Beltway neocons are clearly heartened by the bloodshed, and see it as an opportunity to augment it with US bombardment, as in Libya. The Assad dictatorship meanwhile exploits the Israeli-occupied Golan Druze as a base of support.
After days of fierce fighting in Sanaa, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has reportedly fled the country for Saudi Arabia. Amid the chaos, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninusla seized control of the southern town of Zinjibar.
Thousands of families have been displaced in weeks of fighting between the Ahlu Sunna sufi militia and fundamentalist Shabab insurgents in central Somalia. Drought conditions in the countryside have worsened the plight of the displaced.
Chinese authorities have tightened security across Inner Mongolia province after days of unrest, which began when a Mongol herdsman was killed by a coal truck as a group of traditional herders sought to block a convoy from crossing their lands.
Former Maoist rebels and indigenous protesters demanding greater rights under the new constitution have staged weeks of civil strikes across Nepal, repeatedly shutting down large areas of the country, including Kathmandu.
The survival of the “uncontacted” tribe whose images caused a worldwide sensation in February is in jeopardy, after the Peruvian government announced plans to abolish the reserve that protects their territory.
The Abu Alkiyan Bedouin clan pledge to resist their forcible relocation to make way for a new Jewish town outside Beersheba. Israel says the clan is illegally squatting state lands—although it was transferred there in 1956 by military order.
Security forces killed seven when hundreds of local artisanal miners who invaded the premises of Barrick Gold’s North Mara mine in Tanzania—the latest in a series of deadly confrontations in Africa’s mineral sector.
Local timber interests are suspected in the slaying of Jose Claudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria Do Espirito Santo da Silva, two activists seeking to protect the rainforest of Brazils’ Para state.
Qatar, one of the few Arab states to have joined the NATO-led military coalition against Qaddafi’s regime, has deported back to Libya a woman who fled the country after being gang-raped by Qaddafi’s thugs.
A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron denied there are any British combat troops on the ground in Libya folloing press reports claiming SAS forces have been spotted in Misrata.
A new bill in the Knesset would change Jerusalem neighborhoods with Arabic names to Hebrew ones—while Mayor Nir Barakat said the municipality would continue to build Jewish-only housing regardless of “political issues.”
