Protesters took to the streets of Tehran one year after opposition leaders were put under house arrest for supporting Iran’s last protest wave. An Iranian patrol boat meanwhile had a “close encounter” with a US fleet in the Strait of Hormuz.
French officials said Tuareg guerillas of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) killed some hundred residents at a village they occupied in northern Mali. Over 50,000 have fled fighting in the remote Saharan region.
Security forces in Bahrain fired tear-gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades at protesters gathered on the eve of the first anniversary of pro-democracy demonstrations. Protesters tried to gain control of the Pearl Roundabout in the capital, Manama.
Benjamin Netanyahu blamed “Iran and its proxy Hezbollah” after a deadly attack on an Israeli diplomat’s wife and attempted bombing in Tbilisi, Georgia— the day after the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Hezbollah’s operations chief.
A 69-year-old Palestinian man was killed in an attack by the Israeli Air Force on tunnels and a weapons depot in Gaza—as managers of the Strip’s only power plant warned of impending blackouts if more fuel is not delivered.
Peru’s President Ollanta Humala flew into a remote jungle military base in the Upper Huallaga Valley to announce the capture of “Comrade Artemio,” the last Shining Path commander dating back to the high noon of the insurgency 20 years ago.
Peru raided an illegal logging site in Manú National Park, just days after the UK-based Survival International released the first detailed photos of the “uncontacted” Mashco-Piro tribe that inhabits the Amazon rainforest reserve.
A procession of some 1,000 entered Lima after a nine-day cross-country march, holding a massive rally in Plaza San Martín to oppose the Conga mining project in Cajamarca region, and like projects across Peru’s sierras.
Indigenous leaders in Bolivia have filed a complaint with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission over a new “consultation law” they say is designed to lubricate approval of the controversial Amazon highway that has already led to violence.
Colombia’s former Peace Commissioner Luis Carlos Restrepo, now on the lam, was charged with conspiracy, fraud and illegal arms trafficking related to the bogus “demobilization” of non-existent FARC fighters in a “criminal enterprise.”
President Mauricio Funes named retired general Francisco Ramón Salinas as director of El Salvador’s National Civil Police, replacing former director Carlos Ascencio—removing the last high-ranking FMLN member of the public security cabinet.
Chevron and coastal communities in Nigeria’s Bayelsa state are odds on whether oil from a spill at the offshore KS Endeavor platform has affected local communities, but state authorities say they are rushing in emergency aid.
