Latin America

In the middle of the night, in an affluent suburb a little over 50 kilometers north of Islamabad, Pakistan, Osama bin Laden was gunned down in a compound shielded by barbed wire-topped walls up to five-and-a-half meters high. He resisted, United States officials say, fighting till the death as he had vowed he would.

In the aftermath of the anniversary of the worst nuclear disaster in history, Ukrainian authorities have pledged not to abandon those still in need of assistance. But many of the country’s policies may be increasing the risk of a new catastrophe.

Estados Unidos obtuvo el dictamen que buscaba contra Siria en el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU. Pero dejó en evidencia que se desentiende de abusos tanto o más graves que los endilgados a Damasco y que se han denunciado en países también árabes, como Bahrein y Yemen.

As darkness fell across it, Deraa was a city under siege. Tanks and troops control all roads in and out. Inside the city, shops are shuttered and nobody dare walk the once bustling market streets, today transformed into the kill zone of rooftop snipers.

The Brazilian government must “put its house in order” and take a firm stand on respect for human rights if it wants a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, said Amnesty International (AI) secretary-general Salil Shetty.

A process of “agrarian counter-reform” is taking place in Brazil, according to activist João Pedro Stédile, a leader of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST).

A small rally by prominent Israeli left-wing intellectuals in support of Palestinian statehood revived the dormant debate about the morality and sustainability of Israel’s 43-year occupation. Neither the choice of site nor timing was coincidental.

Behind the rusting zinc sheets covering the gates to his inner-city home, Norman Hamilton is one of the army of backyard gardeners who have been called to action in Jamaica’s latest efforts to improve food security.

The accident could have served as a wake-up call to the whole of humanity. Twenty-five years ago, on Apr. 26 1986, disaster struck at the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear complex in the Ukrainian state of the former Soviet Union.

While some observers here have blamed Saudi Arabia and its neighboring Sunni-led sheikhdoms as a major source of the icy winds that are blasting through the Gulf, the growing contradictions between the U.S. and Western “values” and their interests are adding to the unseasonable weather.