World Watch: Fickle Finger-pointing

* Cambodia: Nuon Chea, a deputy to the late despot Pol Pot, alleged that the Vietnamese and not the brutal Khmer Rouge regime committed “crimes against humanity” in Cambodia.

* Space: Researchers at NASA discovered Kepler-22b, a planet 600 light years away and a “possible Earth twin” that could support life.

* Ivory Coast: At his first appearance in front of the International Criminal Court, ex-President Laurent Gbagbo claimed that he would “challenge” the evidence against him.

* World: According to a new study published in the journal “Nature Climate Change” global carbon dioxide emissions spiked in 2010 and reached a record 9.1 billion tons.

Image Source – Flickr via Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. (“Nuon Chea during a Trial Chamber hearing on 31 Jan 2011.”) (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources – BBC News, National Geographic, CBC News, UPI

World Watch: The Long Arm of the Law

* Ivory Coast: Ex-president Laurent Gbagbo was arrested and flown to the Netherlands where he awaits trial in front of the International Criminal Court.

* Britain: Hundreds of thousands of public employees took to the streets to protest against government-backed austerity measures.

* Pakistan: The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff “publicly and categorically” rejected accusations that NATO purposely killed 24 Pakistani soldiers over the weekend.

* Palestine: Iceland became the first western European country to recognize Palestine as an independent state.

Image Source – Flickr via Alkan de Beaumont Chaglar (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- Reuters, USA TODAY, MSNBC, Herald Sun

World Watch: Gone Gbagbo gone

* Ivory Coast: Disgraced former president Laurent Gbagbo may face “judicial proceedings” after he was detained by French and opposition forces.

* Japan: No tsunami warning was issued after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck off the Japanese coast one month after a major tremor and tsunami killed an estimated 25,000 people.

* Belarus: President Alexander Lukashenko claimed that a deadly bombing in the Minsk metro on Monday might’ve been a “gift from abroad.”

* France: Two Muslim women were arrested for peacefully protesting France’s ban on wearing face veils in public.

Image – Str/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian (“Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo and his wife Simone after their arrest.”)
Online Sources- Busninessweek, USA TODAY, BBC News, The Guardian