After a regional strike shut down Colombia’s central Andean department of Huila for 15 days, the protest campaign was suspended when the government agreed to public hearings on the Quimbo hydro-electric project.
President Obama denied a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, saying the deadline imposed by Congress did not leave enough time to conduct the necessary review. Developer TransCanada said it will re-apply.
Foreign Policy magazine cites US intelligence memos to the effect that Mossad agents recruited militants from the Iranian terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as CIA agents in a “false flag” operation. Is this logical?
One solider was killed in northern Mali in a clash with Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)—who authorities said were backed up by former pro-Qaddafi Libyan soldiers.
Human Rights Watch assailed the Ethiopian government’s forcible relocation of 70,000 indigenous peasants from the western Gambella region—amid massive government land-leasing to corporate ag-biz interests.
After a week of “Occupation” protests paralyzed the country’s cities, Nigeria’s government slashed fuel prices. But protest leaders demand prices be restored to the level before President Goodluck Jonathan dropped subsidies.
Milciades Trochez Conda, an indigenous leader who 11 years ago escaped kidnappers from the FARC rebel group, was gunned down by presumed paramilitary hit-men in the southwestern Colombian department of Cauca.
Loggers have invaded the Brazilian Amazon home of an “uncontacted” Awa-Gwajá band, a sub-group of the Awá indigenous people, after a young girl was reportedly burned alive as a warning to terrorize the band.
As ethnic Albanian protesters blocked the road linking Kosova to Serbia, the government is building a four-lane highway to link the country to Albania—a project protested as a nationalist boondoggle by the Serb minority.
Police in Bucharest fired tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators who blocked traffic in the city’s University Square to protest IMF-imposed austerity measures and poor living standards, demanding the resignation of President Traian Basescu.
Thousands of followers of the far-right Jobbik party protested against the EU in Budapest over European measures against a power-grab by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s rightist government. Last week, thousands of leftists marched against Orban.
A new survey by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) indicates that the value of opium in Afghanistan soared by 133% in 2011 over the previous year, netting farmers $1.4 billion. Yields increased by 61%, from 3,600 to 5,800 tons.
