The most murderous place in Europe just got more dangerous
Shooting of business leader confirms new trend of high-profile Corsican killings
The assassination of a senior Corsican business leader has deepened fears that the most murderous place in Europe is spiralling into a new era of high-profile violence.
Jacques Nacer, 60, president of the southern Corsica chamber of commerce, was shot dead in his own shop on one of the busiest streets in the island's capital, Ajaccio. Mr Nacer, a popular secretary-general of the Athletic Club Ajaccio (ACA) football club, was the 17th person to be gunned down in Corsica this year.
There was a time when Corsican murders mostly involved relatively obscure members of the island's intertwined nationalist and criminal gangs. Mr Nacer's death confirms a disturbing new trend towards the assassination of leading figures in public life.
Israeli Offensive in GazaNetanyahu's Extremely Risky Gamble
By Ulrike Putz in Beirut
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is hoping the offensive in the Gaza Strip wins his Likud party more votes in January's election. But the move is extremely risky. Skirmishes could escalate into a full-blown war that might weaken Hamas but shift Palestinian support behind even more radical groups.
Just a few hours before the launch of the deadly offensive against military targets and Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in his favorite place: in front of live television cameras. On Wednesday evening, he addressed the Israeli people with direct, aggressive words. "Today, we relayed a clear message to the Hamas organization and other terrorist organizations," he said. "If there is a need, the military is prepared to expand the operation." Defense Minister Ehud Barak also addressed reporters, saying that Hamas' "consistent provocation in recent weeks … forced our hand into acting with both precision and decisiveness."
Mining: Golden age of conflict and crime
Illegal activities related to mining in the DRC have underscored the urgent need for a truly democratic government, writes Gregory Mthembu-Salter.
Not so long ago, artisanal mining for tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) commanded little attention from anyone beyond those immediately involved or affected by it.
But after many campaigns by non-governmental organisations, United Nations Group of Experts' reports, UN Security Council resolutions, TV documentaries, newspaper and magazine features and a United States law, it is more or less understood that the artisanal mining sector in the eastern DRC has for years funded conflict and stoked instability there.
Why Mumbai is so gripped by the status of right-wing Bal Thackeray
Mumbaikars closely followed news that one of their city's most controversial political leaders may be critically ill, resurfacing questions about succession.
By Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, Correspondent / November 15, 2012
Reports that controversial right-wing leader Bal Thackeray was critically ill put Mumbai on tense hold for much of Thursday while raising questions about the future of his party, the Shiv Sena, which controls the city government and is an important member of India’s opposition group, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Parts of Mumbai reportedly shut down Thursday in anticipation of trouble from Sainiks, as the members of his party are known, gathered in large numbers near the residence of the Thackerays. By evening, the 86-year-old’s condition was reported to be stable and a parade of the city’s powerful and famous was visiting the leader’s home amid tight security.
Thackeray's declining health is putting the spotlight on the fragile state of his party, which has been riddled by succession struggles for more than a decade and has seemed unable to move beyond its founder’s polarizing identity politics.
Trafficking: The ordeal of a Moscow 'shop slave'
Two weeks ago anti-people-trafficking activists found 11 people who were apparently being kept as slaves in a mini market in Moscow.
It was one of the worst examples yet to come to light of how badly migrant workers from places like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are sometimes treated in Russia.
One woman said she had been imprisoned in the shop for 10 years, and had even had one of her children taken away.
In the charity safe house in central Moscow where some of the rescued slaves were living, a six-year-old boy wearing headphones was singing along to a children's video on a desktop computer.
Leyla AsherovaRescued womanWhen she told me my daughter was dead, I felt completely numb”
An anthropologist's past steps out of the shadows
Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, one of Colombia's best-known anthropologists, was seen as something of an Indiana Jones. Now a darker element has been added to his persona.
By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times
BOGOTA, Colombia — The recent revelation of the secret Nazi past of one of Colombia's best-known anthropologists — and onetime visiting professor at UCLA — has shaken academic circles here to their core.
To many scholars, the late Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff was a charismatic Indiana Jones-like character, admired for his exploration of isolated Indian communities in the Andes, the jungles of the Panamanian isthmus and the northern Guajira Peninsula desert, places others had feared to tread.
The native Austrian, who immigrated to Colombia in 1939, was famed for his influential studies of indigenous communities and for his highly readable books on the unusual stone statues of Colombia's most important archaeological zone, San Agustin.
To many scholars, the late Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff was a charismatic Indiana Jones-like character, admired for his exploration of isolated Indian communities in the Andes, the jungles of the Panamanian isthmus and the northern Guajira Peninsula desert, places others had feared to tread.
The native Austrian, who immigrated to Colombia in 1939, was famed for his influential studies of indigenous communities and for his highly readable books on the unusual stone statues of Colombia's most important archaeological zone, San Agustin.
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