Africa
Congo: Katanga next for mineral boom —and war?
Following defeat of the M23 rebels in the war-torn east, the DRC is touting an imminent mineral boom in southern Katanga—despite a spreading separatist insurgency.
Tag: autonomy
Inner Asia
Uighurs recall independent East Turkestan
In a Capitol Hill ceremony, Uighur exile leaders commemorated the founding of an independent East Turkestan Republic on Nov. 12 in both 1933 and 1944.
The Andes
Colombia: mine opponents assassinated
Cesar García and Adelinda Gómez, two campesino leaders who opposed the operations of AngloGold Ashanti in Colombia, were assassinated just weeks apart.
The Andes
Bolivia: indigenous power at issue in hunger strike
Six dissident Aymara leaders held a hunger strike at the doors of the Bolivian congress building as lawmakers debated a bill on assigning legislative seats to ethnicities and regions.
Afghanistan
Pakistan stock market soars on terror wave
Over the past year of growing violence and chaos in Pakistan, the Karachi Stock Exchange surged more than 44%, placing it among the world’s top-performing stock markets.
Greater Middle East
Syria war portends Middle East ‘balkanization’?
Elements of Washington wonkdom are calling for the break-up of Syria into ethno-sectarian mini-states, and see the separatist contagion spreading to the rest of the Middle East.
The Andes
Bolivia: Aymara dissidents charge repression
Leaders of the National Council of Marka and Ayllus of Qullasuyu (CONAMAQ) charged that their office in La Paz was attacked by followers of the ruling party.
North Africa
Mali: Tuareg youth stage mini-intifada
A visit by a delegation of cabinet ministers from Mali’s central government to Kidal, the northern town held by Tuareg rebels of the MNLA, sparked a mini-intifada.
Europe
Next: Free Catalonia?
Over one and a half million Catalans formed a human chain stretching 400 kilometers across the territory to press demands for independence—despite Madrid's intransigence.
Central America
Guatemala: mineral interests behind massacre?
Indigenous authorities in the Guatemalan pueblo of Nacahuil reject government claims that a massacre there was the work of drug gangs, pointing to violence against mining opponents.
Central America
Honduras grants title to Miskito territory
After 40 years of conflicts, protests and negotiations, the government of Honduras formally granted indigenous communities title to nearly all of the country’s remote Miskito Coast.
Europe
Sweden: Sámi protest British mining company
Swedish police have repeatedly broken up a protest occupation by Sámi indigenous people against iron mining in a crucial reindeer herding area above the Arctic Circle.