As experts now say the area around Fukushima will be uninhabitable for a generation, protests against nuclear development mobilized in Tokyo, Taiwan, India, California and the Northeast US.
Baghdad has ordered the expulsion of Mujahedeen Khalq, armed wing of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), following a raid on Camp Ashraf, the group’s stronghold.
Dozens were injured as Salafist Muslims clashed with government supporters in Jordan’s northern city of Zarqa, while in neighboring Syria, police fired tear gas to disperse some 2,000 demonstrators at Jobar, north of Damascus.
From the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), April 14: Today, our friend and colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza. Vittorio… Read morePalestinians call for release of Italian activist kidnapped in Gaza
Foreign workers are desperately trying to flee the besieged Libyan city of Misrata—but they may be fleeing attacks by the rebels as well as Qaddafi’s forces. Qatar now acknowledges it is arming the rebel forces.
Following days of deadly unrest, the Syrian regime announced the formation of a new government and pledged to free scores of people who have been detained in the recent wave of protests.
Inspired by the Arab Spring, protesters in Swaziland are calling for King Mswati III—Africa’s last absolute monarch—to allow multi-party democracy and rescind salary cuts to public employees.
At least seven were killed, including four police officers who clashed with a dissident army unit, as hundreds of thousands of anti-regime protesters again rallied across Yemen to demand the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A wave of wildcat strikes has broken out in factories across Iran, as the regime blamed Western-backed “terrorists” for an explosion on a gas pipeline near Qom and military tensions rise in the Gulf region.
The Moroccan media are making much of a report in Italy’s Corriere della Sera that Western Sahara guerillas are fighting for Qaddafi—as well as claims from the Tripoli regime that they are fighting against Qaddafi!
Dissident artist Ai Weiwei is being held incommunicado by Chinese authorities after posting a coded protest image to his website. The website remains online, but practically devoid of content—suggesting it has been heavily censored.
Japan raised the severity level of its nuclear crisis to seven—putting it on par with the Chernobyl disaster—as stricken reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex continue to release large amounts of radioactive substances.
