The New York/Hong Kong-based Human Rights in China reports that You Minglei, an independent activist in Nanchang, was arrested on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” after distributing leaflets.
The DEA refuses to confirm claims by the Colombian National Police that top drug lord Javier Antonio Calle Serna AKA “Comba” turned himself in to US agents. Calle Serna’s “Rastrojos” gang is linked to both the FARC and paramilitaries.
In a new escalation of the factional narco-violence in northern Mexico, nine bodies—some bearing signs of torture—were hanged from an overpass in Nuevo Laredo, and 14 severed heads left in ice coolers outside city hall.
While Tuareg rebels continue to claim to hold Timbuktu, an attack on the revered tomb of a Muslim saint by Ansar Dine militants shows jihadist factions have a free hand. UNESCO has issued an urgent appeal to protect the city’s cultural sites.
Sahelian governments and international aid groups are struggling to cope with both the continual arrivals of people fleeing the fighting in northern Mali, and the mounting number of hungry people across the region.
As Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing the Syrian regime of war crimes, Ankara invoked the threat of NATO intervention if fighting again spills over the border into Turkish territory.
Members of Pakistan’s Shi’ite Hazara ethnic minority held protests in London and Hamburg, charging “genocide” against their people with the complicity of the Islamabad regime—and the silence of the international community.
As junta-loyalist troops continue to fight soldiers who attempted a counter-coup in Bamako, Human Rights Watch charges that Tuareg rebels, Islamist factions and Arab militias alike are committing war crimes in Mali’s breakaway north.
World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, just returned from Peru, speaks about the Quechua indigenous struggle against US-backed mining projects and in defense of land, water and autonomy in the Andes.
Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for a new intifada to support the more than 4,000 Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel, hundreds of whom started a mass open-ended hunger-strike two weeks ago.
A previously unknown Islamist group claimed responsibility for the latest suicide bombing in Damascus—which killed 11 at a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers. Iran blamed “foreign powers” that want to inflame the conflict for the blast.
China's Camc Engineering won the contract to build a major oil facility on Nicaragua's Pacific coast under the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA)—as Canadian mining companies rush into the country's remote interior.
