“The vision preached by my father a half century ago was that his four little children would one day live on a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. However, sadly, the tears of Trayvon Martin's mother and father remind us that far too frequently the color of one's skin remains a license to profile, to arrest and to even murder with no regard for the content of one's character.”
Thousands of anti-riot officers have been deployed across Colombia as protest by farm and agricultural workers spread further. Some 200,000 farmers have blocked dozens of roads leaving the central province of Boyaca cut off. Our Latin America editor Vanessa Buschschluter reports.
The strike entered the sixth day on Saturday, sparking fears that the residence of the capital Bogotá could face shortages of basic goods. Hundreds of thousands of coffee and potato growers, dairy farmers and lorry drivers have been barricading major highways across the country. The protesters accused the government of President Juan Manuel Santos of failing to put in place concrete action to help the farming and agricultural sectors. The Interior Minister said that many of the demands were just but that violent protests would not bring about solutions.
World News from the BBC
Hundreds of people have taken to the streets of Goma in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo to protest against ongoing fighting between United Nations forces and M23 rebels. At least three people were killed when a residential neighborhood of the city was hit by shelling which the UN has blamed on the rebels. On Friday, UN troops launched an offensive against the M23.