An investigation that has already exposed links between government officials and illegal paramilitary groups in six of Colombia’s coastal departments has now reached the home department of President Álvaro Uribe, focusing on his administration’s politically powerful allies. Colombia’s Supreme Court,… Read moreColombia: para probe hits Uribe’s home turf
The national human rights group CODHES [Council on Human Rights and Displacement] reports that more than 15,000 Colombians were displaced from their homes during the first one hundred days of 2007. The primary cause of this forced exodus has been… Read moreColombia: more than 15,000 displaced in 2007 —so far
From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), April 15: IFC Launches an International Campaign to Free the Iraqi Detainees Being Held In the U.S. Camps in Iraq As a result of the new Bush security plan in Iraq, hundreds of people… Read moreIraq: civil resistance campaign to free detainees
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonio Guterres, has appealed to the international community for “genuine solidarity and unstinting aid to displaced Iraqis and to the states housing them.” Nearly 4 million Iraqis have been forced from their homes… Read moreIraq’s refugees: up to 4 million?
Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the group the Islamic State of Iraq, has described Iraq as “the university of terrorism.” According to al-Baghdadi, his al-Qaeda-associated group has used the war in Iraq as a training ground for jihadists, commenting that the… Read moreIraq: “university of terrorism”
A US soldier has today been put on trial in absentia, accused of shooting dead the Italian intelligence operative Nicola Calipari. Mario Lozano [of the 69th infantry regiment] opened fire on a vehicle carrying Calipari and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena… Read moreItaly tries US soldier in Calipari affair
A UN vehicle has been hit by a remote-controlled bomb blast in the southern city of Kandahar, Afghanistan [April 17]. Four Nepalese contractors working with the UN Office for Project Services were killed, along with their Afghan driver. The vehicle… Read moreTaliban target UN workers
British International Development Secretary Hilary Benn has announced an end to the use of “war on terror” phraseology among the UK government. “What these [terrorist] groups want,” he observed, is to “force their individual and narrow values on others without… Read moreUK rejects GWOT nomenclature
Khartoum has agreed to an interim deployment of 3,000 UN peacekeepers in support of the African Union (AU) in Darfur. UN officials, however, have announced that enacting this measure may take as long as six months, while Sudan is yet… Read moreSudan accepts 3,000 UN reinforcements
The conflict in Darfur is an early sign global security threats prompted by climate change, a senior representative of the British government warned April 16 on the eve of a special United Nations debate. “Like most conflicts, it’s complex. It… Read moreDarfur crisis linked to climate change: UK
Hundreds of rural workers occupied the offices of the National Agrarian Reform Institute in Brasilia, and thousands more invaded farms and blocked roads on April 16, demanding the government speed up moves to give land to small farmers and peasants…. Read moreLand protests across Brazil
Hassan Hattab, founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC)—now dubbed “al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb,” which has claimed responsibility for last week’s deadly Algiers bombings—called on militants to put down their weapons under a government amnesty…. Read moreAlgeria: old-school Islamists diss al-Qaeda
