Tokyo’s notoriously nationalist governor Shintaro Ishihara is pushing a plan for the metropolitan government to purchase and annex the China-claimed Senkaku Islands in the hydrocarbon-rich East China Sea—without consulting local Okinawa officials.
The official US hand-wringing is all for public consumption. On June 4, 1989, China’s rulers proved to the world that they were willing to slaughter their own citizens in the interests of “stability.” They were rewarded with massive investment.
The deal between Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the jihadi faction Ansar Dine for creation of an “Islamic state” in Mali’s northern breakaway region has reportedly collapsed.
Amid a wave of anti-immigrant protests and harsh new laws, Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishaii complains that most of the “Muslims that arrive here do not even believe that this country belongs to us, to the white man.”
An Egyptian court found former president Hosni Mubarak guilty of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising and sentenced him to life in prison. But his sons and top security officials were cleared of wrongdoing.
Survival International is calling upon Mick Jagger—recently named by Peru as an “environmental ambassador”—to demand answers on Lima’s “secret plans” to expand the Camisea natural gas bloc into a reserve for “uncontacted” indigenous tribes.
National Police fired on protesters amid a new “indefinite” civil strike called to oppose the US-backed Conga gold-mining project in Peru’s northern region of Cajamarca. Supporters of the project are calling for a state of emergency to be declared.
The conflict over the Xstrata mine in Espinar province of Peru’s Cuzco region escalated as National Police troops in full riot gear stormed the office of the mayor, Oscar Mollohuanca, arresting him on charges of leading protests that have left four dead.
Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Chinese President Hu Jintao presided over the signing in Beijing of a pact calling for the two governments to cooperate in building a trans-oceanic pipeline through the Andean country.
Much of Colombia’s lowland jungle department of Putumayo is shut down by a “paro armado”—a civil strike enforced by the guns of the FARC guerillas, in response to glyphosate spraying across the territory.
Two young Tibetan men set fire to themselves outside one of Tibet’s holiest shrines, the Jokhang Temple—marking the first self-immolations in Lhasa, Tibet’s historic capital. Chinese state media report that one of the young men died.
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Casablanca, Morocco's largest city, in a renewed push for democratic reforms. The march, organized by trade unions, was the largest since a new government took office in January.
