· October, 2012

Stories about War & Conflict from October, 2012

Mexican Blogger Ruy Salgado Reappears, Ends Broadcast

  31 October 2012

Arjan Shahani writes about the case of Mexican blogger Ruy Salgado from el5antuario [es], who had gone missing in September of this year. On October 20, one of his former collaborators livestreamed [es] a 3-hour Skype call with Salgado, who confirmed that he was alive but also announced that he...

Syria Destruction in Photos

  31 October 2012

Syrian photographers are using social media to share images of destroyed neighborhoods and streets. Despite the limited media resources, what comes out shows the horrific reality that Syria is under destruction.

Madagascar: How Much Does a Political Crisis Cost?

  29 October 2012

Since 2009, an additional 4 millions people now earn less than $1.25/day, 500,000 more children have dropped out of school and 336,000 jobs were lost because of the prolonged political crisis. Blogger Razoky summarizes [fr] the latest economic report on Madagascar.

Riots Erupt Anew in Western Myanmar

  26 October 2012

As of October 24, 2012, the government reported that 12 persons were killed, 50 were injured and 1,948 houses were destroyed in the riot clashes between Rakhine residents and Rohingyas in Kyaut Phyu, Min Pyar, Myay Pone and Myaut Oo towns of Rakhine state in western Myanmar. This was disclosed by the...

Senegal: Casamance Region Hopes for Peace Through Deal in Rome

  25 October 2012

On October 13 and 14, preliminary talks took place in Rome between representatives of the Senegalese government and of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (Mfdc). Casamance is a region in the south west of Senegal, which has been the scene of violent conflict between government forces and those fighting for independence since the beginning of the 1980s.

Guatemala: Soldiers Arrested Over Totonicapán Killings

  23 October 2012

Blogger Nic Wirtz says that the arrest of eight soldiers after the clashes in Totonicapán -which left at least 8 indigenous protestors dead- is “the first test of Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina's mano dura (iron fist) approach to restoring law and order.”

Arab World: Obama and Romney are on the Same Page on Syria

  23 October 2012

Arab netizens had some harsh words to share after waiting to the wee hours of the early morning to tune in to the last US Presidential Debate 2012 between President Obama and Republican hopeful Mitt Romney before the November elections. On Twitter, netizens rammed the US policy on Syria, saying both Obama and Romney were two faces of the same coin.

Uganda: Getting Ready for the Second Coming of #Kony2012

  22 October 2012

“I didn’t pay much mind to the #Kony2012 kerfuffle when it first surfaced back in March. I couldn’t be bothered to watch the film and was a bit blasé about the re-emergence (as it seemed to me) of the Lord’s Resistance Army as a topic of wide international interest. But...

Guinea-Bissau: Six Killed in Attack to Military Base

  21 October 2012

An attack to a military base [pt] in Guinea-Bissau on the night of October 20, 2012, took the lives of at least six people. BBC journalist Zenaida Machado (@zenaidamz) informs on Twitter that the alleged mastermind of the attack is Captain N’Tchama, a member of the army elite unit who...

Libya: Bani Walid under violent siege

  19 October 2012

Almost one year after Muammar Gaddafi's death, his former stronghold and heart of the Warfalla tribe, the town of Bani Walid, seems about to fall under the attacks of the Lybian army. Some sources [it] define its two week bloody siege as a ‘small genocide’. The operation is lead by...

Radio Campaign to Protect Colombian Human Rights Defenders

  18 October 2012

Front Line Defenders has joined Colombian social movement ‘MOVICE‘ [es] (National Movement of Victims of State Crimes) in a campaign to develop a series of 6 radio Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to “encourage public opinion in Colombia to support greater protection for [human rights defenders].”

Syria: The Revolution Goes Multilingual

  16 October 2012

The revolution in Syria is not just taking place on the battleground, between Daraa's alleyways or Aleppo's Citadel. There is a bigger battle going on online. We interview the netizens behind La Revolution Syrienne en Français (The Syrian Revolution in French), a popular page among hundreds of pages on Facebook on the revolution, to know the motives behind creating such a page in French particularly and how they think they are contributing to the uprising in Syria - virtually.