecting arguments that only the federal government can regulate the industry. The EPA has so far refused to demand a curb in emissions linked to global warming. In 2002, California passed a law requiring automakers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 22% by 2012, and 30% by 2016. Vermont followed suit with its own such law in 2005, as have a handful of other states. Automakers took the individual states to court, arguing that the laws usurpsed federal authority. But Sessions wrote: "The regulation does not impermissibly intrude upon the foreign affairs prerogatives of the president and Congress of the United States."

First, the basic facts from the New York Times, Sept. 14:

Sunni Sheik Who Backed U.S. in Iraq Is Killed
BAGHDAD, Sept. 13 — A high-profile Sunni Arab sheik who collaborated with the American military in the fight against jihadist militants in western Iraq was killed in a bomb attack on Thursday near his desert compound. The attack appeared to be a precisely planned assassination meant to undermine one of the Bush administration’s trumpeted achievements in the war.

Some very insightful words from Paul Krugman in the Sept. 14 New York Times on the Kurdish Regional Government's unilateral oil deals. Fortunately, Ed Strong's Best That's Left blog rescues the column from the Times' elitist pay-per-view policy. Relevant passages:

Last month the provincial government in Kurdistan, defying the central government, passed its own oil law; last week a Kurdish Web site announced that the provincial government had signed a production-sharing deal with the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, and that seems to have been the last straw.

And now for some bad news. From the Italian news agency AGI, Sept. 12:

A cholera epidemic has affected at least 7,000 people in the northern provinces of Iraq and may reach Baghdad in the next few weeks. The accomplices were the terrible conditions of the water system and Iraqi infrastructures due to the war. The alert was raised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and has been confirmed by Baghdad authorities. The most affected areas are those of Kirkuk and Suleimaniya, where at least 10 people have died in the last month. However, according to the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, Said Hakki, the "vibro cholerae" bacterium may have reared its head also in Erbil and Nineweh. Hakki's foremost concern is that of the latest contagion case, a young woman in a village between Kirkuk and Diyala, about 50 km from the capital. 'Baghdad is close,' he said. 'Cholera can spread through water like fire in a barn.' According to the WHO, grave cholera epidemics such as that which has appeared in northern Iraq "are usually caused by contaminated drinking water".

Hundreds of Iraqis staged a protest against the building of a dividing wall being built by US forces between a Shi'ite and Sunni district of Baghdad Sept. 12. Residents of the Shula and Ghazaliya neighborhoods waved Iraqi flags and chanted slogans rejecting both the proposed separation and the US occupation. Carrying banners reading "No to the dividing wall" and "The wall is US terrorism," the protesters issued a statement demanding that Iraqi authorities intervene. "The wall is in accordance with al-Qaeda's plans," the statement said, adding that it would "separate family from family."