Nearly three months after the start of the Fukushima disaster, the stricken reactors have still not been brought under control, and activist demands are growing for the abolition of nuclear power in Japan.
Soldiers patroling the Mexican border town of Ciudad Camargo discovered a warehouse where two armor-plated “tanks” were being constructed. Authorities have intercepted 100 such “narco-tanks,” which the press has dubbed “The Monsters.”
Hundreds of Vietnamese turned out to protest against Chinese naval operations in disputed waters of the South China Sea. The tensions come as Vietnam is moving closer to the US, holding unprecedented joint naval exercises.
As the Taliban launch a series of audacious attacks within Pakistan, media commentators in the country increasingly see the hidden hand of CIA, Mossad or Indian intelligence behind the movement’s growing reach.
A deadly explosion at the Abadan refinery has crystalized the precarious situation facing Iranian oil workers, who are mobilizing to demand an end to neoliberal measuresthat deny them the right to unionize.
Ana Fabricia Córdoba, a leader of displaced Afro-Colombians seeking return of their usurped lands, was slain by an unidentified gunman on a city bus in Medellín. Her daughters received a phone threat that they would “end up the same way.”
The mosque in the village of Maghayer near Ramallah suffered damage and threatening graffiti in a pre-dawn vandal and arson attack—with scrawled slogans calling it a “price tag” by Israeli settlers.
Ecuador sent the army into jungles along the Colombian border to crack down on illegal small-scale mining operations—as the government moved ahead with new mining contracts with industry majors.
Thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv in support of a return to the 1967 borders—as the IDF fired on protesters attempting to cross the Golan Heights ceasefire line from Syria, leaving several dead.
Two undocumented migrants being held at a jail in the border town of Tapachula in Mexico’s southern Chiapas state were hospitalized after 21 days on hunger strike—despite a new law that supposedly protects migrants’ rights.
Hugo Chávez and the US State Department alike denied claims touted by neocon think-tanks that Iran is establishing missile bases in Venezuela. But the State Department sanctioned Venezuela’s state oil company for aiding Iran’s energy sector.
Refugees fleeing the violence in North Africa continue to die at sea, prompting an investigation by the Council of Europe—and a move by Italy and France to rewrite the EU’s policy that permits internal passport-free travel.
