Latin America

Widely praised as an effective defense of Washington’s 10-day- old military intervention in Libya, President Barack Obama’s speech Monday evening appears to have left several key questions about his future intentions unanswered.

A new week, a new campaign for Ankara’s diplomacy. After a victorious arm-twisting on Saturday with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to divert the leadership of the aerial war against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from France to NATO, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned his attention to trouble closer to home, Syria.

When the trunks of the trees move with every step you take, you know you are in a swamp. This is what happens when you walk over the seemingly firm and vegetation-covered ground over what was once a pit used to dump oil sludge in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest.

To many Serbs, the action against Libya brought back the traumatic memories of bombing that left some 2,500 dead and profoundly devastated the country’s infrastructure.

The revolution contagion sweeping across the Arab countries has spread to Syria leading to rare protests challenging the grip of the ruling Baath Party on the country. The regime was quick to describe the turmoil as a foreign-inspired plot aimed at punishing the country for its support of groups opposed to U.S. and Israeli policies in the region.

The appointment of an ultra-conservative priest as apostolic administrator of the diocese of Sucumbíos, in northeastern Ecuador, triggered open rebellion among a large proportion of the area’s Catholics, with the support of civil society organizations and even of President Rafael Correa himself.

The organizers, a collection of youth groups, called themselves the 24 March movement, and planned to stay in the roundabout until their demands for political reform are met, despite some 60 being injured and several hospitalized on the first day as a result of attacks by pro-government supporters throwing rocks and pieces of concrete.

Fresh-faced Salwa El-Hosseiny had joined protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square when a plainclothes officer grabbed her and dragged her to army officers stationed in a nearby museum.

As Japan struggles to confront a nuclear disaster that could be the worst in history, it seems clear that any discussion about the safety of nuclear energy should address the independence of regulatory agencies.

Conflicting national and electoral interests as well as clashing military and political objectives and potential are jeopardizing the U.S.-Europe led military mission to implement the no-fly zone over Libyan territory, as stipulated by last Thursday’s U.N. Security Council resolution 1973.