According to widespread reports in the Nigerian media, aggrieved workers at a Chinese company in the Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone (OGFTZ), located in Ado-Odo/Ota district of Ogun state, staged a brief uprising at the complex after they were locked within the premises, ostensibly under… Read moreWorker uprising at Chinese FTZ in Nigeria
Mounting police-state measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are now resulting in stand-offs between executive and judicial authorities. In El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele, for the third time in 10 days on April 16 publicly dismissed Supreme Court rulings to respect… Read moreGlobal COVID-19 police state escalates
Despite last week’s agreement by Saudi Arabia and Russia to end their price war, the oil market remains in free-fall amid the virtual shut-down of the world economy by the COVID-19 pandemic. The price of the main US oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate,… Read moreNegative oil prices slow tar sands production
Speaking April 14 at COVIDCon, an online Oslo Freedom Forum event presented by the Human Rights Foundation, exiled Chinese dissident Yang Jianli of the DC-based Citizen Power Initiatives for China charged that the death toll for Wuhan, the city where… Read moreWuhan death toll massively under-counted?
It’s certainly an irony that with police-state measures mounting worldwide to enforce lockdowns and contain COVID-19, Trump is now claiming sweeping executive power to lift lockdowns in the US in spite of the pandemic. Asserting his prerogative to override state governors and… Read moreGlobal COVID-19 police state consolidates
As nations across the globe remain under lockdown, more sweeping powers are being assumed by governments in the name of containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing demands for relief from poor barrios running out of resources under his lockdown orders, Philippine… Read moreGrowing police-state measures in face of COVID-19
Ten days into a national “quarantine” declared in Bolivia, protesters are taking to the streets to demand food in working-class districts of cities across the country—in defiance of lockdown orders. Residents are calling for either greater flexibility in the lockdown,… Read moreProtesters demand food across Bolivia
With whole nations under lockdown, sweeping powers are being assumed by governments across the world in the name of containing the COVID-19 pandemic. Hungary’s parliament on March 30 voted to allow Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to rule by decree, without a set… Read moreWorldwide police-state measures in face of COVID-19
Already depressed oil prices are now plummeting in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Global oil consumption is said to be in “free-fall,” and predicted to lead to the largest “annual contraction in history.” Bloomberg reports that oil traders fear that demand “may contract by… Read moreWill COVID-19 mean oil industry bailout?
Nine years ago this week, the Syrian Revolution began with peaceful pro-democracy protests. The first demonstrations broke out in the city of Deraa after local schoolchildren painted a mural depicting scenes and slogans from the recent revolutions in other Arab… Read moreFrom revolution to genocide: Syria’s grim anniversary
In its latest annual report, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) found that the armed conflict in Colombia saw the "worst humanitarian consequences" of the past decade in 2025. The number of people killed or injured by explosive devices rose by 34% to 965, overwhelmingly non-combatants. The number of individual disappearances doubled to 308. Violations of international humanitarian law documented by the ICRC reached 845 cases, while figures for displacement and "confinement" doubled. According to the Comprehensive Victim Support & Reparation Unit (UARIV), at least 235,619 people were displaced individually in 2025, while 87,069 were displaced in mass displacement events, and 176,730 remained "confined" in communities under siege by armed actors. (Map: PCL)
So-called "dissident" FARC factions that have refused to accept the Colombian peace accords and taken refuge across the border in Venezuela now appear to be waging a local insurgency against the Nicolás Maduro regime. A group calling itself the Martin Villa 10th Front announced last month that it had captured eight Venezuelan soldiers during a battle in Apure state, near the Colombian border. Venezuela's National Bolivarian Armed Forces later announced that the soldiers had been freed in a rescue operation. But independent media in Venezuela report that the eight were actually released under terms of a deal negotiated in Cuba. The deal was said to have been brokered with the help of the National Liberation Army (ELN), a second Colombia guerilla group which remains in arms and whose leadership is based in Havana. (Photo of captive soldiers being released via FANB)
