Israeli warplanes opened fire on the southern Gaza Strip early March 12, striking two targets near the Egyptian border. There were no immediate reports of injury in the attack, which an Israeli military spokesman said targeted sites in Rafah and Khan Younis. De facto authorities in Gaza told the independent Ma'an News Agency that the strikes targeted a smuggling tunnel along the Rafah border and a warehouse used to store oxygen tanks in Khan Younis. The Israeli military spokesman told Ma'an that the Rafah tunnel was used for smuggling weapons and the Khan Younis warehouse was actually a bomb-making lab. The attacks came after a projectile was fired at southern Israel, causing damage, the official said, adding, "We will not accept the firing of rockets at Israel and will response harshly to any attempts to disrupt the calm." A similar strike targeted tunnels near Rafah on March 3. (Ma'an News Agency, March 12)

PORT-AU-PRINCE — More than 100 people were pressed against the iron gates of the mayor's office in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville. "When will we get that food?" voices called out to the mayor, Claire Lydia Parent, who stood behind the closed gates. The problem Parent faced was how to explain to the frustrated crowd that the food they just saw being delivered on Jan. 23 was intended for a neighboring community.

Indigenous leaders in Peru's Amazon region of Madre de Dios Sept. 13 issued a joint statement rejecting a Hunt Oil contract on their traditional territories. Antonio Iviche, president of the Native Federation of the Río Madre de Dios (FENAMAD), warned that if Hunt Oil doesn't quit the territory within a week, indigenous communities will physically expel them. The statement was released following a meeting with Hunt representatives at FENAMAD's offices in the regional capital, Puerto Maldonado. Hunt is currently opening trails in preparation seismic exploration within the local indigenous reserve, while FENAMAD has gone to court seeking an injunction to halt the work. The controversy comes as dialogue between Peru's national government and Amazon indigenous leaders continues in Lima in the wake of a rainforest uprising that left several dead in June.

Supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya clashed with soldiers and police in the capital Tegucigalpa in two days of unrest throughout the city Aug. 11 and 12. Security forces fired tear gas to disperse a crowd of thousands and protesters responded by throwing stones in a confrontation near the congress building on the 12th. Zelaya's wife attended another protest that day in the industrial city of San Pedro Sula, which was also broken up by police firing gas canisters. (Reuters, Honduras Resists, Aug. 12)

In a minga (popular mobilization) called in response to growing violence on their territories, some 10,000 indigenous residents of Colombia's Cauca department marched 140 kilometers between the towns of Santander de Quilichao and Corinto July 23-4. On July 19, Corinto was the scene of a clash between FARC guerillas and government forces in which three local residents were killed and 17 wounded. Jorge Arias of the Association of Indigenous Cabildos of North Cauca (ACIN) told the crowd in Corinto at the march's end: "We come here to honor the memory of our dead, and to say to the armed groups, legal and illegal, enough with all this violence!" (El Tiempo, Bogotá, July 24)

The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) has filed a legal case with the Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime against the coup plotters and perpetrators. The complaint demands "that the investigation of these crimes proceed immediately, that the people responsible for their commission be identified... that orders for imprisonment be issued, and [that] the national police and Interpol be instructed regarding their immediate detention." (Rights Action, July 14)

José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), gave a grim assessment July 2 of diplomatic efforts to restore the ousted president of Honduras, warning that it would be "very hard" to head off a more severe break with the nation and that he is prepared to call for sanctions. At a news conference in Panama, the ousted Manuel Zelaya insisted that he remains the legitimate president of Honduras, and called on his supporters to keep up their protests. "We may not have the institutions, but the street is ours," he said. "That's the people's place." He added that a "dictatorship has been established" in Honduras.

Iran's electoral authorities insisted June 26 the disputed presidential vote was the cleanest ever, as the G8 urged Tehran to halt repression—but without questioning the poll results. "After 10 days of examination, we did not see any major irregularities," Guardians Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai told the IRNA news agency. "We have had no fraud in any presidential election and this one was the cleanest election we have had. I can say with certainty that there was no fraud in this election."

The UK-based advocacy group Survival International has published an eyewitness account of the killings in the Peruvian Amazon that caused shockwaves around the world. The report contains dramatic photos by two Belgians, Marijke Deleu and Thomas Quirynen, who were caught up in the June 5 police attack on the roadblock in Bagua province and were themselves shot at.

As Iran's embattled President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Russia June 16, Iranian state radio reported that seven people were killed in clashes overnight, escalating tensions after days of unprecedented demonstrations that have forced a formal review of elections results. The reports said the deaths came after "thugs" attacked a military post. (NYT, BBC News, June 17) Our correspondent in Tehran says: "At the end of non-violent rally which is called illegal by officials (in spite of lots of attempts to get permission from competent authorities), Basij started to shoot at people from northwestern corner of Azadi square."

The local Good Government Junta (JBG) of the Zapatista rebels at Morelia, in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas, issued a statement April 23 charging that Gov. Juan Sabines Guerrero "is determined to be a humiliating repressor who does not respect human rights, following in the footsteps and example of past governors." The statement came in response to the arrest of six members of the Zapatista base community of San José en Rebeldía, Autonomous Municipality Comandanta Ramona, near the Cascadas de Agua Azul ecological reserve, where they ran an auto transport service for tourists and local residents. One, Miguel Vázquez Moreno, was held incommunicado for 80 hours before state police announced he had been arrested as a narco-trafficker. The JBG said two members of the community remain "disappeared."

The commander of a remnant faction of Peru's Shining Path guerilla movement pledged more attacks after their 11th deadly ambush this year. "We will fight militarily those who defend imperialism and the government, and they are the armed forces and the police," local guerilla leader "Comrade José"—identified as Victor Quispe Palomino—said in an audio statement sent to the media. His comments came five days after suspected guerillas killed 14 soldiers in two ambushes in Ayacucho region.

Much of the international aid to Afghanistan over the past seven years has been spent to achieve military and political objectives, and the current approach to aid lacks "clarity, coherence and resolve," a group of international NGOs said in a report to the heads of NATO-member states. The report warns of over-reliance on short-term military gains at the expense of longer-term peace and development.

Twenty years after a military regime killed hundreds of mostly black Mauritanians, another military government is promising to compensate their families. While some victims' associations welcome reparations, other affected families and many NGOs say compensation equals impunity for those who ordered the killings—and remain in power.

A hostage crisis involving three International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers may force agencies to stop bringing assistance to some areas of the Philippines, officials told the UN news agency IRIN. Stephen Anderson, the World Food Programme (WFP) country representative, said additional protection measures for his 60 local and foreign staff were paramount as the situation in Mindanao had become "dramatically more insecure".