On May 29, some 600,000 public and private high school students went on strike throughout Chile, and thousands took over school buildings. On May 30, at least 500,000 students marched in the streets around the country. The protests were met with intense repression: riot agents of the militarized Carabineros police arrested 725 people and beat up two television camera operators and a news photographer. At least two students and nine police agents were also injured. The mobilization, called by the national Coordinating Assembly of High School Students (ACES), is the largest student protest in Chile since 1972. The movement, which picked up intensity in mid-May, is being called the "Penguin Revolution" because of the uniforms the students wear. (AP, June 4; Europa Press, May 31; Adital, June 6)

The Indigenous Rights Center (CEDIAC) in San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, is demanding an investigation into the assassination of Tzeltal Maya campesino Sebastian Cruz Lopez, accused by state police of belonging to a gang which held up cars on the Palenque-Ocosingo highway, but according to witnesses killed at his home in front of his family in Chilon municipality. Another campesino was also said to be killed in the operation, and ten more imprisoned, including five minors. (La Jornada, June 3)

80,000 striking teachers marched in Oaxaca City June 2 to press their demands for better wages and a reorganization of the state's education system, marking the largest mass mobilization in the city's history. In addition to a large state police presence, a contigent of 500 elite Federal Preventative Police were dispatched to the city for the rally. (La Jornada, June 3) "The governor has sounded the drums of war, but we will not be intimidated," said Enrique Rueda Pacheco, secretary general of Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE), speaking of Oaxaca's Gov. Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. (La Jornada, June 4)

On June 3, Mexican telenovela star Ofelia Medina, who has launched the group Mujeres Sin Miedo (Women Without Fear) to support those arrested in the protests at San Salvador Atenco, held a press conference to announce that 24 of the prisoners had completed 30 days on hunger strike. (statement June 3)

On June 2, two convoys of Mexico state police entered Atenco in a brief incursion which was protested as an attempt to intimidate the residents. (La Jornada, May 4)

Here is a pretty good indication that the US is losing control of the client state it has set up in Iraq—which, in turn, is afraid of losing control of Iraq. And, since Maliki and his gang are more loyal to Tehran than Washington, this means the invasion of Iran can't be far behind... From The Jurist, June 2:

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has decared a state of emergency in Basra, where battles are raging both between Shi'ite and Sunni militias, as well as among rival Shi'ite militias. Nearly 140, mostly Sunnis but also Shi'ites and members of the security forces, were killed in Basra in May. (Boston Globe, June 1) The vying Shi'ite factions include not only the Sadr and Badr militias, but the regionally powerful Fadilah movement. (CSM, June 2) Fadilah is apparently a schism from Moktada al-Sadr's mainline Sadr movement. It is led by Najaf-based Ayatollah Muhammad Yaqubi, and appears to be even more hardline. (Juan Cole's Informed Comment, Sept. 24, 2005) Amid widespread attacks and forced expulsions, the proportion of Sunnis in Basra has declined from 40% to 15% since the fall of Saddam, according to the official Sunni Endowment in Southern Iraq. (Al-Jazeera, June 1)

Doug Ireland writes of an "anti-gay pogrom" underway in Iraq, for In These Times, May 31:

Shiite death squads in Iraq are carrying out a campaign that targets gay men for murder. This so-called “sexual cleansing" is happening under the nose of the U.S. military—but American authorities in the Green Zone have refused to do anything about it.

Remember those innocent days when terrorists were radical leftists rather than Islamic fundamentalists? The Greeks do. From Ekathimerini, June 1 (links added):

Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis had informed the heads of police and the Public Order Ministry about an increase in threats against him six days before Tuesday’s bomb attack, sources said yesterday as authorities suspect the involvement of far-left group Revolutionary Struggle.