Pretty funny that the Turkish Foreign Ministry has officially congratulated novelist Orhan Pamuk, who has just won the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature, saying the prize would make valuable contributions to promotion of Turkish literature in the world. (Xinhua, Oct. 13) Meanwhile, the Turkish government, which recently put Pamuk on trial for daring to write the truth about the World War I-era Armenian genocide, seems to be doing its best to suppress Turkish literature. And just to complicate things further, France's move to make denial of the Armenian genocide a criminal offense is meeting with all the predictable reactions...

The Fiscalia, the Colombian national prosecutor's office, has released a final report on the scandal surrounding a laptop siezed from Rodrigo Tovar Pupo (alias "Jorge 40"), leader of the Northern Bloc of the paramilitary Colombian Self-Defense Forces (AUC), revealing widespread control of the political system in northern Colombia by the officially outlawed paramilitaries.

Following an agreement reached late on Oct. 10, a Mexican Senate committee is pursue a constitutional process known as "desaparicion de poderes," that could result in the fulfillment of the Oaxaca protesters' demand to have Ulises Ruiz removed as the state's governor. Committee members from all three major parties agreed to send a subcommittee to the conflicted state to investigate evidence that Ruiz's government has ceased to function and can therefore be dissolved.

From La Jornada, Oct. 11 via Chiapas95 (our translation):

Culiacan, Sinaloa -- Felipe Calderon Hinojosa will not last six years as president of the Republicin light of the social disconent generated by the electoral fraud and the social mobilizations that are occurring throughout the country, affirmed Subcommander Marcos of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).

From AMATE news agency, via Narco News, Oct. 11:

The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN in its Spanish initials), together with its leader Subcomandante Marcos, paid homage to Cuba and to guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the 39th anniversary of his October 9, 1967 murder in a remote area of Bolivia.

More nameless dead. A photo caption in the Oct. 11 New York Times, not online:

Two killed in Traffic Accidents Blocks Apart

Two people died in accidents within two blocks of each other on the Uopper West Side yesterday, the police said. Left: Shortly before 6 p.m., a 73-year-old woman was hit by a truck on Amsterdam Avenue at 74th Street, Right: A 66-year-old man fell into the path of a city bus on Broadway at 73rd Street around 4:10 p.m. Neither person's name was released.

A new military operation on Mindanao and growing impetus for a sweeping "anti-terrorism" bill in Manila, both aimed at the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—which denies involvement in the terror blasts which have targeted markets and other public places, leaving a dozen dead in recent days. From the Philippines' Sun-Star Network, Oct. 11:

While the Mexican Senate ponders dissolving the powers of Oaxaca's state government, thousands of activists from the Oaxaca Popular Peoples Assembly (APPO) and the striking teachers union are camped outside, having marched 290 miles cross-country from the conflicted state to Mexico City.