Latin America

A federal judge has refused to recuse herself from the closely watched trial of jailed computer hacker Jeremy Hammond, an alleged member of the group “Anonymous” charged with hacking into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor and turning over some five million emails to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

A new campaign for indigenous rights and environmental justice is spreading across Canada. The “Idle No More” movement began as a series of protests against a controversial government budget bill but has since expanded into a nationwide movement for political transformation.

Over 160 thousand Palestinian civil servants are not likely to get their salaries this month because the ongoing financial crises of the Palestinian Authority, in the meantime, Israel continues its escalation of assaults against Palestinian civilians after the UN recognition of a non-member state in late November.

With ceremonies in various parts of Guatemala, Mayan peoples were witnesses to the arrival on Friday of the New Age with the dawn of a new sun. Meanwhile, indigenous organizations questioned the commercial use of the date.

Today is 12-21-12: Doomsday, the end of the world. That is, according to some interpretations of the Mayan calendar. Others say it’s the beginning of a new era. However, one doesn’t need to look at the Mayan calendar, the words of Nostradamus, the prophetic dreams of Daniel or the revelation made to John to see the world is in dire straits.

Rhonda Lee, an African-American TV meteorologist, was fired by Louisiana’s KTBS last month after responding to a viewer’s criticism of her short, natural hairstyle on Facebook. Lee had written: “I am the ‘black lady’ to which you are referring.