Memorial Day observance
Photo: Honor Guard members line up for the Memorial Day Observance at the Memorial Amphitheater ahead of US President Barack Obama’s arrival at Arlington National Cemetery, May 28, 2012. (Charles Dharapak / AP, via msnbc.com)
Colombia: Officials suspect FARC unit hides in Venezuela
On Monday, a FARC unit killed 12 Colombian soldiers in the arid Guajira region, which lies on the border with Venezuela.
Colombia’s Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said Tuesday that the FARC’s 59th Front is hiding out in Venezuela following a deadly attack on a Colombian military base near the border between both countries.
On Monday, 12 Colombian soldiers died during a FARC attack against a military base near the city of Maicao, located in Colombia’s northern Guajira province.
Mexico: Tensions grow between students and PRI
On Saturday, students organized anti-Peña Nieto rallies throughout Mexico
By MANUEL RUEDA
Some 45,000 people marched against presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto, in Mexico City on Saturday, the third protest against the presidential candidate over the past ten days.
Dubbed the “Anti-EPN March” today’s protest was organized and attended mostly -though not exclusively- by students from Mexico City universities, who advertised the event on Twitter throughout the week.
(via peacecorps)
In Focus: Mexico’s Drug War: 50,000 Dead in 6 Years
Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now.
Top: A masked Mexican soldier patrols the streets of Veracruz, on October 10, 2011. Soldiers of the Army, Navy and members of Federal Police patrol the streets of the city as part of “Veracruz Safe Operation” after a rising tide of violence plaguing this tourist city.
Bottom: A forensic technician points his flashlight at the shoes of a man at a crime scene in Mazatlan, on February 13, 2012. The man was shot dead by gunmen while he was walking on the street, according to local media.
See more. [Images: AFP/Getty, Reuters]
![theatlantic:
The World’s Tallest LEGO Skyscraper, For Now
A 31.9 meter (105 feet) tall LEGO tower was constructed in South Korea over the weekend. The televised build, sponsored by LEGO Korea for the celebration of the toy company’s 80th birthday, was overseen by some 4,000 children who handled over 50,000 bricks over a 5-day period to erect the tower.
Read more at The Atlantic Cities. [Image: Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m42jvbyyYo1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
The World’s Tallest LEGO Skyscraper, For Now
A 31.9 meter (105 feet) tall LEGO tower was constructed in South Korea over the weekend. The televised build, sponsored by LEGO Korea for the celebration of the toy company’s 80th birthday, was overseen by some 4,000 children who handled over 50,000 bricks over a 5-day period to erect the tower.
Read more at The Atlantic Cities. [Image: Reuters]
Some of the best recent photojournalism of mothers…
(1) Sana’a, Yemen. In this year’s World Press Photo award winning photograph, a mother comforts her injured son after anti-government protests clashed with security. Credit: Samuel Aranda. Via.
(2) Yida refugee camp, South Sudan. A woman from the Nuba Mountains holds her child at the refugee camp registration center, having escaped the airstrikes from Sudan. Credit: Ohanesian/AFP/Getty. Via.
(3) Lahore, Pakistan. May Day protesters gather in the capital of Punjab province. Credit: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty. Via.
(4) A Pakistani girl held by her mother follow a man down an alley of a slum on the outskirts of Islamabad, the nation’s capital. Credit: Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press. Via.
Pack your crash helmet and may the best rocket win!
To the villagers of Yasothon firing ginormous rockets into the sky is apparently the best way to lure the rain gods, and things can get very noisy and rather hectic at Phaya Thaen Park when the Yasothon Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival takes place.
More on the Yasothon Bun Bang Fai Rocket Festival by Somewhere in the world today…
Picture: Rocket Untangling by simonparisphotography, on Flickr
All the single ladies dancing in the street
The single women of the town of San Roque, Valenzuela in the Philippines dance in a street procession lasting all day and all night.
Legend dictates that if a girl wishes to find a boyfriend or a husband she must join the street dance so her wish is granted by San Roque.
More on the Feast of San Roque by Somewhere in the world today…
Picture: Pabasa 2008, Magdalen 0031 by hrlmorales, on Flickr
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.
- News today: In Syria on Friday, the day after bombings killed 55, Assad’s government is calling for action on terrorism and the opposition is accusing the government of having ties with al-Qaeda forces.
- On Tuesday, the UN released numbers stating that more than 80 Libyan refugees have died so far this year in their attempts to reach Europe.
- Libya quietly passed a controversial amnesty law, offering a blanket pardon to any crimes committed by pro-revolution rebels.
- Egypt seized dozens of heavy weapons bound for the Sinai peninsula at the Libyan border on Thursday.
- Panetta has promised that no troops will be deployed to Yemen.
- The story of the double agent sent by Saudi Arabia to disrupt and foil an Al-Qaeda suicide bomber plot and his successful infiltration strategy.
- Turkey will not extradite fugitive Iraqi VP Tareq al-Hashemi.
- Joost Hiltermann had a longreads piece on sectarian conflict in Bahrain up on NY Books. In Manama, protesters blocked roads with burning tires, demanding the release of female activist prisoners, some of whom have been being held for a year.
- US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter is leaving his post after not even two years on the job.
- The Red Cross is suspending its work in Pakistan pending a review after a ICRC health program manager was abducted and later killed in Balochistan.
- Pakistan has successfully tested another short-range nuclear capable missile, the Hatf III Ghaznavi, and the second such in two weeks.
- A cabinet of Pakistani officials will meet next week to consider reopening the NATO supply routes.
- Monday, the Pentagon Inspector General released a report expressing concern over the Afghan National Army’s pharmaceutical distribution.
- An AP-GfK poll puts public support in the US for the Afghan war at a record low of 27 percent.
- The US is continuing to search for a Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by insurgents in Afghanistan in 2009.
- A rare bright news report out of A’stan: the UN is reporting that civilian deaths fell by 20 percent in the first four months of this year.
- Russia is claiming to have foiled a terrorist plot against the Sochi Winter Olympic games in 2014.
- In Honduras, days after the kidnapping and killing of journalist and gay rights activist Erick Martinez, another journalist named Alfredo Villatoro of HRN Radio was kidnapped on his way to work in the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
- The GOP members of the House Armed Services Committee voted to include a provision in the new FY2013 defense budget that would ban same-sex marriage on military bases. HASC’s draft also failed to include mention of sequestration cuts.
- Fearing Iranian nuclear capability, the GOP are pushing an East Coast missile defense shield.
- The prospect of war with Iran is dividing the Israeli defense community, with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak leading a hawkish charge and numerous former intel chiefs publicly opposing them.
- Reporting by Noah Schachtman and Spencer Ackerman for Wired reveals that the US military held a course (now cancelled) at the Joint Forces Staff College taught officers that “total war” need to be waged on global Islam. The professor’s presentation includes quotes like: “This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”
- On Wednesday, the FBI Chief said the recently thwarted bomb plot was a good reason to renew surveillance policies set to expire soon, extending the FBI’s abilities to spy on people abroad without a warrant.
- Here’s your new to-be Chief of Staff of the Air Force: General Mark Welsh.
- The Pentagon ceased cooperation with Marvel Studios on The Avengers because it did not treat military bureaucracy realistically (!).
- Sgt. Major Teresa King, the first female commandant of the Army’s elite drill sergeant school, has been fighting for her job amidst a mix of accusations that she set unfair standards. The Army has now said these accusations aren’t substantiated. King is asserting that her gender was a cause for mistreatment at the hands of her superiors, whom she says actively campaigned against her.
Photo: Dover Air Base, Delaware. An Army carry team transports the body of Master Sgt. Gregory L. Childs of Warren, Arkansas, killed in Afghanistan. Steve Ruark/AP.
In Focus: Afghanistan, April 2012
Top: Roosters duel during a cockfighting match in Kabul, on April 20. Cockfighting, known as “Murgh Janghi” in the Afghan Dari language, is a popular game among Afghans during the winter season, which was once banned by the Taliban rulers.
Center-left: A boy welds a broken wheelbarrow in the old city of Kabul on April 11.
Center-right: A Marine MRAP sits on a patrol base in Helmand province, run by 5th ANGLICO and Co. A, 31st Georgian Light Infantry Battalion. The Georgians’ mission is to provide security for the local area and a main supply route.
Bottom: An Afghan policeman carries a poppy flower in the barrel of his gun, in the Maiwand district of Kandahar province, on April 9.
See the rest. [Images: AFP/Getty, Reuters, US Army]
Photographer Toni Greaves got an inside look at the hopes and fears of Afghan women.
World Press Freedom Day Round-Up: “In 2012, 1 journalist is killed every 5 days.”
- Check out Global Voices’ Threatened Voices Project, which is a collaborative database that maps bloggers who have been threatened.
- The Committee to Protect Journalists has released a Journalist Security Guide that’s really comprehensive (H/T: Future Journalism Project)
- CPJ also has recent article on safer mobile use for journalists and a list of the 10 most censored countries.
- A WNYC interview with reporter Sebastian Junger about the organization he founded, Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues, after the death of his friend and colleague Tim Hetherington.
- UNESCO has used the Ushahidi platform to crowdsource a map of World Press Freedom celebrations.
- UNESCO is honoring Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev with its annual Guillermo Cano freedom prize.
- Human Rights Watch is calling for action against Azerbaijan’s “appalling record on freedom of expression.”
- Reporters Sans Frontières reminds us that one journalist is killed every five days (see photo above). This day can be a celebration of freedoms but it’s also a time to consider how much there is to condemn and fight against.
- Here’s RSF’s 2012 Press Freedom Index. And, I encourage you to read through basically everything RSF has posted about journalists under threat.
- The Journalists Freedoms Observatory is noting the deterioration of press freedom in Iraq.
- From Amnesty International: reports on journalists and bloggers under threat in Sudan, Iran and Cuba.
- The International Federation of Journalists has a recently released report on the state of press freedoms in South Asia.
- UNESCO released a report in late March titled “The Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity.”
- There is much cause to examine Pakistan’s press freedom problems. A report has apparently been released by the Pakistan Press Foundation, but I can’t yet find a copy. Be on the look out.
- Freedom House’s 2012 Freedom of the Press survey has an unfortunate stat: only 14.5% of the world’s population live in a country with a free press. There is good news, though. Egypt, Libya and Tunisia have all shown marked improvements with the overthrows of Mubarak, Gaddhafi and Ben Ali.
