Hamas and Islamic Jihad urged an escalation of protests in response to the new violence at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa compound, where Palestinian youth clashed with Israeli police.
The House of Representatives approved an extension of the USA Patriot Act with no new privacy measures—a move protested by the ACLU and other civil rights groups.
Three months ago we noted widespread rumors that Israel was preparing imminent air-strikes on Iran—particularly predicted for around the New Year—and asked our readers in an Exit Poll: “Will Israel attack Iran within the next three months?” We received 99… Read moreOur readers write: Will Israel attack Iran?
Days after the Catholic Church declared El Salvador's martyred Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in the Central American country issued an arrest order for a former military captain long suspected of ordering the killing of the religious leader. Judge Rigoberto Chicas issued the order for national and international authorities to apprehend Alvaro Rafael Saravia, 78. He remains at large and is believed to be in hiding. Saravia had been arrested for the crime in 1987, but the case against him was dropped when El Salvador passed its amnesty law in 1993. The case was re-opened after El Salvador's Supreme Court struck down the amnesty law in 2016. (Photo via Catholic News Agency)
Nine sugar-cane workers were killed as a group of some 40 gunmen fired on their encampment on lands they were occupying in Negros Occidental province of the central Philippines. Among the fatalities were three women and two minors. The slain were members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers who were occupying part of the sprawling Hacienda Nene near Barangay Bulanon village, outside Sagay City. The occupation was legally permitted under an agrarian reform program established in the 1980s that allows landless rural workers to cultivate fallow lands on large plantations while title transfer is pending. The massacre was reported by survivors who managed to scatter and hide. Some of the bodies were burned by the attackers. "They were strafed by unknown perpetrators while already resting in their respective tents," said Cristina Palabay, head of the rights group Karapatan. Calling the attack "brutal and brazen," she said: "We call on the Commission on Human Rights to conduct an independent and thorough investigation on the massacre. We are one with the kin of the victims in the Sagay massacre in their call for justice." (Photo: PhilStar)
Colombia’s Constitutional Court voted down the proposed referendum to allow President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term, calling the idea “unconstitutional in its entirety.”
Venezuela’s top human rights official criticized a new OAS report which is harshly critical of the Hugo Chávez government. Gabriela Ramírez said rights have actually improved.
Thousands of adherents of the National Popular Resistance Front marched in the Honduran capital to protest the slaying of civil resistance leaders under the new government.
Forced displacements by federal police of peasant settlements in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve follow a new initiative to establish biofuel production in Chiapas.
The US closed its consular office in the border city of Reynosa citing local narco-violence, as killings, abductions, torture and beaheadings were reported across Mexico.
The UN International Narcotics Control Board finds an 8% decrease in overall coca production in South America last year—but a 45% increase in Peru.
An army sergeant was killed and another wounded in a Sendero Luminoso attack on Bajo Somabeni Counter-Terrorist Base in Peru’s conflicted Río Apurímac-Ene Valley (VRAE).
