Feature Archives

On February 7th, the Australian Government released graphic photos of whales being slaughtered by a Japanese whaling fleet to the media. The Australian Government has also extended the mission of the Oceanic Viking in documenting the whale slaughter in preparation for an international legal case against Japanese whaling. The graphic images apparently show a mother minke whale and its calf being winched aboard a Japanese vessel after being shot with explosive tipped harpoons.

In the morning of January 30th, Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary, Industrial, Banking and Commercial Police, was assassinated in Oaxaca City at “El Tequio” sports park near the international airport. Barrita had been identified as a key player in police operations during and immediately after the 2006 Oaxacan popular uprising. Police operations are underway throughout the city, and the military has cordoned off the area of the assassination.

On January 12th and 13th the first APPO (Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) Youth Encuentro was held in Zaachila, Oaxaca, Mexico. Among the many plans of action agreed upon by the diverse group of young folks, was a march on January 15th for the liberation of political prisoners in Oaxaca, in particular David Venegas Reyes, an APPO council member and member of VOCAL (Oaxacan Voices Constructing Autonomy and Freedom).

During the early hours of January 15th, two crew members of the Sea Shepherd vessel, 'Steve Irwin', were taken hostage by the Japanese harpoon vessel 'Yushin Maru No. 2'. The incident occurred in the area of 60 Degrees South and 78 Degrees East about 2500 miles southwest of Fremantle, Western Australia and 2800 miles southeast of Cape Town, South Africa. Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane boarded the vessel to deliver a letter to the Japanese captain stating that the whalers were in violation of international conservation law by targeting endangered species in an established whale sanctuary and in violation of a global moratorium on commercial whaling. The hostage situation ended on January 17th.

On January 18, in San Francisco a benefit will be held for Lebanese grassroots independent media at Station 40. A photography exhibition and video screening of the July 2006 war between Lebanon and Israel will be followed by a discussion with Rayan El-Amine from Left Turn magazine. During the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon over 1200 people were killed and 1.2 million cluster bombs were dropped in a little over a month.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27th. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state. She was sworn in as Prime Minister in 1988 but was removed from office after only 20 months on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges. In mid 2007, Bhutto appeared to have arranged a power sharing deal with the US backed dictator Pervez Musharraf, but the deal was scuttled when the Supreme Court appeared set to rule that Musharraf could not legally remain President. Musharraf declared emergency rule in December and replaced the Supreme Court. Bhutto was placed under house arrest and publicly denounced Musharraf, but refused to boycott elections set for January 2008.

On December 23rd, Turkey bombed northern Iraq for the second time in a week, in attacks aimed at the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Massoud Barzani, the leader of Iraq's northern Kurdish region, has condemned the Turkish air strikes, saying innocent civilians were killed. The Turkish ambassador announced that the US military provided real-time intelligence to Turkey and was "very helpful" in allowing Turkey to launch the attacks.

Elsewhere in Iraq, the widely reported drop in violence coinciding with the US "surge" has been to some extent a result of the US arming of groups openly hostile to both the Iraqi central government and the US occupation.