Africa
Youth uprising in Burkina Faso
Some 20 prisoners escaped in Burkina Faso after middle and high school students set four police stations on fire to protest the killing of four youth by police last month.
Author: CounterVortex
North Africa
Libya: momentum gains for no-fly zone
International consensus is growing for some kind of foreign military intervention in Libya as Qaddafi’s forces continue to press their offensive against rebels both east and west of Tripoli.
East Asia
China: drought fuels “peak wheat” fears
Agriculture experts in China warn that the frequency and severity of droughts have increased over the past decade, causing heavy crop losses and posing a potentially grave threat to grain security.
Inner Asia
China imprisons Uighur web-editor in new crackdown
An ethnic Uighur website editor was sentenced to seven years in prison in China following a secret trial, weeks after four others received death sentences in connection with armed attacks.
Africa
Sudan: Khartoum sponsoring warlords to shift borders before secession?
Rebel militias have risen in South Sudan’s Jonglei and Upper Nile states—fueling fears of a Khartoum strategy to take back lands from the SPLA before the South’s formal secession in July.
Greater Middle East
Yemen: al-Qaeda attacks amid protest wave
Suspected al-Qaeda gunmen killed four soldiers in Yemen—one day after President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to yield to protesters demanding his immediate resignation.
Iraq
Iraq: thousands of protesters defy curfew
Thousands of protesters converged on cities and towns across Iraq, streaming in on foot in defiance of vehicle bans for rallies over corruption, unemployment and poor public services.
Greater Middle East
Bahrain: protesters demand king step down
Thousands of protesters faced down riot police at Manama’s al-Qudaibiya Palace, where Bahrain’s cabinet meets, chanting slogans against the small but strategic Persian Gulf state’s monarchy.
North Africa
Libya: battle for Tripoli begins; more massacres reported
Heavy gunfire broke out in Tripoli, as a militia led by the dictator’s son Khamis Qaddafi is said to have carried out a massacre while re-taking the rebel-held city of Zawiyah.
Planet Watch
Oil Spill Commission: Gulf disaster could have been prevented
The president’s Oil Spill Commission finds that last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill was “an entirely preventable disaster,” especially noting substandard construction work by Halliburton.
Inner Asia
Siberian indigenous people protest pipeline plans
Siberia’s indigenous Evenk people have launched a campaign against Russian energy giant Gazprom’s plans for a pipeline through their territory, as BP and other majors plan investment.
Greater Middle East
Protests hit Saudi Arabia; “Bloody Friday” in Yemen; riots in Alexandria
Shi’ites held unprecedented protest rallies in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province as security forces fired on demonstrators in northern Yemen and the Egyptian port of Alexandria.