Latin America

Al-Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’, is the term describing the mass deportation of a million Palestinians from their cities and villages in 1948, including massacres of civilians, and the razing to the ground of hundreds of Palestinian villages, to establish the State of Israel.

In the West Bank, dissident voices questioning the Palestinian Authority’s increasingly authoritarian rule have become rare. But a young musician in Ramallah refuses to hold his tongue.

As the battle for Libya rages on – with the country’s economic heartland, Misurata, being the scene of some of the uprising’s fiercest fighting – experts are warning that a ‘Balkanization’ of Libya is possible if the U.S. and NATO opt to exploit loopholes in U.N. Resolution 1973 by arming the opposition.

Though the Arab Spring has heralded newfound hope and optimism across the Middle East, the mood has darkened considerably as entrenched governments have fought back viciously against democratic opposition.

The governments of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are drafting laws to curb acquisition by foreigners of extensive tracts of their fertile agricultural land.

Brazilian and international environmental organizations and peasant farmer movements are taking aim at the forestry industry once again, this time accusing transnational corporation Stora Enso of illegally profiting from the production of wood pulp in the state of Bahia.

“I want to request the resignation of the Secretary (Minister) of Public Security. We want a message today from the president, showing that he did hear us,” said poet Javier Sicilia before a crowded square overflowing with demonstrators who participated in a four-day-long March for Peace with Justice and Dignity in Mexico.

In China, where a growing demand for organ transplants coupled with a dramatic shortage of donors has fuelled a rampant black market trade, selling your organs for cash is a mouse click away.

“If I had only known that when I was young,” or “if they had only told me” are just some of the statements made by many women who seek assistance at the centre for victims of gender violence set up by the local government in a town on the outskirts of the Argentine capital.