The Andes
Cochabamba: Evo offends global gays
Evo Morales has sparked international protests with his comments at the Cochabamba climate summit that eating hormone-laden chicken turns men gay.
Author: Bill Weinberg
Planet Watch
Cochabamba summit calls for ecological tribunal
The climate summit in Cochabamba, Bolivia, closed with a call for creation of an International Tribunal on Environmental and Climate Justice.
The Andes
Cochabamba: Evo agrees to meet with Table 18
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales has agreed to meet representatives of the dissident “Table 18” at the Cochabamba climate summit, and hear their demands.
The Andes
Cochabamba: dissidents push limits of free speech
Defying an official ban, Aymara activists convened the dissident “Table 18” at the Cochabamba climate summit, on social conflicts related to climate change.
Inner Asia
GGR
With China accused of detaining hundreds of thousands of Uighur Muslims without trial in its western province of Xinjiang, a BBC investigation analyzed satellite data to determine that the detention camp system in the region is rapidly expanding. Reviewing images from the European Space Agency's Sentinel satellite service, the BBC finds at least 40 such facilities across Xinjiang, half built within last two years—with a big thrust of construction just in the past six months. Among the largest is a "massive, highly secure compound" still being built at Dabancheng, about an hour's drive from the provincial capital, Urumqi. It is enclosed within a two kilometer-long exterior wall punctuated by 16 guard towers. (Photo via UNPO)
Iran
Ahmadinejad joins 9-11 conspiranoids
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad weighs in for 9-11 conspiranoia in the most vulgar terms. Will he be the next hero for the “Truthies”?
North America
Pentagon attacker was 9-11 conspiranoid
The man who shot two police officers at the Pentagon was apparently a devoted follower of the 9-11 “Truth” movement—who had proposed that the Pentagon fund his “research.”
Planet Watch
Obama plans “dramatic reductions” in n-arms —but not “no first use” pledge
The Obama administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review will call for “dramatic reductions” in the nuclear arsenal—but no pledge that the US will never launch a first strike.
Central America
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Days after the Catholic Church declared El Salvador's martyred Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in the Central American country issued an arrest order for a former military captain long suspected of ordering the killing of the religious leader. Judge Rigoberto Chicas issued the order for national and international authorities to apprehend Alvaro Rafael Saravia, 78. He remains at large and is believed to be in hiding. Saravia had been arrested for the crime in 1987, but the case against him was dropped when El Salvador passed its amnesty law in 1993. The case was re-opened after El Salvador's Supreme Court struck down the amnesty law in 2016. (Photo via Catholic News Agency)
Southeast Asia
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Nine sugar-cane workers were killed as a group of some 40 gunmen fired on their encampment on lands they were occupying in Negros Occidental province of the central Philippines. Among the fatalities were three women and two minors. The slain were members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers who were occupying part of the sprawling Hacienda Nene near Barangay Bulanon village, outside Sagay City. The occupation was legally permitted under an agrarian reform program established in the 1980s that allows landless rural workers to cultivate fallow lands on large plantations while title transfer is pending. The massacre was reported by survivors who managed to scatter and hide. Some of the bodies were burned by the attackers. "They were strafed by unknown perpetrators while already resting in their respective tents," said Cristina Palabay, head of the rights group Karapatan. Calling the attack "brutal and brazen," she said: "We call on the Commission on Human Rights to conduct an independent and thorough investigation on the massacre. We are one with the kin of the victims in the Sagay massacre in their call for justice." (Photo: PhilStar)
Palestine
Israelis, Palestinians woo China; Kaifeng crypto-Jews caught in the middle?
As Israel and Fatah both launch new diplomatic initiatives in China, a group of "lost Jews" from Kaifeng have for the first time made aliyah. Are they serving as pawns of political strategy?
Southern Cone
Falklands war redux?
Several British companies are poised to begin offshore exploration in waters around the Falkand Islands—sparking a diplomatic row with Argentina, which claims the archipelago.