Algerian military forces attacked the Amenas gas complex in the interior Sahara, where a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took dozens of hostages.
With French troops fighting on the ground in Mali, jihadist militias advance on the capital, while Tuareg rebels pledge to re-establish a separatist state in the north.
More than 100 protesters stormed the lobby of TransCanada's Keystone office in Houston as a new tree-sit was established at the Texas town of Diboll to block pipeline construction.
Leftists are ironically rallying around Chuck Hagel as Obama's apparent pick for Secretary of Defense—a conservative Republican who is wary of the neocons but close to Big Oil.
The US National Intelligence Council issued a report, "Global Trends 2030: Potential Worlds," that emphasizes the rise of China and the risk of catastrophic climate change.
Security forces mixed it up with protesters both in Sudan, hit by a wave of student unrest, and in South Sudan’s West Bahr el-Ghazal state, where 10 were killed by army troops.
Anti-China protests in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City follow a maritime confrontation between Vietnamese naval forces and a Chinese fishing fleet in the contested South China Sea.
At the small town of Albion, hundreds of angry Nebraskans packed the state’s only environmental review hearing for the pending Keystone XL Pipeline.
Indigenous protesters blocked Quito’s Marriott Hotel, where a major sale of Amazon oil blocs was underway. Riot police and military troops were brought in to clear the blockade.
Colombia sends warships into waters newly awarded to Nicaragua by the World Court, as Managua aggressively plugs an inter-oceanic canal plan to foreign investors.
Colombia's Juan Manuel Santos stated that war with Nicaragua is a "last resort"—while withdrawing official recognition from the World Court over the martime dispute.
