President Omar al-Bashir announced that Sudan will adopt an Islamic constitution based on sharia law now that the mostly Christian south has seceded. The creation of an Islamic state raises grave concerns the one million southerners living in Sudan.
On Columbus Day/DĂa de la Raza, some 10,000 indigenous Mapuche and their supporters marched through Santiago, many dressed in traditional costumes and carrying flags, to demand freedom for political prisoners and restoration of traditional lands.
A Colombian photographer who works with the threatened Nukak indigenous group received a death threat accusing him of being a guerilla—while the FARC guerillas hijacked a shipment of medical supplies bound for the Nukak.
More than 20 displaced indigenous Triqui members of the Autonomous Municipality of San Juan Copala were arrested by local police in the “official” municipality of Oaxaca de Juárez for attempting to occupy lands they say were usurped by paramilitaries.
Bolivian lawmakers voted to approve President Evo Morales’ decision to halt a controversial road project through the country’s eastern Amazon rainforest in order to consult with the local population. But protest marchers continue to advance towards La Paz.
Tens of thousands of striking workers were joined by students in marches through Bogotá, MedellĂn, Cali and other cities across Colombia to demand the right to unionize, public health care and education, and an end to labor contracting.
Pulitzer-winning reporter Roy Gutman writes from Baghdad that an Anglican priest is working with the US embassy to convince the remaining nine Jews in Iraq to flee the country, because their names appeared in cables published by WikiLeaks.
Another 32 bodies were found in three houses in the Mexican port city of Veracruz, the latest in a series of attacks on presumed members of Los Zetas narco-network by a rival group calling itself the Mata Zetas, or Zeta Killers.
Police fired on striking workers at a mine run by US-based Freeport McMoran in Indonesia’s Papua region, leaving at least one dead. The workers, mostly indigenous Melanesians, are demanding that their wage of $1.50 an hour be raised to $12.50.
Oil from a tanker ship stuck on a reef has started to wash up at New Zealand’s popular Mount Maunganui beach. In a race to avert disaster, salvage teams are pumping oil from the leaking ship, ahead of forecast gale-force winds and swells.
Riot police in Tunis used tear-gas to disperse hundreds of young Islamists who fought back with stones, knives and sticks. At least 40 were arrested. The Islamists were protesting against the ban on women who wear the niqab enrolling in university.
Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad has been on hunger strike for 48 days to protest his imprisonment on charges of criticizing the armed forces. HIs appeal hearing has been repeatedly postponed in what Reports Without Borders calls a stalling tactic.
