Workers at the Cerro Verde copper mine in Peru’s Arequipa region began a 48-hour strike, demanding higher pay and threatening to launch an indefinite strike in one week if an agreement isn’t reached with multinational Freeport-McMoRan.
Standard & Poor’s raised its outlook on Bolivia, citing new investment in the mining sector—as unprecedented forest fires ravage the country’s Amazon basin, and violence is feared as peasant colonists bar the progress of an indigenous march on La Paz.
Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) claimed responsibility for the terror blast at the court building in Delhi. HUJI leader Ilyas Kashmiri, allegedly killed in a drone strike earlier this year, was protected by Pakistani intelligence, according to court testimony.
Pakistan announced the arrest of top al-Qaeda leader Younis al-Mauritani along with two other operatives. The arrests, in the city of Quetta, were hailed as the fruit of cooperation between Pakistan’s ISI and the CIA—despite recent friction over drone strikes.
Tuareg fighters are said to be accompanying a convoy of Qaddafi-loyalist forces that has crossed from Libya into Niger, raising speculation that the Tuareg leaders may have brokered a deal for Qaddafi’s exile in Burkina Faso.
Cars and buses were taken off the streets of Bolivia as the country held its first “National Day of the Pedestrian.” All motor vehicles were banned for the day in cities across the country, as the streets were given over to youth festivals and sporting events.
Two Shipibo indigenous communites in the Peruvian Amazon have broken off negotiations with Maple Gas Corporation over the health and environmental impacts of six oil spills on their territory over the past three years.
The International Federation of Human Rights released a report condemning Colombia’s human rights record since the Sept. 11 attacks, accusing the government of carrying out widespread abuses under the banner of combating terrorism.
Residents of Kington’s poor district of Tivoli Gardens reacted with shock and disbelief to the news that extradited kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke arranged a plea bargain at US District Court in Manhattan—after the manhunt for him cost scores of lives.
The de facto authorities in Tripoli should stop the arbitrary arrests of African migrant workers assumed to be mercenaries, Human Rights Watch said, calling for the NTC to “release those detained as mercenaries solely due to their dark skin color.”
The indigenous Telengit people in Russia’s Altai Republic are turning to the international community to help stop a new gas pipeline to China that would cut through their sacred lands and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hundreds of activists from throughout South Korea have gathered in force on Jeju Island to hold a “peace event” aimed at halting construction of a naval base slated to be used by US forces—in defiance of a court injunctions against protests.
