Photo gallery: Hundreds hurt as migrants confront Macedonia border police – Macedonia forces retaliate with ‘indiscriminate use of chemicals, plastic bullets, and stun grenades against vulnerable people’

By Costas Kantouris and Nick Dumitrache10 April 2016 IDOMENI, Greece (Associated Press) – Migrants waged running battles with Macedonian police Sunday after they were stopped from scaling the border fence with Greece near the border town of Idomeni, and aid agencies reported that hundreds of stranded travelers were injured. Macedonian police used tear gas, stun […]

Bloodshed in the Philippines: Climate change, conflict, and the politics of famine

By Francisco Lara Jr.10 April 2016 (Philippine Daily Inquirer) – People prayed for rain these past few months in North Cotabato. Drought plagues the province like no other in Mindanao, laying waste to tens of thousands of hectares of rice farms planted in time for the March harvest season. The harvest would have brought food […]

Mosul dam in Iraq: Residents living downstream in Wana fear annihilation

By F. Brinley Bruton 9 April 2016 WANA, Iraq – The possibility of annihilation hangs over Saddeq Hassan and his neighbors. Their town of Wana is just 7 miles downriver from the troubled Mosul dam, which U.S. officials warn is in danger of failing — which could kill between 500,000 and 1.47 million people. A […]

UN refugee agency warns of spike in asylum-seekers fleeing violence in Central America

5 April 2016 (UN) – The number of people fleeing violence in Central America has surged to levels not seen since the region was wracked by armed conflicts in the 1980s, the UN refugee agency warned today, urging action to ensure that unaccompanied children and others receive the protection which they are entitled to. Last […]

Greece begins refugee deportations under EU plan

ATHENS, Greece, 4 April 2016 (Associated Press) – Under heavy security, authorities on the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios deported 202 migrants and refugees on boats bound for Turkey — the first to be sent back as part of a controversial European Union plan to limit the amount of migration to Europe. The operation […]

Shifting path of refugees through Russia stokes Europe’s fears

By Andrew Higgins2 April 2016 KANDALAKSHA, Russia (The New York Times) – So many decrepit Soviet-era cars carried migrants into Europe from this frozen Russian town in recent months that border officials in Finland, who confiscate the rust-bucket vehicles as soon as they cross the frontier, watched in dismay as their parking lot turned into […]

Refugees protest on Greek island of Chios against deportations – ‘A historic blow to human rights’

3 April 2016 (FRANCE24) – Migrants waving signs that read “We want freedom” protested on the Greek island of Chios on Sunday, a day before a controversial EU deal that will see hundreds of people deported back to Turkey was due to come into effect. An estimated 750 people will be sent back to Turkey […]

Video: Philippines rice shortage sparks food riots – ‘It has not rained for almost four months’

  By David Campanale2 April 2016 One of the strongest El Niño weather events ever recorded has caused heatwaves, water shortages and forest fires around the world. Now deaths linked to protests over food shortages have been reported in Cotabato province in the southern Philippines, where thousands of drought-hit farmers have clashed with police over […]

Colombia: Ethnocide and political violence on the rise – More than 60 percent of all indigenous peoples in Colombia are at risk of extinction

By Dan Kovalik28 March 2016 (Libya 360) – While Colombia, the U.S.’s staunchest ally in the Hemisphere, is held out as some beacon of democracy in Latin America, the facts on the ground tell a very different story. Of course, you will rarely hear those facts, or about Colombia at all, given the general laziness […]

Costa Rica men convicted for killing conservationist and raping volunteers

[See Desdemona’s coverage of this story: Jairo.] 29 March 2016 (AFP) – A Costa Rican court has sentenced four men to decades in prison for the 2013 murder of an environmentalist and the rape of four western female volunteers who were with him. The judgment capped a nine-week retrial of seven men accused of killing […]

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