A Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter has been shot down by Chechen fighters during an army operation near the town of Shatoi, southern Chechnya. Its four crew members and 13 passengers are all suspected killed. Violence is said to have erupted… Read moreChechens down Russian helicopter
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed concern that construction of a US missile shield in Eastern Europe would heighten the “threat of causing mutual damage and even destruction.” The proposed scheme “is not just a defense system,” he exclaimed, “this is… Read morePutin: US missile shield threatens stability
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced details of an arms build-up which he says will include a sophisticated missile defense system. “We’re going to have a tremendous air-defense system, and with with missiles capable of reaching 200 kilometers,” Chavez said… Read moreVenezuela: Chavez pledges missile defense system
Ecuador has expelled World Bank representative to Quito, Eduardo Somensatto, on the order of President Rafael Correa. Though Ecuador did not give an official reason for the expulsion, but Correa had protested the Work Bank’s withholding of a $100 million… Read moreEcuador: World Bank booted, legislators flee, Chevron upbraided
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, on a tour of Latin America, stopped in Nicaragua April 23, where President Daniel Ortega expressed his support for Tehran’s nuclear program. “All countries should be allowed to access peaceful nuclear technology and this right… Read moreNicaragua: yes to Iran; no to IMF
Tierramérica reports [April 21] that grassroots organizations in the department of Olancho, Honduras, are fighting both for the enforcement of a partial ban decreed to stop illegal logging, as well as justice punishment of the assassins of two Honduran environmentalists… Read moreHonduras: campesino ecologists under threat
Gov. Ulises Ruiz of Oaxaca has called upon Mexican military authorities to investigate a new guerilla group which has announced its existence the in conflicted southern state. In a message posted to the website of the Spain-based Documentation Center for… Read moreOaxaca: new guerilla group under investigation
A criminal complaint has been filed in the Mexican border city of Matamoros against Luz María González Armenta, leader of Defense and Promotion of Human Rights-Emiliano Zapata (DEPRODHEZAC), weeks after she was detained at a political protest. González was arrested… Read moreCriminal complaint filed against Matamoros rights defender
Rodolfo Chávez Galindo, a campesino leader active in the opposition to La Parota hydro-electric complex, was arrested by state police April 21 in the conflicted southern Mexican state of Guerrero, charged with the illegal detention of an engineer from the… Read moreGuerrero: hydro-dam opponent arrested
Mark Kurlansky writes for the Los Angeles Times, April 26: Seventy years ago, on April 26, 1937, at 4:40 in the afternoon when the stone-walled, medieval Basque town of Guernica was packed with peasants, shoppers and refugees for its Monday… Read moreFrom Guernica to Baghdad: 70 years of “shock and awe”
From Amnesty International, April 24: Amnesty International condemns the harsh sentence handed down today on human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, following an unfair trial that appeared to be politically driven and during which he was not given full access to… Read moreSyria: rights attorney gets five years
Afghanistan’s parliament is poised to pass a new media law considerably reducing freedom of the press. The controversial package—proposed by the religious and cultural affairs commission of the parliament, chaired by former warlord Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq and supported by the… Read moreAfghanistan to limit press freedom
