Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, on a visit to Beijing, signed an agreement with the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) to conduct lithium exploration in the Andean country’s Coipasa salt flats.
Bolivian authorities are hoping the arrest of Robin Rosales Agreda, “big fish” in the country’s cocaine trade, will be a final blow against the criminal machine that controls land and politics in eastern Santa Cruz department.
World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg, exiled from New York's WBAI-FM for his political dissent, has launched the first Internet edition of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade.
Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya, AKA “El Compayito,” a drug lord arrested by Mexican police in connection with 900 murders, is a deserted navy corporal who trained with Guatemala’s feared Kaibiles.
Brazil’s indigenous agency FUNAI has launched an emergency investigation after a guard post at a reserve for isolated indigenous peoples in the rainforest of Acre state was overrun by heavily armed men thought to be drug traffickers.
The Tripoli regime accused NATO of killing 85 of civilians, including children, in an air attack on a village in western Libya. NATO responds that the regime was using farm buildings for military purposes, and said the casualties were likely “mercenaries.”
Lebanese singer Zeid Hamdan of the band Zeid and the Wings was briefly jailed on charges of defaming President Michel Suleiman in his single “General Suleiman.” He was released following a Facebook campaign.
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos says he will meet with Hugo Chávez to discuss accusations from his armed forces chief Adm. Edgar Cely that Venezuela is continuing to harbor FARC guerillas, even after the Andean neighbors had rebooted relations.
A woman and seven young children were killed in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province when a NATO patrol called in an airstrike against insurgents firing on them from a mud compound, local officials said.
Moisés Montero Álvarez AKA “El Coreano,” alleged leader of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), was captured by Mexican federal police and charged in the massacre of 20 abducted vacationers from Michoacán who were mistaken for members of a rival cartel.
Israeli security forces restricted access to al-Aqsa mosque, fired tear gas at anti-wall protesters in the West Bank village of Bil’in, and launched air-strikes on Gaza on the first Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Organizations that monitor attacks on the media are demanding a UN investigation of a NATO air-strike on Tripoli’s TV station. The Tripoli regime meanwhile denies rebel claims that Qaddafi’s youngest son Khamis was killed in an air-strike.
