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.
Bolivia formally notified the UN of its withdrawal from the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, in protest of the treaty’s provision that “coca leaf chewing must be abolished.”
Key state elections in Mexico returned the long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to power, in what commentators are calling a signal that the once-discredited party could regain the presidency next year.
Activists in Nairobi say police used tear-gas against several hundred protesters marching on the offices of Kenya’s president and prime minister to demand action over a growing hunger crisis in the East African nation.
Mauritanian security forces repelled a militant attack on an army base located in the southeastern town of Bassiknou near the border with Mali, days after a joint Mauritania-Mali military operation on a purported AQIM base in Mali.
A new report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon into the violence along the Israeli-Lebanon border on Nakba Day harshly criticizes the Israeli army for using unnecessary force in firing on protesters.
As participants in the Gaza flotilla return to the US, their ships impounded by the Greek coast guard, Israel and the blockade-busters are waging a propaganda war to spin the affair before world opinion.
