One of the frustrations of ETS!'s limited editorial space (which will get better soon--see the editorial notes) is the inspiring international news we haven't had room to print. John Ross, a long-time U.S. journalist in Mexico who was among the first to break the Zapatista story, wrote recently of how similar conditions are becoming in Mexico and the U.S., with corporate elites enriching themselves and controlling increasingly repressive government whose policies punish the poor. The difference, Ross writes, is that on the streets of urban America there has been essentially no response--while not a day goes by in the cities and countryside of Mexico without strikes, marches, blockades, and insurrections that threaten to topple Mexico's fragile, Wall Street-dependent government.

Examples of inspiring mass actions against economic, military, and civil repression abound. In Peru, the embassy hostage standoff has brought world attention to a U.S.- backed regime notorious for human rights atrocities--and a wide variety of grass roots responses. The campaign to free Burma from a corrupt military dictatorship so repressive it enacted a law recently banning citizens from using faxes or e-mail without state approval has seen a number of recent successes--including the long-fought-for pullout of Pepsico and its subsidiaries from the country by May.

We hope to pass on more in coming weeks. For now, here are some examples of the creativity being used in student-led nonviolent street protests raging daily in Serbia since Nov. 19, when the party of dictator (and war criminal) Slobodan Milosevic annulled local elections. Despite over 30 days where marches in Belgrade have been banned and streets cordoned off by police, the government is now near collapse. Some of the tactics:

Decontamination: Students staged a cleaning action of the location where the state had organized a counter-demonstration. They washed down the building where a state committee had turned down their demands.

The brick wall: On Dec. 5 students built a brick wall in front of the parliament building after they were accused of being destructive.

Drowning out the news: From 7:30 to 8 PM daily, the evening news broadcast by state television is inaudible. People go to their windows and make all the noise they can. Pedestrians blow whistles, cars honk horns. Awards are given to the noisiest streets .

Jamming the phones: Nonstop phone calls are made to state institutions, clogging lines to make the government's work impossible. A list of phone numbers is run in the independent daily newspaper and broadcast on pirate radio, assigning different sets of numbers to people living in certain neighborhoods.

Street crossings: Protestors wait on the pavement until the green crossing light appears. Then everyone runs into the street for a few frenzied minutes of dancing and cheering. When the light turns red again, they quickly return to the sidewalk.

Side street marches: Protestors meet in their neighborhood at 8 PM (after the news) and weave through the streets nearby, making noise and chanting. With cordons concentrated in the center of the city, police have been unable to block all the small marches.

Dog walking: People brought their dogs to the protest one day, claiming they were just out to walk their pets.

Traffic jams: Everyone brings cars downtown, honking horns and creating gridlock. The chaos allows marchers to walk down the streets without being accused of disrupting traffic.

Entertaining the troops: Students stage pretend fights between protesters and police while reading aloud from Dostoyevsky. On one day, protesters wore their own "uniforms": medical coats, fire-fighting outfits, graduation robes to match the police riot gear. In one city, there is a daily contest where protesters vote for the "most beautiful police officer."

Under Milosevic's rule, state media has repeatedly referred to demonstrations of 200,000 people with phrases like "a handful of people passing by." The issues, and challenges, faced by student and community activists in Belgrade--and many other places around the globe--aren't all that different from our issues in Seattle. We have a lot to learn!