President Donald Trump signed an executive order to lift restrictions placed on offshore oil drilling by the previous administration, opening vast areas to exploitation.
Thousands of indigenous protesters clashed with police outside the congress building in Brasilia, during a demonstration over territorial and land rights in the Brazilian Amazon.
Insistence on regional autonomy and a federal solution for Syria is straining the de facto alliance between the Rojava Kurds and Damascus, despite their mutual enmity for Turkey.
Separatist group ETA said in a communique that it will not abandon its goal of an independent Basque state on the French-Spanish borderlands despite surrendering its arms.
The ultra-hawkish Henry Jackson Society warns that the US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria are allied with anarchists and elements of the Turkish and European armed left.
As Burma's government tries to lure hold-out ethnic rebel armies to the negotiating table, Chinese-backed oil and hydro projects emerge as a last obstacle to peace.
The vote over the name change from South Ossetia to Alania reveals how the autonomist aspirations of the Ossetians (however legitimate) have been exploited in the Great Game. (Map: Wikipedia)
The US air-lifts Kurdish fighters into ISIS territory in preparation for a final assault on Raqqa—while bombing the city, deepening the growing enmity between Kurds and Arabs.
Somalis who captured an oil tanker later released it with no ransom paid, and said they had seized it to protest toxic waste dumping and over-fishing in their waters.
Installation of an interim authority in Timbuktu under a peace deal with Tuareg rebels in Mali's desert north was blocked as hardline factions erected street barricades.
As the US moves to deploy the THAAD anti-missile system in South Korea, local farmers have launched a protest campaign and lawsuit to halt the installation.
Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled that "prior consultation" with local communities must be carried out before an open-pit gold mine project can move ahead.
