Recently in Conflict Category
The Canadian mining corporation Minefinders has explored a rural area of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua for 14 years. But as it gets ready to begin mining gold and silver there, its plans are threatened by peasant farmers' protests.
As oil prices continue their dramatic rise, public interest in oil-producing countries is growing. Nigeria--the world's sixth largest oil producer--is of particular interest.
SHASHAMANE, Ethiopia (AP) -- Like so many other victims of Ethiopia's hunger crisis, Usheto Beriso weighs just half what he should. He is always cold and swaddled in a blanket. His limbs are stick-thin.
Tom Kington in Rome meets families evicted by the city's new right-wing mayor at their isolated camp and hears them demand 'a few rights'
Watchdog proposes a special tax as the foot-dragging by G8 nations undermines a decade of progress
The trial of the rebel leaders behind a devastating civil war is soon to come to a close. The child soldiers who knew them tell their stories
Climate change is fuelling conflicts around the world and helping to drive the number of people forced out of their homes to new highs, the head of the UN's refugee agency said yesterday. After a few years of improvement, thanks mainly to large-scale resettlement in Afghanistan, the numbers of civilians uprooted by conflict is again rising. During 2007 the total jumped to 37.4 million, an increase of more than 3 million, according to statistics published today.
PARIS, Jun 4 (IPS) - According to the French constitution, France has no minorities. French law makes it illegal to record citizens' ethnic origin or religion. But in the face of mounting discrimination, France recently introduced corrective institutions. However, the system is still in its infancy.
Dublin, Ireland - Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted Friday that the United States will never again use the weapons, a critical component of American air and artillery power.
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Not every neighborhood in this city is one of those Northwest destinations where passion for espresso, the environment and plenty of exercise define the cultural common ground. A few places are still described as frontiers, where pioneers move because prices are relatively reasonable, the location is convenient and, they say, they "want the diversity."
Comments from Abuzaid in Iraq, Bush, and the Pentagon, all express disgust over the abuse (I'd call it torture) of prisoners being held at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. We are told it is "under investigation." Actually, it has been "under investigation" since January. The US public is being led to believe that this is an isolated incident by some rogue US soldiers. The story emerging paints a very different picture.
Merriam Webster Dictionary fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of oppositionI watched Gore Vidal on DemocracyNow yesterday saying that we lost the republic when the US Supreme Court illegally intervened in the Presidential election of 2000. He said that we are living in a fascist state. The day before that, I heard a caller to the Randi Rhodes (Air America) program read a list of the characteristics of a fascist state from Veterans for Peace, and decided she was right, and went to look for myself.
The Global Peace Index (GPI) was launched in May 2007 and claims to be the first study of its kind ranking nations according to their peacefulness. Last year's report covered 121 countries. The latest increased it to 140. Australian entrepreneur Steve Killelea conceived the idea and won some dubious endorsements. Among them, the Dalai Lama.
The "vomiting virus" now sweeping across Britain may be spreading. At the same time, San Francisco is being hit with a new strain of the nasty bacterium known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)--this one responsible for "flesh-eating pneumonia."
It's like the old days of the women's movement in the U.S. and the informal consciousness-raising get-togethers that blew the collective mind of my generation.
In a sharp reversal of its longstanding accusations against Iran arming militants in Iraq , the US military has made an unprecedented albeit quiet confession: the weapons they had recently found in Iraq were not made in Iran at all.
The results of a painstaking examination of global agriculture are being formally presented Tuesday with the release of the final report for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
BOGOTÁ, Colombia -- Lucy Gómez still shudders when speaking of the murder of her brother, Leonidas, a union leader and bank employee who was beaten and stabbed to death here last month. His murder was part of a recent increase in killings of union members in Colombia, with 17 already this year.
One of the biggest questions about climate change is: What will it cost to fix? Figuring that out is a huge challenge.
In November 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS that U.S. saber-rattling toward Iraq had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." In 2003, Rumsfeld called the assertion that the United States had invaded Iraq to get at its oil "utter nonsense." ("We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's . . . resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does.") In 2005, speaking to American troops in Fallujah, Rumsfeld reiterated the point: "The United States, as you all know better than any, did not come to Iraq for oil." Strong denials for sure, but were they true?
Nearly 20,000 South Africans have been displaced by mining giant Anglo American in its search for platinum, a BBC File on 4 investigation has found.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 24 (IPS) - It is a question of "national sovereignty, not xenophobia," said the president of Brazil's land reform agency, INCRA, explaining the need to regulate foreign land ownership in Brazil.
· Malnourished millions at risk of cut in supplies
· 'Perfect storm' of rising prices and biofuel boom
Food rationing will shortly be imposed on millions in desperate need unless donor countries make good a $500m (£250m) shortfall, the United Nations agency that combats starvation warned yesterday.
Although the Bush administration calls it a vital weapon against terrorism, its domestic wiretapping effort could become a devastating tool for terrorists if hacked or penetrated from inside, according to a new article by a group of America's top computer security experts.The administration has said little about the program except to defend it against charges it amounts to illegal spying on U.S. citizens. When news of the program broke in 2006, then-White House spokesman Scott McClellan called the program a "limited" effort "targeted at al Qaeda communications coming into or going out of the United States."
LONDON - More than one million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by one of Britain's leading polling groups.
Many of today's conflicts around the world are being fuelled or exacerbated by water shortages and climate change is only making the situation worse, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today.
Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt of Chapter 5 in Maude Barlow's latest book, Blue Covenant. She is touring with her book across the country; see Food and Water Watch for her full schedule.
The three water crises - dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable
access to water and the corporate control of water - pose the greatest
threat of our time to the planet and to our survival. Together with
impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises
impose some life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively
change our behavior, we are heading toward a world of deepening
conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater -
between nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the
private interest, between rural and urban populations, and between the
competing needs of the natural world and industrialized humans.The Future of Water
[Introduction by Tom Engelhardt]
Here's the strange thing: If we are in a political "season of change" and "change" is now the word most used by presidential candidates, change isn't exactly valued when it comes to presidential runs themselves. Take, for example, the Democratic debate moderated by ABC News' Charlie Gibson a week ago. In that mere hour and a half of television, Gibson, his TV sidekicks like George Stephanopoulos, and the four candidates managed to use the "C" word some 48 times -- being "agents of" or "power voices for change," "making," "delivering," "producing," "advocating for," "fighting for," "believing deeply in," "loving," even "embody[ing] change." In the process, they just about ground change into the dust. But lurking in the background was another use of that word—as an accusation—and it went unnoticed.
Oil Wars: Transforming the American Military into a Global Oil-Protection Service. Michael Klare. Tom Dispatch. 4/29/2004.
In the first
Climate change may spark conflict between nations. John Reid. Independent. 2/28/2006.
John Reid warns climate change may spark conflict between nations - and says British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence
UNITED NATIONS - When Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi addressed the United Nations General Assembly last September, he rejected the argument that religion was responsible for disputes between nations.
'Broken promises to Indians' lamented as Jamestown events wind down'
They have donned their fringed buckskin, bone breastplates and finest headdresses made of turkey feather or porcupine hair. They have danced for the Queen of England. They have smiled for President George W. Bush.Abstract
The global movement of populations is going through an
increasingly tumultuous and conflicted period. While the processes of
globalization have in some ways made a smaller world, they have also increased
the awareness of global inequality. The push and pull factors of migration have
become complex and shifting as global economic streams shift, political
conflict increases, and competition over shrinking resources intensifies. These
changes raise the question of whether people are "immigrants" or
"refugees." As climate chaos expands, so does the number of "climate
refugees." This paper explores the economic, political and environmental
sources of contemporary migration patterns; the ways immigrants are perceived
and received, and poses suggestions for addressing the problems and
possibilities.
How richest fuel global warming - but poorest suffer most from it Independent
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent Published: 09 January 2007By the end of tomorrow the average Briton will have caused as much global warning as the typical Kenyan will over the whole of this year, according to a report.
The findings highlight the glaring imbalance between the rich countries that produce most of the pollution and the poor countries that suffer the consequences in the forms of drought, floods, starvation and disease.
The World Development Movement (WDM), a poverty campaign group, has drawn up a "climate calendar" showing the dates when the UK will have emitted as much CO2 gas as other countries will in a year.
Unsurprisingly, the poorest counties such as Chad, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo produce virtually no carbon emissions. Even populous countries such as India will be overtaken in its emissions by the UK in a month's time. In fact, 164 countries in the world have a smaller carbon foootprint than the UK, while just 20, mainly including the major oil producers as well as the US, have a larger one.
By the end of tomorrow the average Briton will have produced 0.26 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
War in Iraq Propelling A Massive Migration - washingtonpost.com
Correction to This ArticleA Feb. 4 article said that about roughly a third of Jordan's population of 5.9 million are Palestinian refugees. The proportion includes Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
Wave Creates Tension Across the Middle East
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, February 4, 2007; Page A01
AMMAN, Jordan -- Inside his cold, crumbling apartment, Saad Ali teeters on the fringes of life. Once a popular singer in his native Baghdad, he is now unemployed. To pay his $45 monthly rent, he borrows from friends. To bathe, he boils water on a tiny heater. He sleeps on a frayed mattress, under a tattered blanket.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Life on the Burma-Thai border
In the first of a series of articles from the Thai-Burma border, the BBC's Kate McGeown looks at the thousands of political and economic migrants who flee Burma for Thailand every year.
If you did not know that the town of Mae Sot was in Thailand, you would probably assume it was in Burma.
Burmese script is written on almost every shop front, most of the men walk round town wearing longyis (sarongs) and traditional Burmese teashops are on every corner.
The presence of so much that is quintessentially Burmese is unsurprising, given that Burmese nationals in this border town now outnumber Thais by more than two to one.
Wars of the world: how global warming puts 60 nations at risk - Independent Online Edition > Climate Change
As scientists deliver a detailed report on the impact of climate change this week, an 'IoS' investigation shows it will spark a major rise in conflicts
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
Published: 01 April 2007
Scores of countries face war for scarce land, food and water as global warming increases. This is the conclusion of the most devastating report yet on the effects of climate change that scientists and governments prepare to issue this week.
More than 60 nations, mainly in the Third World, will have existing tensions hugely exacerbated by the struggle for ever-scarcer resources. Others now at peace - including China, the United States and even parts of Europe - are expected to be plunged into conflict. Even those not directly affected will be threatened by a flood of hundreds of millions of "environmental refugees".
Whose Oil Is It, Anyway? - New York Times
San Francisco
TODAY more than three-quarters of the world's oil is owned and controlled by governments. It wasn't always this way.
Until about 35 years ago, the world's oil was largely in the hands of seven corporations based in the United States and Europe. Those seven have since merged into four: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. They are among the world's largest and most powerful financial empires. But ever since they lost their exclusive control of the oil to the governments, the companies have been trying to get it back.
Global Warming Could Spur 21st Century Conflicts - CommonDreams.org
Global Warming Could Spur 21st Century Conflicts
OSLO - Droughts, floods and
rising seas linked to global warming could spur conflicts in coming
decades, experts said on Monday, the eve of a first U.N. Security
Council debate on climate change.And the poor in tropical regions of
Africa and Asia are likely to suffer most, perhaps creating tensions
with rich nations in the temperate north which are likely to escape the
worst effects of warming widely blamed on use of fossil fuels. 
"Global warming increases the potential for conflict," said Janos Bogardi, head of the U.N. University's Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn.
"The most imminent effect is probably desertification and land degradation," he told Reuters. His group has projected that climate change might force hundreds of millions of people from their homes in the long term.
Bogardi said the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, where 200,000 people have died, was "probably the most prominent example" of a conflict partly caused by land degradation.
In the longer term, rising seas caused by melting icecaps and glaciers could swamp large tracts of countries such as Bangladesh, forcing millions to migrate and raising the chances of conflicts over shrinking land.
Could global warming cause war? | csmonitor.com
A new report warns that conflicts over water and food could intensify as the climate changes.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science MonitorFor years, the debate over global warming has focused on the three big "E's": environment, energy, and economic impact. This week it officially entered the realm of national security threats and avoiding wars as well.
Climate, Conflicts to Displace Billion
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"We believe that forced migration is now the most urgent threat facing poor people in the developing world," said John Davison, the lead author of the "Human Tide: the real migration crisis" report. "We estimate that over the years between now and 2050, a total of one billion people will be displaced from their homes." Scientists predict that average temperatures will rise by between 1.8 and 3.0 degrees Celsius this century because of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, causing floods and famines and putting million of lives at risk. "The impact of climate change is the great," said the report. |
UN warns of five million Iraqi refugees - Independent Online Edition > Middle East
Half of displaced people have no access to food aid
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 10 June 2007
Omar, a Sunni driver, lived in a pleasant house in a Shia neighbourhood of al-Jihad district in west Baghdad until he decided that it was too dangerous for his family to stay.
He moved with them to Damascus, but it was too expensive and he had no chance of getting a job.
He returned to his home in al-Jihad, but when he arrived his neighbours said that the Mahdi Army Shia militia had left a message for him. It said that if he ever re-occupied the house, they would kill him.
Thirstier World Likely to See More Violence - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum
By Stephen Leahy Inter Press Service
March 16, 2007
A strong link between droughts and violent civil conflicts in the developing world bodes ill for an increasingly thirsty world, say scientists, who warn that drought-related conflicts are expected to multiply with advancing climate change. "Severe, prolonged droughts are the strongest indicator of high-intensity conflicts," said Marc Levy of the Centre for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. These are internal conflicts, not between countries, and involving more than 1,000 battle deaths, Levy said at a press briefing in Washington last week. Such conflicts tend to occur about a year after a "severe deviation in rainfall patterns", he said. Levy and colleagues used decades of detailed precipitation records, geospatial conflict information and other data in a complex computer model that overlays all this onto a fine-scale map of the world. "Major deviations from normal rainfall patterns were the strongest predictor of conflicts," he said. "I was surprised at how strong the correlation is."
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
DAMASCUS, 25 March 2007 (IRIN) - Life for Ahlam al-Mulla, her husband and three children was meant to get easier after they fled their home outside Baghdad for the safety of Syria.
In July 2004, the 42-year-old Sunni was kidnapped on her way to work for the Iraqi Help Centre - a US-sponsored welfare organisation. The militia men who took her accused her of being an agent of the US occupation. They beat her for eight days, she said.
"My husband had to pay US $50,000 to get me released, otherwise I would have been killed," Ahlam told IRIN in her bare living room in Damascus. "I was absolutely terrified."