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Greenpeace activists have boarded a boat carrying palm kernel animal feed from Indonesia, chaining themselves to the boat and its four cargo cranes off the coast of Tauranga. The boat, the East Ambition, is several kilometres off the Tauranga coast. The 12 activists are calling on Prime Minister John Key to stop imports of palm kernel, used for animal feed on New Zealand farms and sold by Fonterra's RD1.
Greenpeace activist Jo McVeagh said the palm kernel crop encourages rain forest destruction and adds to climate change.
She described Fonterra's involvement as "criminal".

NEW DELHI — Indian survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster on Thursday protested outside the offices of the US company blamed for the toxic leak ahead of the 25th anniversary of the notorious accident.
Around 200 protesters gathered in front of the Dow Chemical building in a suburb of New Delhi, shouting slogans and waving placards demanding the firm pay for years of contamination and health problems.
Thousands were killed instantly when gas leaked at a plant in Bhopal overnight on December 2-3, 1984 and tens of thousands have been killed since due to contamination, making it the world's worst industrial accident.

The following is a guest post from Ali S. Novruzov, an Azerbaijani who blogs over at "In Mutatione Fortitudo." He describes how the arrests and convictions of Azerbaijan's "donkey bloggers" have pushed the country's youth activists into finding creative ways to get their message out using new technologies.
Back on July 8, late at night, I received an alarming text message. Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, two prominent Azerbaijani bloggers and youth leaders had been assaulted that evening and were still at the police station.
To get the latest updates, I immediately logged in to Facebook. There, at first still in shock, a handful of Azerbaijani youth activists were just beginning to pass on the news and spread the word.

An official in Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's administration says the international community's reaction to the case of two bloggers given jail sentences last week is biased, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. Ali Hasanov, head of the Azerbaijani president's Social and Political Affairs Department, said Azerbaijani law "applies equally to everyone and there is no special treatment for intellectuals and those who are closer to the West, like the bloggers."
A Baku court on November 11 sentenced Adnan Hajizada and Emin Milli to two and 2 1/2 years in prison, respectively, on hooliganism charges for an altercation at a Baku restaurant on July 8.
International organizations such as the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have strongly condemned the case and said the charges against the bloggers are politically motivated.

Population experts are moving ahead with strategy and projects that go beyond treating men simply as perpetrators or, at best, uncaring and passive onlookers. Recently, more and more men are looked upon to become allies in combating violence against women.
"The current approach is that without men’s involvement, the problem cannot be solved," Karen Daduryan, a senior officer of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), told IPS as the U.N. body presented a study at a meeting in Istanbul Nov. 11-13 on women’s health in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. "Otherwise, the risk is that women returning home after assistance and shelter will be going back to violence by the same men. We need to try to change the attitude of men."

THE dissident playwright who led Czechoslovakia's Velvet Revolution has used its 20-year anniversary to warn his country that Russia is still a threat despite the demise of the Soviet Union.
Vaclav Havel, 73, who played a pivotal role in overcoming communist rule in 1989, said the Russian Government had mastered the art of manipulating its population while maintaining a facade of democracy.
''The era of dictatorships and totalitarian systems has not ended at all,'' he said. ''It requires [from us] alertness, carefulness, caution, study and a detached view.''
Mr Havel's warning came as Czechs took to the streets of Prague in their thousands. They retraced the path taken by a student demonstration in 1989 that was a turning point in the country's history.

Venezuela is one of the world's most corrupt countries and the worst in Latin America after being ranked 162nd. By contrast, Chile and Uruguay are considered role models, since both are ranked 25th, followed by Costa Rica (43rd) and Cuba (61st), according to the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), released by Transparency International on Tuesday.
New Zealand, Denmark and Singapore top the list of the most transparent countries in the world according to the report, which measures the perceived level of public-sector corruption in 180 countries and is based on 13 different expert and business surveys conducted by 10 independent organizations.

As I reported yesterday, I submitted seven questions to the American president, Barack Obama. He kindly took the time to respond; following are the answers I received from the White House.
President Obama's Responses to Yoani Sanchez's Questions
Thank you for this opportunity to exchange views with you and your readers in Cuba and around the world and congratulations on receiving the Maria Moore Cabot Prize award from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism for coverage of Latin America that furthers inter-American understanding. You richly deserve the award. I was disappointed you were denied the ability to travel to receive the award in person.
Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba. It is telling that the Internet has provided you and other courageous Cuban bloggers with an outlet to express yourself so freely, and I applaud your collective efforts to empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology. The government and people of the United States join all of you in looking forward to the day all Cubans can freely express themselves in public without fear and without reprisals.

Lilongwe — In Malawi, local government elections are as rare and endangered as the country's black rhinoceros.
In fact, it seems as if the local government elections are even more endangered than the wild animal - because at least the black rhinoceroses are slowly being re-introduced into Malawi. But for now, there seems to be little hope in sight for local government elections being re-introduced on a regular basis.
This comes after the country's Electoral Commission (EC) says it has not planned any activities in readiness for local government elections, because the government has not provided the resources.

The Cuban president, Raúl Castro, has crushed dissent and continued repression in the country since taking over from his brother Fidel, according to a Human Rights Watch report published today.
The government has extended use of an "Orwellian" law that allows the state to punish people before they commit a crime on suspicion they may do so, a tactic designed to cow actual and potential opponents, it said.
The report, New Castro, Same Cuba, paints a near-dystopian image of an island where those who step out of line risk being beaten and jailed in horrific conditions which verge on torture.
Since taking over from Fidel in July 2006 Raúl has kept up repression and kept scores of political prisoners locked up, it said. "Raúl Castro's government has used draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who have dared to exercise their fundamental freedoms," said the report.