Somalia marked its 50th anniversary of independence from colonial rule with bullets on one end of the country and ballots on the other, as independent Somaliland held free elections.
A new US drone strike killed four in North Waziristan. According to a count by Iran’s Press TV, the US has launched 36 drone strikes in Pakistan since January, killing at least 390.
At least nine ethnic Hazara men were killed in a Taliban ambush and possibly beheaded. The Taliban carried out a campaign of genocide against the Hazaras during their years in power.
President Alan García refused to sign an historic new law to recognize Peru’s obligation to consult with indigenous peoples before proceeding with resource extraction projects that affect them.
Foreign Affairs Minister José Antonio García Belaunde dismissed findings of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that Peru is poised to overtake Colombia as the Andes’ top coca producer.
Barack Obama’s replacement of Gen. Stanley McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus as commander of US forces in Afghanistan appears to represent a strategic shift within the administration.
The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the section of the PATRIOT Act criminalizing speech on behalf of groups designated “terrorist organizations” does not violate the First Amendment.
Bolivia’s Minister of Autonomy, Carlos Romero, appealed to the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Oriente of Bolivia (CIDOB) to call off its cross-country march for territorial autonomy.
Upon his return from 11 months in political exile, Peruvian indigenous leader Alberto Pizango slammed oil company Perenco for denying the existence of uncontacted Amazon tribes.
Colombia’s president-elect Juan Manuel Santos says outgoing President Alvaro Uribe is to thank for his victory and promises to hit the FARC guerillas even harder than his predecessor.
Gunmen shot and killed Jesús Manuel Lara, mayor of the Mexican border town of Guadalupe and an outspoken opponent of the drug cartels’ reign of terror, as his wife and child watched.
Despite official Turkish tensions with Israel in the wake of the Gaza flotilla attack, the Turkish military is still using Israel-supplied drones against Kurdish rebels—both in Turkey and Iraq.
