This week in conflict…

This week in conflict…

World

• The world’s twenty richest nations will be footing an $83 million (USD) bill for three new man-made “floating islands” in Seoul for the upcoming G20. The November meetings will be assisted by apparently more than 400,000 police.

Africa

• Rwanda’s election process saw President Paul Kagame win again by a landslide amid a climate of repression. Opposition candidates were arrested and media silenced in advance of the elections. Kagame is said to have won 93% of the votes, and even as much as 100% of the votes in some districts. His team began celebrating the victory before the polls had even closed. Two days later Kigali was struck by a grenade attack that injured at least 20 people.
• The Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has warned the UN mission and aid missions in Darfur that they will face expulsion if they do not support his government authorities. On Wednesday, gunmen killed 23 people, including police officers in an ambush on a truck in the south. On Wednesday, an exchange of gunfire at a refugee camp in western Darfur was reported, though it was not clear who fired the shots.
• Government forces in Puntland, Somalia have made two military offensives against allies of the Shabab militant group killing at least 21. The UN warns that the long-running conflict in Somalia is spreading beyond its borders and becoming increasingly concerning.
• 2,000 illegal miners stormed a mining site in the DR Congo burning trucks and stealing copper from Tenke Fungurume mine. 32 have been arrested.
• The Central African Republic pleaded for the UN Security Council for help just as the mandate for the UN peacekeeping mission MINURCAT is coming to an end. Concerns of rebellion, banditry and inter-ethnic conflict still loom.
• The Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted at least 697 people, nearly one third of who are children, in central Africa in the last 18 months according to a human rights group investigation despite previous assurance from the government of the DRC that the LRA has been decreasing its violence. At least 255 of those abducted were killed, often by crushing their skulls with clubs. Up to 74,000 people have been forced to flee the situation in the CAR and Congo.

Asia

• North Korean soccer coach Kim Jong-hun has apparently been fired, ridiculed, expelled from the Worker’s Party, forced to work as a construction laborer and will possibly be executed after his team’s World Cup loss. The North Korean team is said to have faced reprimand and ridicule in front of a large audience of party officials upon their return. FIFA has decided to investigate these claims.
• North Korea fired 110 artillery rounds at waters near a disputed western sea border on Monday, escalating tensions between North and South Korea. South Korea has responded by saying that any North Korean shells found falling south of the border line would be considered an attack and responded to in kind. North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat from the Sea of Japan claiming that it had intruded into their exclusive economic zone. Maybe 13-year-old Jonathan Lee’s proposal to Kim Jong-Il of a “children’s peace forest” in the demilitarized zone can create some calm in the region.
• Thousands have been displaced in rebel infighting in the Philippines. In response, the army fired artillery rounds and rockets to separate warring rebel factions, in breach of the year long ceasefire.
• Two suicide bombers killed up to five Afghans in an attack on a residential area in Kabul on Tuesday. This comes only days after a report by the UN that the number of civilians killed or wounded has soared by 31% in the first six months of this year. A crowd of about 300 Afghani villagers yelled “Death to the United States” while blocking a main road in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday as a reprisal for what they call the murder of three innocent villagers by the US forces. On Thursday at least 20 insurgents were killed in Paktia, not far from the Pakistan border and on Friday, 3 international coalition service members were killed in the south Helmand province. A problem of nearly 500 former militants rejoining the insurgency after officials failed to deliver on their aid and amnesty promises has the Afghan government scrambling.
• At least 50 protesters have been injured in Bangladesh during clashes with police on Thursday. The protest was said to have been sparked by an ongoing electricity shortage.
• British and US troops will train with Kazakh forces in mock peacekeeping operations for the next 10 days in an attempt to strengthen links between the three counties on Central Asian soil.
• India announced the development of a new Agni-II intermediate-range nuclear missile in attempt to demonstrate that it is a credible nuclear threat against Pakistan and poised as a great power in the world. The Agni-II has a range of approximate 3,000 km.
• Four people were killed and 10 wounded on Friday in Kashmir as police again fired into thousands of demonstrators over the past two months during anti-India protests.
• Myanmar (Burma) has set its first general election in two decades for November 7 of this year. Western countries are calling the election a sham for the current leaders to increase their power.
• The Sri Lankan military court has convicted its former military chief, Sarath Foneska of meddling in politics while in uniform, resulting in a dishonourable discharge. These charges fall short of accountability for what the UN, the US and many rights groups have considered possible war crimes.

Middle East

• Israeli authorities have been charged with using “unnecessary force” to demolish homes of Bedouins in the southern Negev desert. Residents immediately began to rebuild all the structures as soon as police and construction crews left the village.
• Iran has begun digging mass graves in which to bury American troops in case of attack on the country. This show of force comes in response to America’s contingency plan to attack Iran in case of nuclear development. According to popular American magazine, “The Atlantic”, they have a 50% chance of being bombed by Israel over the next year. The US administration has also said that it is planning to sell as many as 209 of the latest Patriot interceptor missiles to Kuwait to bolster its defenses against Iran. The interceptors are valued at upwards of $900 million.
• The Gaza Strip’s only power station has been shut down due to a fuel dispute between Hama, the Palestinian Authority and Israel. It is the third time the plant has been shut down since January.
• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah showed evidence of Israel’s involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese PM Hariri in a two-hour long television appearance on Monday. Israel dismissed the allegations. According to Nasrallah, a UN court probing the assassination is planning to charge Hezbollah members with the killing, a move which could bring civil violence once again to Lebanon. Nasrallah criticized the investigation of being biased, saying it “does not look into the possibility that Israel is implicated”. The court has since asked Nasrallah for copies of his evidence.
• A series of deadly explosions have killed many in Iraq this week. At least four people were killed in Baghdad, at least 8 in Ramadi, 8 soldiers in Baquba, 11 people in Sadiya and at least 20 in Basra.

North America

• More than 1,000 Mexican journalists marched through the capital to protest the killing and disappearance of their colleagues in the escalating drug violence that is increasingly targeting reporters.
• The confessions of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen charged with terrorism, can be used as evidence at his trial even though they may have been obtained through torture. Khadr stands to be the first child soldier to be prosecuted for war crimes in modern history, as under international law, children captured in war are to be treated as victims and not perpetrators. His trial, which was to start this week, was delayed for the next 30 days after his lawyer collapsed from illness in the courtroom and had to be medevaced out of Guantanamo Bay.
• The US appeals court has upheld a ruling that blocks Massachusetts schools from using literature that denies the mass killing of Armenians in Turkey in 1915 was a genocide.

South America

• Colombia has sworn in a new president who has vowed that he is willing to hold talks with leaders of Farc, the country’s rebel group and reconstruct relations with Venezuela and Ecuador.
• A suspected car bomb exploded in Bogota injuring four people on Thursday.
• Suriname swore in its “new” president Desi Bouterse on Thursday. Bouterse, who was previously in power following a 1980 coup, ruled the country from 1980-7 and 1990-1. He was accused of violating fundamental human rights and the murders of 5 journalists during his time as dictator.
• Peru’s indigenous leader Alberto Pizango, who the government accuses of starting an Amazonian uprising that killed 33 people, is considering running for president next year.
• The families of 32 Mapuche prisoners have been on a month-long hunger strike in southern Chile over trial irregularities for the twenty self-declared political prisoners imprisoned over land conflicts.

Europe

• All of the major European countries are planning mass expulsions of Roma populations and demolitions of Roma settlements. Even though they are European citizens, the Roma are now threatened with expulsion, in breach of the EU basic right to free movement. Some rights group worry that such an action is tantamount to the criminalization of an entire ethnic group.
• Three Turkish soldiers were killed in an explosion in southeastern Turkey on Sunday. On Monday Turkish soldiers killed 5 Kurdish militants in a firefight after discovering guerrillas laying mines and on Tuesday another 2 people were killed after a pipeline was blown up by Kurdish militants.
• Russia has deployed an S-300 air defense missile system over the territory of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia complained of the strengthening military control over these territories that it insists are still an integral part of Georgian territory.
• North Caucasus rebel groups have begun to split ranks after the contradictory statements of resignation of leader Doku Umarov last week. Chechen field commanders have announced that they are rescinding their oath of loyalty.
• Four former Bosnian Serb army soldiers have been charged with genocide for crimes committed during the Srebrenica massacre in 1995. The four are said to have assisted in the deaths of at least 800 people.

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