Some 5,000 members of Panama’s Ngöbe-Buglé indigenous group held a national protest day against changes to the Mining Code that they said would encourage open-pit mining by foreign companies.
Notorious narco-lord "Chapo" Guzmán was convicted by a federal jury in New York and faces life in prison. But violence in Mexico has only escalated since his capture. Few media accounts have noted how Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel rose as militarized narcotics enforcement escalated in Mexico—a trajectory mirrored by the cartels' move from dealing in cannabis to deadly white powders. (Photo: US Coast Guard via Cannabis Now)
An indigenous environmental activist was killed in Mexico's south-central state of Morelos, three days ahead of a planned referendum on an energy development project that he opposed. Samir Flores Soberanes was a leader of the local Peoples in Defense of Land and Water Front and community radio station Amilzinko. He was slain by unknown gunmen in an attack at his home in the village of Amilcingo, Temoac municipality. He was a longtime figure in local opposition to the planned Huexca power plant and associated natural-gas pipeline, pushed by the government under the Morelos Integral Project. (Photo: Somos el Medio)
An appeals court in Turkey upheld the convictions of 14 employees of Cumhuriyet, a Turkish news outlet that has been critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an. The defendants—including journalists, a cartoonist, executives and accountants—were sentenced in April to prison terms between four and eight years on charges of "acting on behalf of a terrorist group without being members." The Third Criminal Chamber of the Istanbul Regional Court of Justice reviewed and upheld each of these sentences. In Turkey, sentences less than five years cannot be overturned once they are upheld by an appellate court, meaning that eight of the defendants must now serve out their terms. The remaining defendants with longer sentences plan to appeal to Turkey's Supreme Court. (Photo: WikiMedia via Jurist)
A 16-state coalition filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, requesting the court to issue a judicial determination that Trump's national emergency declaration over the southern border wall is unconstitutional. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced the lawsuit, stating: "Unlawful southern border entries are at their lowest point in 20 years, immigrants are less likely than native-born citizens to commit crimes, and illegal drugs are more likely to come through official ports of entry. There is no credible evidence to suggest that a border wall would decrease crime rates." (Photo via Jurist)
Kamal Abbas, leader of Egypt’s striking CTUWS trade union federation, issued a statement pledging solidarity with the struggles in Libya, Bahrain, Algeria and Wisconsin.
Suez Canal Authority workers went on strike, part of a spreading wave of labor unrest that kept most of Egypt’s economy shut down this week—despite warnings from the military regime.
Hundreds are believed dead in Libya, where security forces fired on protesters in Benghazi and other eastern cities. In Bahrain, protesters defied deadly repression to re-take Pearl Square.
A US military tribunal sentenced Sudanese Guantánamo Bay detainee Noor Uthman Mohammed to 14 years in prison following a plea agreement in which he admitted to aiding al-Qaeda.
A federal judge in Washington DC denied a petition for writ of habeas corpus of a Yemeni man, Mashour Abdullah Muqbel Alsabri, currently detained at Guantánamo Bay.
