From now through the first week of January, World War 4 Report will be on semi-hiatus, with a low level of activity, while editor and chief blogger Bill Weinberg takes a well-earned stay-at-home vacation and sees to some personal matters.
Three-year old Shakira, disfigured by a drone strike on her Pakistani village, has just arrived in Houston for surgery. Yet, unlike the woman whose nose was cut off by the Taliban, she will not be exploited for propaganda, at least.
Amid concern about stability on the Korean peninsula after the passing of Kim Jong Il, few recall that the DPRK saw a brief wave of protests over economic conditions back in February—just as the Arab Spring was gaining ground.
Online accounts say three were killed as security forces used batons and tear gas to clear a blockade of an expressway in Shantou prefecture by hundreds of protesters opposing construction of a coal-buring power plant.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay again condemned the brutal crackdown on protesters by military and security forces in Cairo, where 11 people have been killed in repression over the past four days.
Media accounts portray Tarek Mehanna as a dangerous conspirator—but he never actually received “terrorist training” in Yemen, and the texts he apparently translated were al-Qaeda propaganda videos.
Local environmentalists and Philippine opposition lawmakers charge that unbridled logging and mining activities in Northern Mindanao are behind the devastating floods that have left nearly 1,000 dead and hundreds missing.
Peruvian authorities finally allowed paroled US citizen Lori Berenson to leave for a brief visit to her family in New York; meanwhile, ex-president Alberto Fujimori is hoping to get a pardon.
Hundreds of Dominicans of Haitian origin demonstrated in Santo Domingo to protest a court ruling that they say lets the election board invalidate the citizenship of some 4,000 people.
Brazilian soldiers, “peacekeepers” with a United Nations force Haiti, detained two water delivery workers and a friend without cause, robbing them and beating them repeatedly.
Mexican ex-officials work as informants for the US DEA, which turns out to be laundering money for the cartels as part of the “war on drugs”; meanwhile, the murders of peace activists continue.
Two Mexican students were killed by police gunfire around as police agents and soldiers attempted to disperse protesters blocking the Mexico City-Acapulco highway near the capital of Guerrero.
