The Andes

Evo Morales chews coca at UN drug summit

Bolivian President Evo Morales ate a coca leaf at the UN summit on drug policy in Vienna to press his demand that the crop be removed from the list of internationally prohibited drugs.

Iraq

Iraq: shoe-throwing journalist gets three years

Iraq’s Central Criminal Court sentenced Muntadar al-Zaidi, the journalist accused of throwing his shoes at George W. Bush, to three years in prison for assaulting a foreign leader.

North America

Justice Department investigates Sheriff Arpaio

The Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona’s Maricopa County following months of complaints of discriminatory immigration enforcement.

Mexico

Mullen mulls Mexico intervention

President Obama was briefed by Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen about Mexico’s drug wars, calling for urgent military and intelligence aid in the war against the cartels.

Southern Cone

Brazil: rural women protest pulp plantation

Some 2,000 campesina women occupied a eucalyptus plantation outside Porto Alegre as the second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development convened in the city.

The Andes

Peru: mass grave uncovered

In the remote Peruvian village of Huanta, Ayacucho department, forensic workers are exhuming the remains of 49 buried in a mass grave and thought to be victims of an army massacre.

Europe

Greece: bomb blast at Citibank

A bomb exploded at a Citibank in Athens, gutting the ground floor of the building. Authorities suspect Revolutionary Struggle, a militant group that fired a grenade at the US embassy in 2007.