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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Police fired tear gas to disperse protesters demanding the ouster of Moammar Qaddafi in Tripoli, while rebels clashed with Qaddafi-loyalist forces for control of Raslanuf oil compound.
An Israeli company is said to be recruiting mercenaries to support Moammar Qaddafi, while Zimbabwe’s defense minister was grilled by opposition MPs over similar charges.
Following the success of coca eradication efforts, the FARC and right-wing paramilitaries are in a deadly struggle for control of outlaw gold-mining operations in Colombia’s jungles.
