Indigenous campaigners occupy Belo Monte Amazon dam

BBC Hundreds of campaigners have occupied the construction site of the Belo Monte dam project in the Brazilian Amazon.  They are demanding that work on the multi-billion dollar dam be stopped, arguing that it would displace thousands of indigenous people and damage the environment.  The protesters, many of them members of indigenous groups, said they [...]

Boycott of Dam Hearing Shows ‘Radical’ Foreign Policy Shift

By Fabiana Frayssinet RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 26, 2011 (IPS) – Activists opposed to the construction of the Belo Monte hydropower dam in the Amazon jungle say the Brazilian government’s decision to boycott an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights hearing represents a “radical” shift in the country’s foreign policy.

Congolese Catholic leaders visit US to lobby for ‘suffering’ people

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Two Congolese Catholic leaders visited Washington in late October to lobby U.S. government leaders on behalf of their people.   “We are living with the people … and we see how the people are suffering because of the presence of armed groups,” said Bishop Nicolas Djomo Lola of Tshumbe, president of the Congolese [...]

Allegations Link U.S. Companies to Brazilian Sex Tourism

New York Times By BARRY MEIER  The Justice Department has been conducting a criminal investigation of sports fishing expeditions in the Amazon that may have been used as covers for Americans to have sex with underage girls, according to newly filed court papers.  The investigation and two related actions — a parallel criminal inquiry in [...]

France to support Kenya’s incursion into Somalia

BBC France will give logistical support to Kenyan forces pursuing Islamist militants across the border in Somalia, a French military spokesman says.  Col Thierry Burkhard said French planes would transport military equipment to Kenyan soldiers near the Somali border.  Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has condemned Kenya’s incursion against the Islamist group, al-Shabab.  Col Burkhard [...]

Kibaki gambles on regional war with Al Shabaab

Africa Confidential After chasing kidnappers across the border, the Kenyan army is digging in for the longer term in Somalia  As the Kenyan army ventured deeper into Somalia, in its first cross-border campaign in 44 years, a regional grand strategy to deal with Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen is beginning to emerge. Kenya’s intervention [...]

Vatican document calls for global authority to regulate markets

By John Thavis Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Vatican document called for the gradual creation of a world political authority with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the “inequalities and distortions of capitalist development.”  The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed “selfishness, collective greed and the [...]

Grenade Attack Injures 14 in Downtown Nairobi

  By ZADOCK ANGIRA (zangira@ke.nationmedia.com) and AFP Posted  Monday, October 24  2011 at  08:16 Fourteen people were rushed to hospital after what police say is a grenade was lobbed into a bar in Nairobi around 1am on Monday.  Anti-terrorism police have sealed off the bar – Mwaura’s club – following the blast that comes soon [...]

Justice in the World 40 Years Later

No Hope for Free and Fair Elections

By Zukiswa Zimela JOHANNESBURG, Oct 21, 2011 (IPS) – With six weeks to go before the presidential and parliamentary elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, civil society organisations say the elections will not be fair, as many doubt the ability of the country’s electoral authorities to ensure transparency.  The DRC is set to go [...]