Archive - Jun 8, 2009

• Clashes in Peruvian Amazon leave 40 dead
• Court upholds crucial protections for low power FM
• Offensive in Somalia sends tens of thousands to dangerously overcrowded refugee camps
• New York senate considers a bill to legalize same sex marriage
• Brazilian workers face financial crisis - scrap collectors tell their story

• EU elections turn out paltry – center-left loses ground
• US Supreme Court – Don’t Ask Don’t Tell … Won’t Hear
• Kashmir still shut down, protests continue, police fire on demonstrators
• Elections in Lebanon peaceful, pro-western coalition prevails but Hezbollah holds ground
• Journalists in North Korea sentenced to 12 years hard labor – now negotiations begin
• Ethnic Karen flee fighting – thousands seek safety in Thailand

The world financial crisis has hit emerging economies seriously, among them Brazil.  Brazilian authorities are optimistic – predicting that their country will recover from the crisis before most of the world economic powers, and Brazil´s central bank only expects GDP to fall by 1% in 2009.  But times are still tough, for the average Brazilian worker.

A same sex marriage bill in New York has already passed the State Assembly with the support of Governor David Paterson.  But with Democrats holding only a slim majority in the State Senate, the question of marriage equality is coming down to a handful of key lawmakers, with LGBT activists mounting a major lobbying effort. FSRN’s Ari Paul reports.

A month-long offensive launched by hard line insurgents against Somalia's central government and its supporters has displaced an estimated 100,000 people.  And Clashes between militants and PRO-government forces killed at least 60 people in central Somalia on Friday.  Violence continued over the weekend as  journalist Mukhtar Mohammad was gunned down on Sunday in the capital of Mogadishu. Mohammad was a radio reporter and producer who directed the Shabelle Media network.

Camps for refugees and the internally displaced are struggling to meet the needs of the new arrivals.  The Dadaab camp in northern Kenya for example, was designed to house 90,000 refugees when it was built in 1991. But it´s now home to 275,000 people.  This makes the camp a “public health time bomb” according to Donna Canali, a San Francisco nurse who volunteers for Doctors Without Borders.  Cannali returned from a four month mission in northern Kenya last week and she spoke to FSRN.

Proponents of Low Power FM won a crucial court case in their battle to secure space on the dial for hyper-local radio stations. FSRN’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports.

Friday´s deadly clashes over territory and resources in the Peruvian Amazon have triggered international condemnation.  Peruvian police killed at least thirty indigenous people who were protesting new oil and gas projects that they say destroy ancestral lands.  The protesters say that a recent free trade deal between the US, and Peru, paved the way for these developments.  And they retaliated to the police attacks by killing twenty-two officers. Tanya Snyder reports from a human rights protest in Washington.