The PRI-affiliated Organization for the Defense of Indigenous and Campesino Rights (OPDDIC), issued a letter demanding the EZLN dismantle its Good Government Juntas in the Lacandon Selva, with a barely-veiled threat of new confrontations if this fails to happen. In a letter addressed to Subcommander Marcos, President Vicente Fox and Gov. Pablo Salazar, the OPDDIC, founded by former PRI state deputy Pedro Chulin Jimenez, accused the Zapatista Juntas of provoking "grave social destabilization" in the municipalities of Altamirano, Ocosingo, Chilon, Sitala and Tumbala. These "offiical" municipalities overlap with the Zapatista "autonomous municipalities" overseen by the Good Government Juntas based in Morelia (Altamirano) and La Garrucha (Ocosingo). The letters accused the Juntas of "protecting delinquent groups."

From Milenio, Nov. 20, via Chiapas95 (our translation):

For the first time in more than three centuries, some 300 Lacandones have fled their communities for fear of new confrontations with residents of Viejo Velasco, who sympathize with the Zapatista National Liberation Army, according to the director of Na Bolom Cultural Association, Jorge Vecellio.

From El Universal, Nov. 20:

The government on Saturday released a long-awaited report that for the first time officially blames "the highest command levels" of three former presidencies for the massacres, tortures and slayings of hundreds of leftists from the 1960s to the early 1980s.

From AP, Nov. 20:

OAXACA — Masked protesters armed with sticks, rocks and homemade gasoline bombs clashed with police and raided a downtown hotel Monday during a march by leftists seeking the governor's resignation.

From AP, Nov. 21:

BAGHDAD -- Relatives and colleagues mourned the fatal shooting of popular actor Walid Hassan, remembering him Tuesday as giving hard-pressed Iraqis comic relief by poking fun at everything from politicians to long lines at gas stations.

From the pan-Arab Al-Bawaba, Nov. 22:

Lebanon started three days of mourning on Wednesday following the assassination of an anti-Syrian Christian cabinet minister that his allies blamed on Damascus. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel was assassinated as he drove in a Christian suburb of Beirut on Tuesday.

Since seizing power in Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, in June, the Islamic Courts Union has banned khat leaf, the mild stimulant which has been traditionally chewed by Somalis for centuries. Imports of khat from Kenya, a main supplier, are being intercepted and burned, and flights from Kenya have actually been halted. This has resulted in a shortage which has sparked angry protests by local khat merchants in Mogadishu, who have lost their income. In one protest on Nov. 16, Islamist fighters shot into the crowd, killing one person. (BBC, Nov. 16)

From AP, Nov. 20:

MOGADISHU — Islamic fighters ambushed an Ethiopian military convoy on Sunday, killing six Ethiopian soldiers and wounding 20 others, witnesses said, in the first known fight between the rival forces maneuvering for control in Somalia.