As a lawsuit over the government’s failure to evacuate Fukushima prefecture’s children is on appeal, Japan’s government attempts to downplay reports of elevated thyroid abnormalities.
Campesino protesters at the site of the Conga mining project in Peru’s Cajamarca region stormed police lines, putting pipes and other equipment to the torch.
Ecuador’s trans-Andean pipeline burst, fouling small farms near the Pacific coast, while Peru declared a state of emergency in the Amazon’s Pastaza Basin over oil contamination.
The Brazilian state of Acre declared a state of “social emergency” in response to a surge of undocumented migrants from neighboring Bolivia and Peru.
UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter-terrorism Ben Emmerson warned that Burkina Faso is at risk of being destabilized by the conflict in neighboring Mali.
A Pakistan court extended by six days the bail granted to former president Pervez Musharraf, who faces charges related to human rights abuses during his time in office.
One year after Tuareg rebels briefly seized power in Mali’s desert north, they face hunger, ethnic attacks and rights abuses at the hands of French-backed government forces.
Several were killed in confrontations across Mexico’s violence-torn Michoacán state—including when gunmen fired on crowds commemorating the death of Emiliano Zapata.
The crisis between North and South Korea has overshadowed growing tensions between both Koreas and Japan, which has seen an ugly wave of anti-Korean protests.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “emir” of al-Qaeda in Iraq, announced a merger with Syria’s Nusra Front to form a new organization, the “Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.”
Dissident teachers in Mexico spent their spring break protesting US-style “education reform” plans based on standardized tests and teacher evaluations.
With problems—and fines—accumulating at the mammoth Pacua Lama mine site high in the Andes, environmentalists are asking if it isn’t time to call the whole thing off.
