Word: regionals
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Moscow officials are blaming Islamic extremists for the Nov. 27 bombing of the Nevsky Express, which shuttles many dignitaries between St. Petersburg and the capital. Twenty-seven people were killed--including two heads of government agencies--and nearly 100 injured by militants suspected to be from the volatile Caucasus region, the location of republics like Ingushetia and Chechnya. A security analyst noted that agitating forces in the area "are not interested in local nationalism or separatism but see themselves as being at war with Russia...
...that she would not use the law in Mapuche cases. She and her government, however, insist they have no choice at this point. "We've decided to invoke the antiterror law to go after these groups of people who are set on perpetrating crimes, disorder and unrest in a region seeking peace and harmony," Chile's Deputy Interior Secretary, Patricio Rosend, said recently. (See why Chile's Atacama Desert has become a tourist destination...
...area he's referring to is the central Araucania region, where Chile's 700,000 Mapuches (4% of the country's 17 million people) were forced to settle after the military finally "pacified" them in 1881. Until then, the Mapuche had resisted efforts by the Inca empire, Spanish colonizers and the new Chilean republic to subjugate them. Many Mapuche leaders still argue the country should return their ancestral lands in regions like south central Chile; but they're also angry about vast tracts they say were illegally taken from them in Araucania, near the city of Temuco, for forestry operations...
...seeking asylum in Israel. Over the past two years, as routes to Europe through Libya and Morocco have closed off or become more difficult to traverse, thousands of migrants have headed to Israel. But the route, which usually takes them from the Horn of Africa through Egypt's Sinai region and then across the border, has its own dangers. In Europe, coast-guard patrols might try to turn back boats full of refugees and asylum seekers, or detain people only to send them home later. The luckiest ones may end up being accepted for asylum and then dispatched around Europe...
...Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told TIME that hot return had been approved by both the Israeli and Egyptian justice systems, with the knowledge of the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) in the region. "We know for a fact that most of these people are not asylum seekers. Some of them are, but most are illegal immigrants," he added. However, the UNHCR has condemned the procedure. On Nov. 26, in comments on an ongoing case before Israel's high court, UNHCR said that Egypt is not safe for asylum seekers. It mentions the regular imprisonment by Egypt...