The Andes
Colombia: cocaine mega-busts keep coming
Amid moves toward peace in Colombia, the goad of the war—the country's lucrative cocaine trade—clearly remains robust, as record-breaking hauls are reported.
Author: CounterVortex
Southern Cone
Mapuche militants burn machinery at hydro site
Members of Mapuche Ancestral Resistance burned two excavator machines being used to build a hydro-dam in southern Argentina, demanding restoration of traditional lands.
Inner Asia
ISIS hand seen Kazakhstan attacks
A team of gunmen killed three security officers and two civilians in an attack on an office of the National Security Committee in Kazakhstan’s commercial capital Almaty.
Africa
Cameroon: ‘horrific’ abuses in Boko Haram fight
More than 1,000 are being held in horrific conditions, facing disease, malnutrition and torture, as part of Cameroon's crackdown on Boko Haram, Amnesty International charges.
Europe
France extends state of emergency after Nice attack
President Francois Hollande announced that he will extend the state of emergency for another three months in light of the Nice attack—just hours after saying he would lift it.
Greater Middle East
Turkey: state blocks probes of Southeast killings
The Turkish government is blocking access for independent investigations into reports of mass abuses against civilians across southeast Turkey, Human Rights Watch says.
Greater Middle East
Egypt: hundreds disappeared and tortured
Egypt's National Security Agency is abducting, torturing and forcibly disappearing people in an effort to intimidate opponents and crush peaceful dissent, Amnesty International charges.
Iraq
Iraq: 560 more US troops for Mosul offensive
The US will send an additional 560 troops to Iraq to help secure a newly retaken air-base as a staging hub for the long-awaited offensive to retake Mosul from ISIS.
Africa
South Sudan: renewed war on independence day
On the fifth anniversary of its independence from Khartoum, South Sudan is again descending into civil war, with last year's tentative peace deal breaking down.
Central America
Another environmental activist slain in Honduras
An army deserter says US-backed death squads within the Honduran military are responsible for a wave of assassinations targeting indigenous and ecologist leaders.
Southern Cone
Paraguay: demand freedom for massacre survivors
Rights activists in Paraguay are demanding acquittal of 11 peasants facing charges related to the 2012 massacre at Curuguaty, which led to removal of the country's leftist president.
North America
Killer robot took out Dallas sniper: first in policing
As human rights groups call for restrictions on use of killer robots in actual warfare, we have seen the first lethal use of such a device in domestic policing.