The Amazon
Peru: oil spill threatens rainforest reserve
Indigenous leaders in Peru’s Amazon protested that a leak from Pluspetrol’s oil operations is causing contamination within the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve.
Tag: genocide
Africa
Darfur: ethnic war exploding again
Efforts by pastoralist militias to bar refugees from returning to their lands in Darfur have sparked yet a new wave of fighting and displacement—with 250,000 uprooted this year.
Iraq
Iraq: sectarian war escalating fast
Sectarian violence has killed at least 200 in Iraq since the start of Ramadan, and Hezbollah has launched an Iraqi wing to fight al-Qaeda’s networks in the country.
The Amazon
Brazil sends tanks to protect threatened tribe
Brazil’s military has launched a major ground operation against illegal logging around the remote Amazon lands of the Awá, said the be the “Earth’s most threatened tribe.”
South Asia
Bangladesh Islamist sentenced for war crimes
Street clashes erupted as Islamist leader Ghulam Azam was sentenced to 90 years by the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal for crimes against humanity in the 1971 war.
Europe
Srebrenica: 18 years later, quest for justice goes on
A jurist at The Hague warns that the acquittal of Bosnia war crimes defendants sets a precedent for the "military elite of prominent countries"—including the US and Israel.
The Andes
Colombia: indigenous to open dialogue with FARC
Indigenous leaders in Colombia exchanged letters with FARC commander "Timochenko" to discuss a face-to-face dialogue over guerilla aggression against native peoples.
Greater Middle East
Samantha Power signals Syria intervention?
Samantha Power’s appointment as UN ambassador may signal a determination on the part of the Obama administration that intervention in Syria is inevitable.
Greater Middle East
‘Sunni cleansing’ in Syria?
Turkey sees in the battle for Qusayr a strategy to create an Alawite mini-state within Syria, purged of Sunni Muslims, to which the ruling elite can withdraw for a last stand.
Africa
Genocide in Nigeria?
The military and investigators are at odds over what happened at the Nigerian village of Baga, where civilians were killed amid fighting between the army and Boko Haram.
The Andes
Peru: Lucanamarca massacre remembered
Peru's President Ollanta Humala oversaw a ceremony at Lucanamarca village, delivering a "symbolic" package of reparations for the massacre there in April 1983.
The Amazon
Brazil: Awá tribe’s desperate call to evict loggers
An Amazonian indigenous group said to be the Earth’s most threatened tribe has sent an urgent appeal to Brazil’s government to evict invaders from their forest homeland.