The California Department of Corrections reports that at least 6,600 prisoners in at least 11 of the state’s 33 prisons have joined the hunger strike initiated by some 400 inmates at the Pelican Bay facility on July 1.
An attack on a Sinai gas pipeline pumping Egyptian natural gas to Israel and Jordan interrupted supply for the fourth time this year. No group has claimed responsibility for of the attacks, but authorities suspect Sinai-based Bedouins.
Ahmed Wali Karzai—half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the de facto ruling warlord of Kandahar—was assassinated by a close associate at one of his five mansions by a senior commander of his own security detail.
Four years after an order from the Israeli Supreme Court, the IDF demolished a two-mile section of the West Bank wall near Bil’in village. The demolition came after the attorney for the villagers threatened a contempt of court motion.
As South Sudan formally declares independence, thousands of Ethiopian “peacekeepers” are headed for the contested border enclave of Abyei, and the indigenous Nuba people take up arms in the North’s Kordofan region.
The Kichwa people of Sarayaku, a remote community in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, have brought suit against the Quito government before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights over oil contracts on their traditional lands.
FARC guerillas attacked the central plaza of the indigenous Nasa village Toribio in Colombia’s Cuaca department, leaving two civilian residents dead and 73 injured. Indigenous authorities condemned the assault as a threat to their autonomy and survival.
Famed Argentine folksinger Facundo Cabral, an icon of Latin American protest music, was shot to death by unknown gunmen who ambushed his car on the way to the airport in Guatemala City.
The Honduras Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded that the removal from office of former President Manuel Zelaya was a coup—but also that Zelaya’s referendum on constitutional change was “a point of no return” in the crisis.
Israel’s Civil Administration on the West Bank declared 189 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian village of Karyut to be state land, so as to retroactively “legalize” a nearby settlement outpost.
In a resolution that passed 406-6, the US House of Representatives threatened to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority if it pursues recognition of statehood outside of negotiations with Israel.
In another contradictory message, the US House of Representatives voted down a measure to defund US military operations in Libya but approved an amendment barring aid to the Libyan rebels.
