Today is a quiet day

Unusually, today is a quiet day without major headlines. Just the continuation of armed conflict and civil unrest around the globe.

Colombian police disperse ‘indignant’ protesters with tear gas

Colombian police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters in Bogota, detaining over 70 people. In a culmination of the ‘Week of Indignation,’ over 30,000 Colombians marched in the nation’s main cities and condemned social inequality.

RT,

13 October, 2012

At least eight people were injured after police clashed with demonstrators in the nation's capital. One person was reportedly charged with assaulting a police officer.

Bogota saw almost 5,000 activists take to the streets, some sporting the masks of hacktivist group Anonymous. The protests ranged from students demanding lower tuition fees to political organizations calling for a peaceful dialogue between infamous guerrilla group FARC and the Colombian government.

The demonstrations were the final day of what was dubbed the 'Week of Indignation' by leftist political group Patriotic March.

Violence erupted when thousands of marchers neared the center of Bogota. Some protesters hurled stones at police, who retaliated with gas grenades and water cannons.

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Islamic hardliners in Mali increase threats as France pushes for intervention

Islamists in northern Mali threaten to “open the doors of hell” to French citizens in the area if France keeps pushing for military intervention. A quarter of a million refugees have fled Mali's north since Sharia law was implemented there in March.

RT,

13 October, 2012

The UN Security Council called Friday for an intervention plan to be drawn up within 45 days after passing a French resolution to revive attempts to end the crisis.

The renewed threat against French expatriates and hostages came ahead of a summit of Francophone nations in Congo, where French President Francois Hollande is expected to urge the formation of an African-led force to rout the Islamists.

Oumar Ould Hamaha, a spokesman for Islamists group MUJWA told Reuters, “If he continues to throw oil on the fire, we will send him pictures of dead French hostages in coming days.” This was an apparent reference to four French nationals seized in neighboring Niger in 2010. All but four have since been released.

“He will not be able to count the bodies of French expatriates across West Africa and elsewhere,” he continued.

MUJWA is one of the Islamist groups that have controlled the northern two-thirds of Mali since the country's military took power in a March coup.

The Saharan branch of al-Qaeda was quick to move into the increasingly lawless area, seizing control of the Tuareg-majority north after the coup, effectively seceding from the rest of Mali.

Hamaha added that ransom payments from France and other Western nations are his group's primary source of funding.

“The top country who finances the jihadis is France – I wonder what the international community would say if we took the French president hostage,” he boasted. 

 

Fundamentalist Islamic law has been implemented across northern Mali, with suspected thieves dismembered, single mothers persecuted and suspected criminals flogged.

Over the last six months, a quarter of a million people have fled Mali for refugee camps in neighboring countries.

 

A journalist in neighboring Senegal told Euronews that he is worried about the unrest spreading to nearby capitals. “Mali has Pakistani, Afghan and Algerian forces involved in the crisis, which is becoming international. The international community should intervene in the north in its own interest. The Islamists have imposed Sharia law, and that could seriously affect the African continent – and then the whole world.”

Journalist Gerald Horne told RT that “what is happening in Mali is a humanitarian crisis and a disaster” and “a direct outgrowth of the North Atlantic countries' intervention in Libya in 2011.”

“The North Atlantic nations turned the tables on Gaddaffi, aligned with his former antagonists and overthrew him – and now the inevitable has happened,” he continued.

South African miners clash with police

Police fire tear gas and rubber bullets on protesting miners who tried to march towards platinum mine near Rustenburg.

Al Jazeera,

13 October, 2012

Police in South Africa have fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesting miners hurling petrol bombs after a march on an Anglo American Platinum mine turned violent.

South African Police Service said in a statement that about 1,000 protesters gathered on Friday night in a shanty town near Rustenburg, 120km northwest of Johannesburg, and marched toward one of the shafts belonging to Amplats, as the company - the world's top producer of platinum - is known.

"Tear gas and rubber bullet rounds were used to disband the overzealous group," it said.

The crowd responded with petrol bombs, damaging one police vehicle, police said. There were no reports of injuries, while four people were arrested.

Striking leaders from Amplats and other mines met on Saturday to discuss strategy.

"All of the mines that you know are striking, their [strike] leaders are here," labour leader Evans Ramokga told Reuters news agency.

"Right now we are talking about the way forward ... We are not afraid of dismissals."