A quick look at today’s news from Truthout:
The Guardian and the Christian Science Monitor report Monday that South Africa’s top white supremacist leader, Eugene Terreblanche, was killed Saturday night.
Terreblanche’s right-wing Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) movement called the killing “a declaration of war against blacks by whites” and warned football teams and supporters to think twice about coming to “a land of murder.”
His killing has inflamed racial tensions in South Africa, which is scheduled to host the 2010 World Cup in June.
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The Christian Science Monitor reports a new string of bombings in Russia’s northern Caucus region. A suicide attack in Ingushetia killed two policemen followed by an explosion from a nearby parked car a few minutes later, from which there were no casualties.
The region has seen five terrorist attacks that have left nearly 60 people dead since the explosions in Moscow’s metro system a week ago.
Ingushetia is a predominantly Muslim province of Russia’s North Caucasus which neighbors war-torn Chechnya, and has been troubled in recent years by a violent Islamist insurgency.
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The Associated Press reports that the Discovery space shuttle launched Monday will set a record for the most women in space at the same time.
Three women are aboard the shuttle, headed for a rendezvous with the International Space Station, and one is waiting for them at the orbiting outpost.
This is one of the last missions for NASA’s shuttle program – the fleet will be retired in September. The shuttle is planned to arrive at the space station on Wednesday.
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The Guardian and AP report that Iran will hold a nuclear disarmament conference days after a U.S. summit on nuclear security.
The conference is part of Tehran’s effort to show it is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, as new sanctions loom.
“Iran, as a country supporting global disarmament, invites the world to disarm and prevent proliferation,” said Saeed Jalili, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. The conference will start in Tehran on 17 April.
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The New York Times reports that American-led military command admitted to killing three Afghan women during a night-time American Special Operations assault in February.
Officials initially denied involvement in the deaths, and attempted to cover them up, before the release of a new report that showed that the forces had dug bullets out of the bodies of the deceased women to hide the reason for their deaths.
A NATO official said Sunday that a team of Afghan-led investigators had found evidence of tampering at the scene of the crime. This included the removal of bullets from walls. Botched Special Operations attacks are a large proportion of the civilian deaths caused by NATO forces.
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McClatchy Newspapers reports the Environmental Protection Agency is considering using the Clean Water Act to control greenhouse gas emissions and serve as a second front until Congress passes climate change legislation.
Greenhouse gas emissions have turned the ocean acidic at a rate that has alarmed some scientists – since the start of the industrial age, acid levels in oceans have increased by 30 percent. The oceans currently absorb 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day.
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