Two ministers have resigned and the army chief has been sacked after charges that Peru’s armed forced abandoned stranded troops in a guerilla-controlled jungle. Local indigenous residents now charge a “dirty war” is being carried out in the zone.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in northern Mali and dozens have been subjected to arbitrary detention, extra-judicial executions or sexual violence including rape, Amnesty International reports.
Venezuela is demanding the US extradite ex-supreme court judge Eladio Aponte to face drug trafficking charges. Aponte was flown to Miami by the DEA after he accused high-ranking Caracas officials of links to drug-trafficking.
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli facilities agreed to an Egyptian-brokered deal ending the strikes in exchange for improved conditions and a pledge to release the detainees at the end of their “administrative detention” terms.
Chile’s Supreme Court halted construction of the Cuervo hydroelectric dam in Patagonia pending further environmental studies. Chile needs to double its generating capacity to meet requirements of a planned expansion in the mining sector.
National Police in the service of Antamina company detained 16 campesinos in Peru’s Andean region of Áncash and are holding them at a post on company lands. The arrests follow protests against the mine’s contamination of local waters.
The US is to resume military sales to Bahrain, suspended due to human rights concerns during last year’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the State Department announced. Rights groups says arbitrary arrests and torture continue.
The Pentagon is this week leading “Eager Lion 2012″—the largest multinational military exercises in the history of Jordan, with maneuvers planned along the Syrian border as well as in the Gulf of Aqaba, across from Israel.
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.
