Southern Cone
Falklands fracas flares amid Antarctic anxieties
A new war of words between the UK and Argentina over the Malvinas/Falklands follows a similar one last month over a disputed region of Antarctica.
East Asia
Radiation cover-up at Fukushima exposed
Japan’s Environment Ministry is investigating claims that clean-up contractors at Fukushima have illegally dumped contaminated materials in rivers and open areas.
Watching the Shadows
Chuck Hagel: revenge of the paleocons?
Leftists are ironically rallying around Chuck Hagel as Obama's apparent pick for Secretary of Defense—a conservative Republican who is wary of the neocons but close to Big Oil.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan: 20,000 troops to remain?
Gen. John R. Allen, outgoing US commander in Afghanistan, submitted military options to the Pentagon that would keep 6,000 to 20,000 troops in the country after 2014.
Palestine
Settler pogrom at West Bank village
Some 20 settlers rioted in the West Bank village of Jallud, shattering windows, assaulting three residents and vandalizing cars before fleeing the scene.
Greater Middle East
UN rights office: 60,000 killed in Syria conflict
A study by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights finds that more than 60,000 people have been killed in the conflict in Syria since March 2011.
Watching the Shadows
Obama signs NDAA —despite Gitmo restrictions
Obama signed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act into law—with measures prohibiting use of funds to transfer individuals detained at Guantánamo.
Southeast Asia
Burma: new airstrikes on Kachin rebels
Burma's army claimed responsibility for air-strikes against Kachin rebel positions in the north—less than a day after the government denied the strikes had taken place.
Iran
Iranian cities evacuated by smog alert
Iranian authorities have advised the 1.5 million residents of Isfahan to leave the city because air pollution has reached emergency levels—while denying rumors of a nuclear leak.
Planet Watch
Quebec: #IdleNoMore protesters block rail line
Protesters with the Idle No More movement, supporting a hunger strike by Chief Theresa Spence of Ontario’s Attawapiskat First Nation, blocked a rail line in eastern Quebec.
North America
Karl Marx and the Emancipation Proclamation
Kevin B. Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies, draws the link from Lincoln's radicalization to the First International.
The Caribbean
Cuba: imprisoned Spanish rightist is sent home
Spanish national Angel Carromero, sentenced to four years in Cuba for the car accident that killed dissidents Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero, will serve out his sentence in Spain.