Free Republic

THE Mexican Army is hunting a 12-year-old assassin who is allegedly employed by a drug cartel to torture and murder its enemies. Known simply as El Ponchis - which means "The Cloak" - the young boy has been accused of helping wage a turf war in the central Morelos state. Reports said he was paid $US3000 per murder and that he tortured his victims before killing them. He often cuts his victim's throat, leaving the head attached by just a thread. Videos of El Ponchis attacking one enemy with a stick and cutting the throat of another have appeared online,...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge. Over 100 straight days of racial justice protests that turned downtown Portland into a battleground. A violent breach of the state Capitol. Clashes between gun-toting right-wingers and leftist militants. The state Legislature is considering a bill that, experts say, would create the nation’s most comprehensive law against paramilitary activity. It would provide citizens and the state attorney general with civil remedies in court if armed members of a private paramilitary group interfere with, or intimidate, another person who is engaging in an activity they have a legal right...

The EU's “civilian” border mission in Libya is in fact training paramilitary forces, amid a wider European and US effort to stop Libya becoming a “failed state.” According to an internal EU paper—a blueprint for the border mission, EUBAM Libya, dated 18 April and seen by EUobserver—its “main effort” is to build up the “operational level” of Libya’s “Border Guards (BG)” and “Naval Coast Guard (NCG).” Both units are part of Libya’s defense ministry. … An Italian source noted that Italy, the former colonial power in Libya, still remains its “principal interlocutor and donor.” …

Shortly after Hugo Chávez won his first election as Venezuelan president in December 1998, a lawyer from the western state of Barinas, which was then governed by Chávez's father, delivered a prescient warning to Newsweek magazine: "Venezuelans are dreaming of a savior, but Chávez is a dictator. People don't know what they are getting."  More than 14 years later, a cancer-stricken Chávez is reportedly near death, but his autocratic legacy is very much alive. Venezuela long ago ceased to be a real democracy: The ruling regime effectively controls the Supreme Court (which in 2004 was expanded and packed with Chávez allies), the National Assembly...

Pro-government militia members fired on Iranian protesters during a massive demonstration over the country's hotly-disputed election, killing at least one person and wounding several others. An Associated Press photographer saw one person shot dead and several others who appeared seriously wounded in Tehran's Azadi, or freedom, Square. The shooting came from a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Belgrade, 24 May (AKI) - The conviction of 12 people for the murder of prime minister Zoran Djindic in March 2003, was seen by Serbian politicians across the political spectrum on Thursday as a victory of justice and a proof of the judiciary's independence. After a three and a half year trial, a special court in Belgrade Wednesday sentenced 12 former members of a special police unit 'Red berets' and members of the so called Zemun criminal gang, headed by Milorad Ulemek Legija and Zvezdan Jovanovic, to maximum sentences of between 35 and 40 years in jail each for a...

<p>BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombian President-elect Alvaro Uribe awoke yesterday with a clear but seemingly impossible mandate: Conquer leftist guerrillas, battle corruption, revive a slumping economy and impose order in one of world's most violent and insecure nations.</p> <p>Mr. Uribe, who takes over for President Andres Pastrana in August, won a resounding first-round victory in largely peaceful elections Sunday, taking 53 percent of the vote, versus 31.7 percent for Horacio Serpa, his closest challenger. "He's got a herculean task before him," said Bruce Bagley, a Colombia expert at the University of Miami. "It's going to be extremely difficult to fulfill even part of what he aspires to do during his four years of the presidency."</p>