In Ecuador, indigenous activists have temporarily suspended protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas. On Thursday police fired tear gas at hundreds of student and indigenous protesters during a march on the government palace in Quito. On Tuesday the government declared a state of emergency in four areas giving the police and military power to ban public gatherings and make arrests. Indigenous activists say the demonstrations are being temporarily halted after 11 days to allow the protesters to regroup and to give them a chance plan new actions with greater radicalism. ” The indigenous communities have mobilized themselves in the places in which they live. In the different provinces of the country they have shut down the highways and have blocked the transportation of resources to the cities,” said Alexandra Meida of the Ecuadorian group Ecological Action. “This is the form of protest that is occurring. The government has responded by militarizing these zones–the soldiers and the police are completely armed. They are strongly suppressing the indigenous population.

New Study Criticizes Power of Israeli Lobby in Washington
And a dean at Harvard University and a professor at the University of Chicago are coming under intense criticism for publishing an academic critique of the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington. The paper charges that the United States has willingly set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of Israel. In addition the study accuses the pro-Israeli lobby, particularly AIPAC–the American Israel Public Affairs Committee–of manipulating the U.S. media, policing academia and silencing critics of Israel by labeling them as anti-Semitic. The study also examines the role played by pro-Israeli neo-conservatives in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of iraq. The authors of the study, Stephen Walt, a dean at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer of University of Chicago are now themselves being accused of anti-Semitism. In Washington, Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel of New York described the professors as “dishonest so-called intellectuals” and “anti-Semites.” Harvard professor, Ruth Wisse called for the paper to be withdrawn. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz described the study as trash that could have been written by Neo-Nazi David Duke. The New York Sun reported Harvard has received several calls from 'pro-Israel donors' expressing concern about the paper. Harvard has already taken steps to distance itself from the report. Earlier this week it removed the logo of the Kennedy School of Government from the paper and added a new disclaimer to the study. The 81-page report was originally published on Harvard’s website and an edited version appeared in the London Review of Books. The controversy comes less than a year after Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz attempted to block the publication of Norman Finkelstein’s book “Beyond Chutzpah: On The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.”