Bolivian Defense Minister Cecilia Chacón resigned in protest the day after National Police used tear gas and mass arrests to halt a cross-country march by indigenous protesters in the Amazonian department of Beni.
The right-wing blogosphere is having a field day with claims that Palestinian ambassador Maen Rashid Areikat called for “a Jew-free Palestinian state.” But Areikat responds that it’s a “total fabrication” and a “total set-up” by conservo-bloggers.
Reviving a protest movement that had become moribund in recent months, some 10,000 Moroccans marched in Casablanca, calling for a boycott of the November parliamentary elections and curbs on the power of the king.
Four coordinated explosions killed 15 and injured at least 100 in Iraq’s Shi’ite holy city of Karbala— the latest in a series of recent attacks in the city which have targeted Shi’ite pilgrims as well as security forces.
Indigenous protesters armed with bows and arrows in the Bolivian Amazon broke through a police blockade to continue their cross-country march on La Paz—with Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca in the vanguard of their charge.
A soldier with the US Army was sentenced for his role in murdering an unarmed teenage Afghan civilian in Kandahar province last year. Pvt. Andrew Holmes of the 5th Stryker Brigade was sentenced to seven years in prison as part of a plea deal.
At least 25 were injured as National Police fired shotguns and tear-gas bombs on local campesinos blocking access to the Toquepala copper mine, in Peru’s southern region of Tacna, to protest a planned expansion of operations.
A federal judge in Miami sentenced Bolivia’s former top anti-drug official, Gen. Rene Sanabria, to 14 years in prison for cocaine trafficking—although the “Colombian drug lords” he thought he was dealing with were really undercover DEA agents.
Meeting in Manaus, indigenous representatives from across the Amazon approved an action plan that calls for a pan-Amazonian “consolidation” for the survival of ancestral knowledge and the protection of forests, water, biodiversity and the climate.
Italy announced that it will transfer and repatriate all migrants off the island of Lampedusa within 48 hours, following clashes with police and residents. Italian news agency AGI called the riots “an episode of urban guerrilla.”
Bilbao’s Kukutza Gaztetxe community center was evicted after the Basque Country’s highest court rejected a petition by the residents. The Traveller community at Dale Farm is awaiting a decision of the UK’s High Court on an injunction halting their eviction.
Thousands of villagers attacked government buildings in the southern Chinese city of Lufeng, Guangdong province, in a protest over the seizure of village lands and their sale to a real estate development firm.
