After two decades of silence, architect Rosa María Alvarado Martínez come forward July 9 to say that at least three bodies—likely the remains of student protesters killed by the army at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza in 1968—are buried under a hospital near the massacre site. Alvarado said the bodies were discovered in 1981 when the hospital was being renovated, but plainclothes men identifying themselves as police officers threatened to kidnap and kill her son if she went public. The site had previously been a vocational school where student occupiers confronted soldiers during the October 1968 protests. While official reports claim only 25 were killed at Tlatelolco later that month, human rights advocates have claimed up to 350 dead.

Honda, Nissan, Hershey's, Kellogg, Grupo Modelo and other multinational companies temporarily shut their plants in western Mexico after rebels attacked a key natural gas pipeline. The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) guerrillas claimed responsibility for the explosions. The government ordered an increase in security at "strategic installations" across Mexico. The state monopoly Pemex said an explosion July 10 and two more last week affected different sections of the same pipeline linking Mexico City to Guadalajara. The explosions forced the evacuation of some communities but caused no injuries. In a statement July 10, the EPR said it was waging a "prolonged people's war" against "the anti-popular government."

A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a marketplace filled with children in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province July 10, killing 13 elementary-school students and at least four other people. Eight Dutch soldiers and at least 35 Afghans were wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility. (Seattle Times, July 11) Meanwhile, three Afghan police officers and a civilian truck driver were killed when Taliban guerillas attacked the police vehicle with machine-gun fire in Paktia province. (News24, South Africa, July 11)

July 11 marks the twelfth anniversary of the massacre of some 8,000 Muslims at the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica, and little has changed for the survivors who continue to wait for a modicum of justice. Up to 30,000 survivors are expected to attend a religious ceremony and funeral at the memorial cemetery outside the town, where the remains of more than 2,400 of those killed are already buried. Another 465—retrieved from mass graves and identified by DNA analysis—will be laid to rest at the ceremony, including the remains of a 75-year-old woman. The other victims were males, aged between 13 and 77. The UN's chief war crimes prosecutor for ex-Yugoslavia Carla Del Ponte is among those expected to attend, while another 2,000 survivors have set off on a four-day symbolic march to the town. Srebrenica is the only episode of the Bosnian war that has been ruled an "act of genocide" by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice, both based at The Hague. However, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, the two men considered most responsible for the massacre, remain at large. (AFP, July 11)

Gee, just what Musharraf needs—the State Department weighing in for his repression, augmenting the (accurate) perception that he is Washington's toady. Don't they have enough sense to keep quiet? This brings Pakistan one step closer to an Islamist coup, which has been long in the making... From Pakistan's Daily Times, July 11:

US backs mosque action
The US State Department backed Pakistan’s decision to storm Lal Masjid in Islamabad on Tuesday.

This reminds us of an old R. Cobb cartoon. From the New York Times, July 9:

New York Plans Surveillance Veil for Downtown
By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari warned July 9 against a quick withdrawal of US troops. Zebari said Iraqis "understand the huge pressure that will increase more and more in the United States" ahead of the progress report by the US ambassador and top commanders in Iraq. "We have held discussion with members of Congress and explained to them the dangers of a quick pull out from Iraq and leaving a security vacuum. The dangers could be a civil war, dividing the country, regional wars and the collapse of the state... In our estimations, until Iraqi forces are ready, there is a responsibility on the United States to stand with the government as the forces are being built."

Boy does this sum up everything which is wrong with the USA. Apart from the charming touch of cops brutalizing a woman old enough to be their grandma, is the absurdity of mandatory water-profligance in the middle of a desert. From the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, July 5:

Woman, 70, shackled for dry lawn
OREM, Utah — A 70-year-old woman who said she couldn’t afford to water her brown, sickly lawn was briefly jailed Friday after refusing to accept a ticket for violating a city ordinance.