Greater Middle East
Are you ready for World War 5?
The fearful synergy of regional sectarian war and Great Power rivalries holds the menace of the looming Syria intervention setting off a new global conflagration.
Tag: genocide
Iraq
Iraq: chemical attack survivors sue corporations
Survivors of the 1988 gas attack on Iraq's Kurdish city of Halabja announced that they will bring suit against companies that supplied chemical agents to Saddam Hussein.
Greater Middle East
Syria chemical attack: rush to judgement
Iran, Russia and conspiranoids left and right line up to call the Syria gas attack a "false flag" op—rushing to judgement before the facts are in, just like those who blame Assad.
South Asia
India: tribal people expel mining company
In a vote ordered by India's courts, the Dongria Kondh tribe overwhelmingly rejected plans by British mining giant Vedanta Resources for an open-pit bauxite mine on their lands.
The Andes
Colombia: multinationals on ‘trial’ for rights abuses
An "Ethical Trial against Plunder" was held in Bogotá to air testimony on the environmental and human rights practices of mining and oil interests in Colombia.
Greater Middle East
Syria: Nusra Front cleanses Kurds
Up to 20,000 refugees have crossed from Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan, fleeing fighting between Kurdish militias and Salafist factions led by the Nusra Front.
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.
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.
Africa
HRW protests Rwanda aid to Congo rebels
Human Rights Watch reports that the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo is still receiving assistance from Rwanda despite continued human rights abuses.
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.