Archive - Apr 26, 2010

• Congress to take up key issues: financial reform, immigration, climate change
• Thai prime minister rejects compromise to end political crisis
• In Sudan, incumbent declared winner in first multiparty elections in 24 years
• Mexico City marks three years of legalized abortion; women outside still face risks
• Armenians push for recognition of genocide as Obama wavers

• Manila shantytown fire kills 1 and leaves 10,000 homeless
• Israeli settlements: frozen or thawing?
• Afghanistan: UN leaves Khandahar, civilians killed, possible gas attack at girls school
• 24 Years after Chernobyl more than 100,000 march against nuclear energy
• Wal-Mart must face class action discrimination suit

Congress is in session this week and could have a lot on the table. Over the weekend, a series of legislative priorities were addressed by Senate Leadership. They include financial reform, immigration and climate change. FSRN’s DC Editor, Leigh Ann Caldwell, is here to walk us through them.

Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has ruled out a compromise offer by anti-government protest leaders. The deal would have dissolved parliament and scheduled elections in 90 days. As Ron Corben reports from Bangkok tensions are continuing to mount amid signs of growing civil unrest by the protestors known as red shirts.

In Sudan President Omar al Bashir has been declared the winner of the first multi party elections in more than two decades. The country's election commission said Bashir received 68 percent of the vote, despite claims of fraud and a partial boycott from opposition parties. A former rebel leader, Salva Kiir, has been confirmed in power in the semi-autonomous Southern region. Meanwhile, according to the BBC, some 55 people were killed in clashes along the north-south border over the weekend in the worst violence since the voting.

To discuss the elections in Sudan, we're joined by Dr. Francis Njubi Nesbitt, associate professor in the department of Africana Studies at San Diego State University.

It's been three years since Mexico City legalized first trimester abortions. In an event to mark the anniversary, Mexico City's Public Health Minister said more than 39 thousand women have since accessed safe and legal abortions in the city's health clinics. But outside the Mexican capital, safe abortions have become harder to access – even in cases that are legal on paper – such as rape or when there is life-threatening risk to the woman. FSRN's Shannon Young has more from Mexico.

Thousands marked the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide over the weekend. Marches took place in cities across the world, including Los Angeles, Paris, Athens, London and Istanbul, Turkey.

More than one million people were killed and many others forcibly removed from the Ottoman Empire after a campaign launched by Turkey's Committee of Union and Progress also know as the Young Turks. In Ottawa, protesters gathered in front of the Turkish Embassy. Kevork Kazanjian is a Canadian-Armenian student.

"For 95 years we have been gathering every April to commemorate the genocide that began in 1915. We have been gathering not only to remember those who have been victimized but to also demand justice for all those who continue to be victimized today by the ongoing denial of this crime by the perpetrator."

Turkey refuses to call the events during World War I genocide, despite pressure from a growing number of countries that have officially recognized the events as genocide. President Obama said in a statement Saturday that it was "one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century," but stopped short of using the term genocide despite statements of support for genocide recognition during his campaign. Earlier this year a House committee narrowly passed a non-binding resolution that recognizes the 1915 genocide.