Gloria Muñoz Ramírez, columnist for the Mexican left-leaning daily La Jornada, reports back April 8 from Tifariti, Western Sahara, where the Polisario Front resistance movement recently held its fifth national congress. Tifariti is the principal town in the Morocco-occupied territory… Read moreSahrawi women wage “struggle within the struggle”
Here’s a glimmer of hope from Eritrea—and how does it square the widespread reports that the Eritrean regime is backing the Islamist insurgents in Somalia? An April 8 report on SomaliNet states: “The Eritrean government has with immediate effect banned… Read moreEritrea bans female genital mutilation
The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released a report, “Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability,” finding that warmer global temperatures are causing profound changes in many of the earth’s natural systems and warning of mass extinctions,… Read moreBig power pressure censors UN climate report
The Geeska Africa Online news service, reporting from Nairobi April 10, quoted Jendayi Frazer, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, accusing Eritrea of backing the Islamist insurgents in Somalia. “No insurgency group can survive without support from neighboring… Read moreUS: Eritrea backs Somali insurgents
From iWire, April 10: Google has joined forces with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to create a visual record of the attrocities that began in the Darfur region of Sudan in 2003. The Crisis in Darfur project has assembled photographs,… Read moreOnline documentation of Darfur holocaust
Halliburton announced April 9 all of the commitments of its subsidiary working in Iran have been completed and it no longer has operations in the country. In January 2005, the company announced it would not accept new contracts in Iran… Read moreHalliburton quits Iran
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) is meeting in Doha, Qatar, to discuss the possibility of forming a body that would represent gas producers and exporters in the global market, with some leaders calling for a cartel that would function… Read moreNext: global gas cartel?
Ethiopia admitted for the first time April 10 that it detained 41 suspected terrorists from 17 countries. The statement comes a week after the Associated Press reported that terror suspects had been transferred from Kenya to Somalia and then to… Read moreSomalia “renditions”: Ethiopia admits it
Amnesty International condemns Egypt’s record on torture and illegal detention in a new report, and calls on other countries to abandon diplomatic “no torture” deals with Cairo. Egypt’s record on torture recently made headlines after police officers raped a 21-year-old… Read moreAmnesty International blasts Egypt, “rendition”
Chad’s government reports a rebel convoy of “more than 200 vehicles with armed elements” attacked from Sudanese territory April 9, resulting in heavy fighting that has left “many” dead. (AlJazeera, April 9) Recent violence in eastern Chad has killed hundreds… Read moreChad: displacement crisis escalates
Forces from the separatist Somali state of Somaliland and neighboring autonomous Puntland clashed April 9 over a disputed strip of land along their shared border in the Sanag region. “Puntland forces attacked the town of Dahar around 8:00 this morning,”… Read morePuntland clashes with Somaliland
Nine Algerian soldiers and at least four Islamist insurgents were killed in clashes after militants ambushed an army patrol in the southwestern province of Ain Defla, 150 kilometers from Algiers April 7. Government troops, backed by helicopters, are searching for… Read moreMaghreb: dialectic of terror continues
