As Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant went online last week, the government announced that $50 million has been allocated to resettle the 4,000 residents of the nearby villages of Heleylah and Bandargah—despite assurances that the plant is safe.
Five days of armed clashes in the Yemeni capital Sanaa have left dozens dead and hundreds injured. Rebel tribesmen and defected army units battle Republican Guard troops, while student protesters occupying “Change Square” are under mortar and sniper fire.
The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on four Colombian nationals and 12 companies said to be linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. The move comes amid charges that US law enforcement is favoring the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico’s bloody narco wars.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi took credit for the massacre of 25 Shi’ite pilgrims, members of the Hazara minority, headed from Pakistan to holy cities in Iran. Sunni militants are escalating attacks on the Hazara, who were targeted for genocide in Taliban Afghanistan.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez criticized the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) as a tool of “the imperial power” for ruling in favor of presidential hopeful Leopoldo López, thereby allowing him to run for office.
At least 24 were killed in Yemen’s capital Sanaa as security forces opened fire on protesters calling for the ouster of longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Pentagon is meanwhile stepping up drone strikes on al-Qaeda insurgents in the country’s south.
Some 500 villagers in China’s Zhejiang province protested at the factory of Zhejiang Jinko Solar, storming the compound, ransacking offices and overturning vehicles. Villagers charge the factory poisoned their river, killing a large swath of fish.
Days ahead of the release of a White House report singling out Venezuela for insufficient narcotics enforcement efforts, the US Treasury Department accused four close allies of President Hugo Chávez of assisting Colombia’s FARC guerillas.
President Barack Obama has included El Salvador and Belize on the list of 22 countries ranked as “Major Illicit Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries,” for the first time placing all seven Central American nations on the annual list.
El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes won praise from leftist supporters of his FMLN government with his decision to recognize Palestinian statehood—but also won protest with his move to send troops to Afghanistan to back up NATO’s mission.
Members of the Colombian National Police began training Salvadoran, Mexican, Honduran and Guatemalan police and attorneys general at the International Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA) in El Salvador—raising sharp criticisms from rights activists.
Two half-naked mutilated bodies left hanging from a bridge in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo were accompanied by “narco-messages” scrawled on cardboard saying the killings were an example of the will happen to “Internet busybodies.”
