A militant group in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta kidnapped two German and four Nigerian workers of Bilfinger Berger Gas & Oil Services, a contractor firm for Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell June 15. The workers were abducted around Warri by a… Read moreShell workers kidnapped in Nigeria
Western governments are flouting their own rules and contributing to grave human rights abuses by selling arms and weapons systems to Nepal, Amnesty International said in a statement today. The rights group accused the UK, US and India of supplying… Read moreAmnesty: West arming Nepal dictatorship
It seems the US and Russia, acting in concert to protect their mutual ally Islam Karimov, exerted pressure at a NATO meeting in Brussels to make sure language calling for an investigation into last month’s bloody repression in Uzbekistan would… Read moreUS blocks NATO call for probe on Uzbek repression
More explosions are reported in Iran this morning, this time in the southeastern city of Zahedan, near the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The three blasts took no lives, but injured two people and caused property damage. Authorities were unclear… Read moreMore blasts in Iran; pipeline deal signed
Bomb blasts struck Iranian government buildings June 12 in Ahvaz, capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province bordering Iraq, followed within hours by two other bombs in central Tehran, killing nine and injuring over 85. The attacks come days before presidential elections…. Read moreTerror and courage in Iran
Speaking in Algeirs, Polisario Front leader Mohamed Abdelaziz called for a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. “We won’t opt for violence. We will continue to fight through peaceful means,” he told a news conference. But he… Read moreMorocco bars Western Sahara investigation
The Pentagon is rapidly expanding its little-noted “anti-terrorist” training program in the nations of Africa’s Sahel. From page 11 of the New York Times, June 10: As Africans Join Iraqi Insurgency, U.S. Counters With Military Training in Their Lands A… Read morePentagon “Pan-Sahel Initiative”
President Bush says today he has receieved reports of covert Syrian interference in Lebanon, and the White House charged that it had information that Damascus had drawn up an assassination hit list targeting Lebanese political leaders. “Obviously we’re going to… Read moreBush accuses Syria on Lebanon
Violence continued in Nepal June 7, with 14 soldiers and six Maoist guerillas killed in a clash in the southwest, even as the rebels publicly apologized for killing 38 civilians in a land mine blast the day before. The civilians… Read moreNepal: Maoists apologize for atrocity; repression continues
On May 27, Servicio Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ) Paraguay condemned an agreement approved by the Paraguayan Congress which will allow US troops into the country for an 18-month training and advisory mission from June 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006…. Read moreUS troops to Paraguay
While Chilean ex-Minister of the Interior, Jose Miguel Insulza, assumes the post of Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General, Chile’s indigenous Mapuche bring their case to that same organization, accusing the Chilean government of human rights violations. Having exhausted… Read moreMapuche protest abuse of Chilean terror laws to OAS
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International, speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” charged: “The U.S. is maintaining an archipelago of prisons around the world, many of them secret prisons, into which people are being literally disappeared, held in indefinite, incommunicado… Read moreAmnesty: US kills prisoners in secret global archipelago
