A large percentage of Djibouti’s population could face food shortages due to drought, rising prices, declining earnings, and high levels of livestock deaths, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net). Some 130,000, including 50,000 in Djibouti’s capital,… Read moreEritrea crisis worsens Djibouti food shortages
A two-year investigation of a 2,000-acre property in Humboldt County’s Lost River area, Operation Southern Sweep went above ground this week as an invading force of 450 federal and state agents descended in convoys of as many as 200 vehicles… Read more“Southern Sweep” raids shake California’s Emerald Triangle
Six local police officers were killed in Culiacán, Sinaloa, June 27 when two carloads of heavily armed men cut off their vehicle in an ambush. The attack came two hours after a shoot-out between armed men and federal army troops… Read moreUS Senate approves “Plan Mexico”; narcos keep up pressure
State authorities in Guerrero, Mexico, have agreed to pay 490,000 pesos (US$48,000) in compensation to 14 indigenous men coerced into having vasectomies. The men will each be paid 35,000 pesos (US$3,400) and given water storage tanks and cement to build… Read moreMexico compensates indigenous men for forced sterilizations
Taking a tip from their counterparts in Colombia, young opponents of President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua used Facebook to launch a protest campaign—under the slogan “Democracy yes, dictatorship no.” A June 20 protest brought out some 4,000 in downtown Managua… Read moreNicaragua: cyber-savvy youth protest Ortega
Sikh protesters blocked a rail line through Amristar in protests across India’s Punjab this week to demand the arrest of Ram Rahim Singh, leader of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect, which combines spirituality with social work—but which orthodox Sikhs accuse… Read moreIndia: Sikh killed in sectarian violence; Punjab rail line blocked
In the new “Failed States Index” compiled by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Somalia has displaced Sudan at the top of the list. Sudan is number two, followed by Zimbabwe and Chad. Iraq, which ranked second last… Read moreSomalia tops “Failed States Index”
Activists on the NO-G8 e-mail list report that three “citizen reporters” from the Hong Kong alternative website In-media, arriving for the upcoming protests against the Hokkaido G8 summit, have been detained by Japanese authorities at the Tokyo airport. Korean activists… Read moreChina and Japan: partners in repression?
Seven Maori tribes signed New Zealand's largest-ever settlement on grievances over the loss of lands and fisheries during European settlement in the 19th century. Hundreds of Maori, some wearing traditional feather cloaks, gathered at Wellington to watch the agreement being… Read moreNew Zealand: Maori sign deal on land rights
From Human Rights Watch, June 25: Russia: Stop ‘Dirty War’ Tactics in Ingushetia Killings, Torture, Disappearances in Chechnya-Style Counterinsurgency Moscow – The Chechnya armed conflict has spread human rights abuses and instability across the North Caucasus, and particularly in Ingushetia,… Read moreRussia wages “dirty war” in Ingushetia
Islamabad has angrily denied findings by Afghanistan’s intelligence agency that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was the “real schemer and organizer” behind the failed April 27 assassination attempt on President Karzai at a military parade. (Gulf Daily News, June 26) That… Read moreConsensus growing for attack on Pakistan?
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) has completed a new classified assessment that explores how climate change could threaten US security in the next 20 years, causing political instability, mass movements of refugees, terrorism, and conflicts over water and other resources…. Read moreNational Intelligence Council sees climate threat
