Police in Bucharest fired tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators who blocked traffic in the city’s University Square to protest IMF-imposed austerity measures and poor living standards, demanding the resignation of President Traian Basescu.
Thousands of followers of the far-right Jobbik party protested against the EU in Budapest over European measures against a power-grab by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rightist government. Last week, thousands of leftists marched against Orban.
A new survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicates that the value of opium in Afghanistan soared by 133% in 2011 over the previous year, netting farmers $1.4 billion. Yields increased by 61%, from 3,600 to 5,800 tons.
Protesters wearing orange jump-suits and black hoods marched in Washington DC Jan. 11 to mark 10 years since the opening of the military prison at Guantánamo Bay. The grimly attired demonstrators marched down Pennsylvania Ave. from the White House, past… Read moreProtests mark tenth anniversary of Guantánamo Bay prison camp
The government of Burma signed a ceasefire agreement with ethnic Karen rebels who have been fighting for regional autonomy since independence from Britain in 1948. Some 100,000 have been displaced by the conflict.
In a move assailed by civil rights groups, Israel’s High Court voted to reject a challenge filed against provisions of the Citizenship Law, which bar Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs from receiving citizenship or residency.
Ricardo Soberón, the anti-drug chief who last year briefly suspended coca eradication in Peru, resigned under pressure from the administration of President Ollanta Humala—to be replaced with an outspoken eradication advocate.
Yet a fourth nuclear scientist was mysteriously blown up in Iran, just as the Islamic Republic began a uranium enrichment program at an underground facility near Qom. Even Russia said the enrichment is beyond what is needed for civilian purposes.
Citing inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced that it has moved its famous “Doomsday Clock” to five minutes to midnight.
The State Department expelled Livia Acosta Noguera, Venezuelan consul general in Miami, over an alleged plot involving Venezuela, Iran and Cuba to launch a cyber-attack against the FBI, CIA, NSA and other top US government agencies.
A Russian naval flotilla led by an aircraft carrier docked in the Syrian port of Tartus in what Damascus hailed as a show of solidarity by Moscow—as NATO member Turkey broached military intervention in the conflicted Arab nation.
A “Plurinational Encuentro” held last month in Cochabamba brought together lawmakers and leaders of popular movements—but was boycotted by Bolivia’s main labor federation and dissident campesino organizations.
