Landlocked South Sudan has ordered oil production shut down, at an impasse in talks with Khatroum over terms for use of the pipeline linking the two countries. South Sudan accuses Khartoum of stealing $815 million worth of oil.
Violent protests erupted in Senegal after the Constitutional Council cleared octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade to seek a third term and opposition leaders vowed to “make the country ungovernable” to force him from power.
Japan’s last nuclear power plant will close in April as reactors are shut for safety checks. Meanwhile, the mayor of Hakodate on Hokkaido called on the Industry Ministry to freeze a nuclear plant slated for the town of Oma in Aomori prefecture.
This Australia Day—marking the 1788 establishment of the New South Wales colony, derided by Aborigines as “Invasion Day”—saw the establishment of a “Tent Embassy” encampment outside the Old Parliament House in Canberra.
Although the details and even the death toll are disputed by Chinese authorities and Tibetan exile and support groups, a wave of protest and repression has left several dead in the Tibetan ethnic areas of Sichuan province this week.
The Free Syrian Army is taking control of territory just outside Damascus, while the US and allies protest Russian arms sales to Assad’s regime. IWPR interviewed one activist in rebel territory who called for NATO intervention.
Two men in Azerbaijan were arrested in an alleged Iranian-backed plot to kill two Jewish educators and the Israeli ambassador—as Obama in his State of the Union address made an oblique threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran.
Anti-government protesters stormed the NTC offices in Benghazi, demanding that former Qaddafi-loysalists step down from the ruling body. Meanwhile, Qaddafi-loysalist fighters reportedly took the desert town of Bani Walid.
Thanks to a plea deal, Staff Sgt. Frank G. Wuterich will serve not time in the final court-martial resulting from a five-year investigation into the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha in 2005.
World War 4 Report offers its annual annotated assessment of Obama’s moves in dismantling, continuing or escalating the oppressive apparatus of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).
At least 20,000 marched in Istanbul carrying signs reading “We are all Armenian” to mark five years since the murder of prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink—and to protest the lack of justice in his case.
Investigators found that 5,200 metric tons of gravel contaminated in the Fukushima nuclear disaster was shipped to over 200 companies, making its way into apartment buildings, schools, and temporary homes for evacuees.
