The US took a step closer to providing financial assistance to the Libyan rebels, as Sen. John Kerry announced he is drafting legislation to free up some of the $34 billion in the Tripoli regime’s assets frozen by the White House.
Aid groups fear a power vacuum that will make their work in the country untenable after Afghan police and army troops replace foreign forces, a process slated to begin this summer and be complete in December 2014.
Japan will abandon plans to expand its nuclear power industry and instead focus on renewable energy, Prime Minister, Naoto Kan announced—following weeks of the country’s biggest public protests in 40 years.
Security forces fired on protesters across both Syria and Yemen, leaving several dead, while in Bahrain the government is bulldozing dozens of mosques in Shi’ite villages as part of a crackdown on Shi’ite-led protests.
Amnesty International called on Israel to release or charge a Palestinian writer and academic held for almost three weeks in the occupied West Bank. Ahmad Qatamesh was detained on suspicion of involvement with the PFLP.
Indigenous bands living in voluntary isolation in remote regions of the Peruvian Amazon again fired arrows at intruders—as the national government announced new oil exploration blocs in the disputed territory.
Rescue crews recovered the last of 14 bodies from the Pozo 3 coal mine hit by a gas explosion in Mexico’s northern Coahuila state, which labor leaders charge was operating “outside of the law.”
Afghan lawmakers approved the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, which will pass through Herat and Kandahar. Reports referenced an unnamed “American firm” that will help build the line.
Moroccan authorities announced the arrest of three suspects in last week’s bombing of a Marrakesh cafe—but failed to link them to arrests earlier this year of a supposed al-Qaeda cell in occupied Western Sahara.
The US threatened to take unspecified “additional steps” in response to the continued repression in Syria as at least 27 were reported dead in Friday protests around the country.
As US drone attacks killed two members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), protesters gathered in Yemen’s capital to release hundreds of balloons reading “Leave, Ali”—meaning President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Legendary underground intellectual Peter Lamborn Wilson will speak at the revived NYC Anarchist Forum series—on the prospects for an anarchist revival in the contemporary dystopian world situation.
