Milciades Trochez Conda, an indigenous leader who 11 years ago escaped kidnappers from the FARC rebel group, was gunned down by presumed paramilitary hit-men in the southwestern Colombian department of Cauca.
Loggers have invaded the Brazilian Amazon home of an “uncontacted” Awa-Gwajá band, a sub-group of the Awá indigenous people, after a young girl was reportedly burned alive as a warning to terrorize the band.
As ethnic Albanian protesters blocked the road linking Kosova to Serbia, the government is building a four-lane highway to link the country to Albania—a project protested as a nationalist boondoggle by the Serb minority.
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.
