International issues

For a couple of hundred dollars or less an arms dealer can illegally source a blank end user certificate with the required signatures and stamps – needed to transfer weapons across international borders – and “if no one checks its authenticity (often the case) he can ship his wares to the world’s hotspots with minimal risk, for maximum profit,” said the SAS in 2008.

Thousands of peoples from Haiti and other Caribbean countries have been risking their lives trying to escape by sea from difficult living situations in their homelands, the [UN](http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42470&Cr=haiti&Cr1=) warns.

The annual turnover of transnational organized criminal activities such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting, illegal arms trade and the smuggling of immigrants is estimated at around $870 billion, the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.

Athens – The Greek authorities are failing to tackle a rising wave of xenophobic violence that has left migrants afraid to walk the streets, says a [Human Rights Watch report](http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/10/greece-migrants-describe-fear-streets).

Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez, a reporter for the Christian radio station Stereo Naranja, was shot dead with two of his cousins on 8 July in Villanueva in the northern department of Cortés while on holiday visiting his family.

He was to have taken part in celebrations on 21 July marking the first anniversary of the station, located in Sonoguera in the department of Colón.

Armed attacks on [news media](http://en.rsf.org/mexico-grenade-attack-and-car-bomb-hit-29-03-2012,42207.html) are relatively common in northern Mexico, but the region saw three grenade attacks on newspaper buildings in a single day yesterday and in one case shots were also fired at the building’s facade.

Three weeks of UN talks aimed at hammering out a draft treaty to regulate the $70 billion a year global arms trade finally got under way on Tuesday, a day late because of a diplomatic tussle over Palestinian representation.

Unlike India, China has by and large steered clear of day-to-day politics in Nepal, focussing on trade and investment. Looking to expand its role after the 2008 Tibetan protests in Kathmandu got out of hand, Beijing has started a massive investment drive. building hydropower microgrids for free, investing $1.8 billion in a 750 MW hydro project (continued below)

Cairo, 20 June, 2012 – Hundreds of thousands of activists returned to Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Monday night to protest supplementary constitutional amendments issued by the ruling military council in recent days.

Reporters Without Borders condemns journalist Jamal Uddin’s murder in Sharsha, a subdistrict of the southwestern district of Jessore, on 15 June. A reporter for the Jessore-based Bengali-language newspaper Gramer Kagoj, he was stabbed and hacked to death by a group of men in a market.