The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC by its French initials) has been very busy lately. With little note in the world media, Tunisia last month apparently squelched a plot to attack the US and British embassies. It ended… Read moreNYT: North Africa “staging ground for terror”
Another ominous sub-plot in the struggle for Iraq’s oil—and a step closer to the brink for a region that has thus far managed to avoid complete embroilment in Iraq’s civil war. From AP via the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA),… Read moreIraq: Turkey demands delay in Kirkuk referendum
From IRIN via Electronic Iraq, Feb. 20: BAGHDAD – Umm Muhammad Jalal, 39, starts every day walking to a river 7km away from her temporary home in a displacement camp on the outskirts of Fallujah, 70km west of the capital,… Read moreIraq: critical water shortage in Fallujah
We strongly suspect that the front-page Feb. 19 story in the New York Times—based entirely on anonymous “studies” and quotes from anonymous “officials”—purporting huge hydrocarbon deposits in Iraq’s Sunni center (“Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise” by… Read moreIraq: oil lure fails to chill out jihadis
Despite a long activist campaign against India’s controversial Sardar Sarovar dam project on the Narmada River, authorities have just announced the project’s completion. From Planet Ark World Environment News, Feb. 1: AHMEDABAD – India completed construction of a highly ambitious… Read moreIndia: completion of Sardar Sarovar dam announced
The Feb. 18 fire bombing that killed 68 mostly Pakistani passengers and destroyed two coaches on the Samjhauta Express about an hour after the train left New Delhi was an obvious attack on one of the most visible symbols of… Read moreIndia, Pakistan pledge “anti-terrorist” cooperation after deadly train attack
Thailand was shaken by a string of simultaneous terror blasts on the Christian New Year, and now again on the Chinese New Year. The Jan. 1 blasts in Bangkok are still murky, but the Feb. 17 blasts in the heavily… Read moreThailand terror and the Year of the Pig
Friends and advocates from the Paraguayan Union of Journalists (SPP) will mark the one year anniversary of Paraguayan radio journalist Enrique (Kike) Galeano’s disappearance with a protest in his home town of Yby Yaú. Galeano was reporting on drug trafficking… Read moreParaguay: journalist still missing
Almost two months after Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines rejected Ascendant Copper’s Environmental Impact Study for the controversial and locally unpopular Junin copper mine project, the company’s shares plummeted to a measly $0.47 per share on Monday. In addition… Read moreEcuador: copper cartel in trouble
The 15-member United Nations Security Council voted unanimously in New York on Feb. 15 to approve Resolution 1743, which extends the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) until Oct. 15. The eight-month period was a compromise. A number of… Read moreHaiti: UN extends mission
A UN working group recently investigated abuses by private security firms recruiting and training hundreds of Peruvians to work as mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan. (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Feb. 5) Mercenaries are currently the second largest military… Read moreUN uncovers mercenary recruitment in Peru
The Human Rights Defense Commission (CODDEHUM) of the southern Mexican state of Guerrero is investigating a Jan. 25 police operation that removed 60 workers and campesinos who were blocking the Los Filos gold mine near the community of Carrizalillo in… Read moreMexico: probe police action at Guerrero mine
