July 9, 2010

Israel – Thousands march in Jerusalem for captive soldier

Kenya – (reported from)  Kenya: Iraq, Afghan, Pakistan fighters in Somalia

Central Africa Republic – Ugandan rebels kill four in CAR: Red Cross

Sri Lanka – UN chief Ban Ki-moon recalls Sri Lanka envoy

Lebanon – Hezbollah denounces CNN’s decision to fire Mideast editor over tweet on Shiite cleric

Norway – Officials: 3 arrested in Norway Al Qaeda bomb plot linked to failed NY, England attacks

Israel

More than 15,000 Israelis marched into Jerusalem on Thursday and rallied at a park downtown for the government to conclude a deal for the release of a captive soldier held by Palestinian militants. The turnout marked the climax of a 12-day cross-country campaign led by the family of Sgt. Gilad Schalit. Protesters wearing T-shirts bearing Schalit’s image and yellow ribbons symbolizing his freedom chanted “Gilad is still alive!” Schalit, 23, was nabbed by Hamas-linked militants in June 2006 across the Gaza-Israel border. His captors have barred access to him and released only a brief videotape last year. The public campaign has increased pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike a deal. Netanyahu has said he is willing to trade 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Schalit, but said he would not accept Hamas’ demand to include senior militants. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organization, and Netanyahu fears prisoners would return to violence if freed.

news.yahoo.com

Kenya (reported from)

Veteran insurgents from Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have relocated to the chaotic country of Somalia in large enough numbers to spark worry inside the international community, Kenya’s foreign minister said Thursday. Calling the situation in Somalia “very, very dire,” Moses M. Wetangula said the militants have relocated to Kenya’s northern neighbor because of the safehaven offered by a country with no functioning government. “There have been Afghans, there have been Pakistanis, and there have been certain Middle Eastern nationalities, quite a number. Intelligence reports indicate that there’s quite a cocktail of them,” Wetangula told The Associated Press. “We can’t quite quantify them. It’s simply not possible in a situation such as that, but there are sufficient numbers to worry us and worry the international community,” he said. Somali government spokesman Abdulkadir Walayo did not immediately answer calls seeking comment. But officials in the past said hundreds of foreign fighters are ballooning the ranks of Somalia’s most feared militant group, al-Shabab.

news.yahoo.com

Somalia

Ugandan rebels killed four people and took six hostages in an attack on a village in Central African Republic, the Red Cross said Thursday. Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels attacked the village of Mandabazouma late Sunday afternoon with heavy fire from automatic weapons, causing panic among inhabitants,” a Red Cross official told AFP. “Four people were killed, seven injured and six kidnapped by rebels, who looted and burned houses,” said the official. The LRA has been active in southeast Central African Republic since it was chased out of Uganda in 2008, killing more than 200 people and leaving thousands displaced. The number of LRA attacks has increased since February this year, and on Monday Bangui called on Washington to help neutralize the group. In June, the Ugandan army began to track down LRA fighters in the region.

news.yahoo.com

Sri Lanka

Protesters had been disrupting the UN’s work at its offices in Colombo The UN secretary-general has recalled his envoy to Sri Lanka and is closing an office in Colombo because of “unruly protests” over a war crimes panel. Ban Ki-moon said it was “unacceptable” that Sri Lankan authorities had failed to prevent the disruption of the work of UN personnel in the country. The demonstrations are being led by the Housing Minister, Wimal Weerawansa. He has urged “progressive nations” to halt a UN probe over possible war crimes during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Mr Weerawansa, an ally of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said he had also begun a hunger strike in a bid to increase pressure on the UN. “I am starting a fast till death. Only when the accusations of war crimes are withdrawn and the panel abolished, will I stop this.”

news.bbc.co.uk

Lebanon

The Lebanese militant Hezbollah has denounced CNN’s decision to fire a Middle East editor for posting a note on Twitter expressing admiration for the country’s late top Shiite cleric. Octavia Nasr later apologized for her tweet in which she described Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah as “one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” But CNN officials said her credibility had been compromised. Hezbollah’s spokesman Ibrahim Moussawi says CNN’s decision amounts to “intellectual terrorism” and reflects the West’s “double standards” in dealing with the Mideast. He said in a statement issued on Friday that the decision to fire Nasr — a Lebanese who worked for CNN for two decades — exposes America’s false claims regarding freedom of expression.

foxnews.com

Norway

Three suspected Al Qaeda members were arrested Thursday morning in what Norwegian and U.S. officials said was a terrorist plot linked to similar plans in New York and England.

The three men, whose names were not released, had been under surveillance for more than a year. Two of the men were arrested in Norway and one in Germany, according to Janne Kristiansen, head of Norway’s Police Security Service. She declined to give further details of the locations. Kristiansen said one of the men was a 39-year-old Norwegian of Uighur origin, who had lived in Norway since 1999. Th

e other suspects included a 37-year-old Iraqi and a 31-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan, both of whom have permanent residency permits in Norway. Officials believe they were planning attacks with portable but powerful bombs like the ones at the heart of last year’s thwarted suicide attack in the New York City subway.

foxnews.com

July 8, 2010

United Kingdom – Former top anti-terror cop: London should fear more terror attacks

India – Kashmir streets under army lockdown to end protest

Nigeria – Ex-Niger Delta militants protest in Nigeria

Somalia – Somalia’s Shebab vow to step up jihad against AU

Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe police play down terror suspicions

United Kingdom

On the fifth anniversary of the devastating London bombings, Britain’s most senior anti-terror policeman at the time has said that the risk of a repeat attack by extremists is “as high as it has ever been.” The British capital was plunged into chaos on July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers targeted three subway trains and a bus during the morning rush hour, killing 52 people and wounding hundreds more. Two weeks later a copycat attack on the city’s transport network failed after the bombs misfired causing no casualties. The failed suicide attackers were eventually captured and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Survivors and relatives of those killed in the attacks gathered at a memorial in London’s Hyde Park on Wednesday to mark the anniversary. A wreath from Prime Minister David Cameron was laid at the site, bearing the message: “In memory of the victims of terrorism in London on 7 July 2005. They will never be forgotten.” But former policeman Andy Hayman, who was responsible for counter-terrorism in the UK until 2007, says the risk of a similar attack in London remains high.

cnn.com

India

Indian-controlled Kashmir was under lockdown Thursday as tens of thousands of soldiers patrolled the streets to enforce a rigid curfew aimed at ending weeks of violent anti-government protests. Shops and schools were closed, streets ringed with barbed wire and roadblocks were deserted, the region’s nearly 60 newspapers were unable to publish and even residents with special curfew passes were barred from going outside. Despite the curfew, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, an umbrella organization of separatist groups, issued a statement calling for more protests: “Military measures will in no way be able to break the will of the people.” The tension in this restive Himalayan region — divided between India and Pakistan — was reminiscent of the late 1980s, when protests against Indian rule sparked an armed conflict that eventually killed more than 68,000 people, mostly civilians. Residents say security forces have killed 15 people in the recent protests. The government’s controversial decision to send the army was intended to prevent the protests from spiralling out of control and igniting another insujency.

news.yahoo.com

Nigeria

About 1,000 ex-militants who last year laid down their arms under a government amnesty on Wednesday protested against their exclusion from the on-going post-amnesty retraining programme. “We surrendered our arms in November but more than six months after, the big men in Abuja have excluded us from the amnesty programme because of the financial reward,” their spokesman, Aso Tambo, told reporters. The police intercepted the youths at Gwagwalada town, 60 kilometres (40 miles) outside Abuja, as they drove in a convoy of buses towards the Nigerian capital and blocked the highway for several hours. They demanded that the presidential adviser on the amnesty, Timi Alaibe, who coordinates the retraining programme be removed because of his alleged failure to put them on it. The convoy later turned back following an appeal by the police and an assurance that the government was looking into their case. Violence by armed rebels in the Niger Delta region between 2006 to 2009 played havoc with oil output, which dropped in this OPEC member state to around a million barrels per day as against 2.6 million barrels at peak production level. Nigeria, a world major oil exporter, derives more than 90 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from crude.

news.yahoo.com

Somalia

Hundreds of Shebab supporters vowed Wednesday to intensify the Al Qaeda-inspired group’s jihad against African Union troops in Somalia. The demonstration in the central Somali town of Beledweyn was the Islamist insurgent group’s reply to a pledge made Monday at a summit of regional states for 2,000 more troops to beef up the beleaguered AU mission in Somalia (AMISOM). “The enemies of Allah met in Ethiopia days ago and agreed to fight against the Holy Koran of Allah,” Sheikh Yusuf Said Ugas, Shebab leader for Somalia’s Hiran region, told the crowd. “Now we are meeting to unite and fight against them. We will fight to death, until we raise the Islamic flag over this country and establish the greater Islamic state,” he said. The six-member Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) announced Monday in Addis Ababa it had decided to rapidly deploy the 2,000 extra troops still needed for AMISOM to reach its intended strength of 8,100.

news.yahoo.com

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s national police spokesman says the media created reports of terror links to two Pakistani men arrested crossing into World Cup host South Africa from Zimbabwe. The two men appeared in court Tuesday on immigration charges, and are to come to court again July 22. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Wednesday, “The charge of terrorism was a media creation. We are still to get their identity from the Pakistani police.” He said the police were not able to process charges of terrorism until investigations are finalized.

news.yahoo.com

July 7, 2010

Mexico – Mexican governor’s guard accused of drug ties

Nigeria – Religious intolerance threatens Nigerian democracy: Jonathan

India – Indian army enforce Kashmir curfew after deaths

Colombia – Aerial attack kills 13 Farc rebels in Colombia

Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka protest outside UN office continues

Mexico

The bodyguard of a Mexican state governor was ordered jailed Tuesday pending an investigation into allegations that he belongs to a drug cartel, one of a string of scandals that plagued weekend elections. Ismael Ortega Galicia, a bodyguard for Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, was detained for questioning over the weekend after the newspaper Reforma reported he was on a U.S. Treasury Department list of key members of the Gulf or Zetas gangs. A judge ordered Ortega held for 40 days pending an investigation, the federal Attorney General’s Office said in a statement. His arrest came a week after gunmen killed the governor’s hand-picked successor, Rodolfo Torre. However, officials at the Attorney General’s Office said Ortega was not under investigation for the attack.

news.yahoo.com

Nigeria

Religious intolerance which has killed hundreds of people in central Nigeria this year alone, threatens democracy in the country, President Goodluck Jonathan warned on Tuesday. “We must remember that some of the greatest dangers to our democracy and freedom are shrouded in the perils of ethnicity and religious intolerance,” he said at an event to mark Nigerian Army Day in Abuja. “These evils threaten our very existence as one sovereign and indivisible nation”, Jonathan warned in a statement released by his office. Bouts of ethnic and religious clashes in central Plateau State this year have claimed hundreds of lives. The state lies in the so-called “middle belt”, between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south. More than 10,000 people have also died in other religious and ethnic clashes since the return in 1999 of democracy to Nigeria, whose 150 million populations is divided almost equally between Christians and Muslims.

news.yahoo.com

India

Indian army soldiers joined police and paramilitary troops enforcing a curfew across much of Kashmir on Wednesday, a day after three protesters were killed. The two men and one woman died when security personnel opened fire to contain angry separatist demonstrations that have been fuelled by the deaths of several protesters over the last month. Curfew orders have been widely ignored in recent days, and the presence of the Indian army was seen as a show of force designed to end the increasingly violent protests. “We have staged a flag march on one of the key roads in Srinagar and we are ready to assist the state government whenever and wherever required,” Indian army spokesman J.S. Brar told AFP.Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, has been the focus of protests since June 11, when a 17-year-old student died from a police tear gas shell. The three deaths on Tuesday also occurred in Srinagar.

news.yahoo.com

Colombia

Colombia’s armed forced have killed 13 guerrillas – including two leaders – in an air raid, officials say. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) rebels were trying to retake a strategic mountain area near the Caribbean coast when they were hit. Intelligence officials said the operation had been ordered by the Farc’s number two leader, Ivan Marquez, believed to be in Venezuela. Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe said the operation was a “message” to him. Images of the bombardment showed a swathe of jungle flattened and blackened, where the planes of the Colombian air force had bombed a Farc camp in the Montes de Maria area, in the Caribbean province of Bolivar. The Farc guerrillas were seeking to re-establish their presence in the area, which overlooks the city of Cartagena on the Caribbean coast, officials said.

news.bbc.co.uk

Sri Lanka

Demonstrations have continued for a second day outside the UN’s Colombo offices with protesters angry over its probe into alleged war crimes. UN staff in Colombo have been asked to work from home. Only a few key people are at the office in the city centre. The BBC’s Charles Haviland in Colombo says that the UN operation in Sri Lanka has been significantly disrupted. Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa again led the protests on Wednesday. He argues that the probe is unnecessary. “We’re fighting for the withdrawal of Ban Ki-Moon’s advisory panel,” Mr Weerawansa told the BBC. “Today they have a chance to respond to our request. If not, from tomorrow one of our representatives, a parliamentarian, will start a hunger strike to death.” The government denies its troops committed war crimes but some foreign governments and international organisations say there is evidence to the contrary. On Tuesday the UN said it “strongly” objected to the protest at its compound, which was hindering its “vital work”.

news.bbc.co.uk

July 7, 2010

Yemen – 2 Yemeni security killed in shootout with al-Qaida

Turkey – Thirteen killed in fresh Turkey clashes

Sri Lank a-Sri Lankans protest at UN office over abuse probe

Mexico – 3 headless bodies found in car in Mexico

Mexico – Mexico’s drug war heats up near Arizona border

Guinea – Guinea security forces break march with tear gas

Central Africa – C. Africa calls on US to help crush LRA

India – New death sparks more protests in Indian Kashmir

Thailand – Thailand extends emergency rule

Yemen

Yemen says two security officers have killed and three injured in a shootout with suspected al-Qaida militants in a southern town. An official statement Monday said two suspects were arrested after the clashes in Mukalla, in southern Hadramwat province. It gave no further details. Residents told The Associated Press a security force surrounded the suspects’ hideout during the 45-minute shootout. The witnesses said the militants lobbed grenades at the force, prompting a hail of gunfire. The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing reprisals, said the wanted militants escaped. Yemen’s security forces are grappling with a number of armed groups, including al-Qaida. Their raids have occasionally failed, and militant responses are increasingly daring.

news.yahoo.com

Turkey

Kurdish rebels killed three Turkish soldiers and 10 of their own militants died in an attack on a military outpost in southeastern Turkey, officials said Tuesday. The attack was the latest in a surge of violence by Kurdish rebels, prompting Turkey’s army chief to highlight the danger posed by Iraq granting the rebels safe haven in the north of the country from where they launch their attacks into Turkey. The fighting erupted when militants from the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attacked the outpost overnight Monday in a rural area in Hakkari province near the borders with Iraq and Iran, the governor’s office said. The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, has dramatically stepped up violence since its jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan said through his lawyers in May he was abandoning efforts to seek dialogue with Ankara. The clashes also left three soldiers wounded. Another nine soldiers were wounded in three other PKK attacks late Monday, Anatolia news agency reported.

news.yahoo.com

Sri Lanka

Protesters at the U.N. building in the Sri Lankan capital forced U.N. workers to stay in their office Tuesday to demand the world body end its investigation of rights abuses alleged during the country’s civil war. Hundreds of national flag-waving men marched to the U.N. compound in Colombo, led by Housing Minister Wimal Weerawansa and Buddhist monks. They initially tried to break into the building by breaching the barriers and security walls but settled for a sit-in blocking both exits of the compound. They also spray-painted the security camera at the gate in an apparent bid not to be identified. “We warn the U.N. to withdraw the (investigating) panel if they want to get the employees out,” Weerawansa told the protesters. The number of employees within the U.N offices was not known. “Our armed forces have beaten terrorism in an exemplary manner. The panel is intended at taking our soldiers and political leaders before international courts,” Weerawansa said. “We will not let that happen.”

news.yahoo.com

Mexico

Police have found the decapitated bodies of three men inside a burned-out car in the drug gang-plagued Mexican state of Sinaloa. The heads had been put on the vehicle’s hood. The Sinaloa state attorney general’s office says one of the burned bodies was in the driver’s seat, another in the back seat and the third was in the trunk. Investigators found the car Monday in the city of Angostura, near the Pacific coast. The office’s statement provided no information on possible suspects or the motive for the killings. Sinaloa has long been considered the home state of many of Mexico’s most powerful drug lords.

news.yahoo.com

Mexico

Very few residents dare to drive on one of the roads out of this watering-hole for migrants, fearing they will be stopped at gunpoint. They worry they will be told to turn around after their gas tanks are drained or, worse, be kidnapped or killed. A shootout that left 21 people dead and six wounded on the road last week is the most gruesome sign that a relatively tranquil pocket of northern Mexico is quickly turning into a hotbed of drug-fueled violence on Arizona’s doorstep. The violence in recent months is grist for supporters of the state’s tough new law against illegal immigration, who are eager to portray the border as a lawless battlefield of smugglers both of drugs and humans. Nogales, the main city in the region, which shares a border with the Arizona city of the same name, has had 131 murders so far this year, nearly surpassing 135 for all of 2009, according to a tally by the newspaper Diario de Sonora. That includes two heads found Thursday stuffed side by side between the bars of a cemetery fence.

news.yahoo.com

Guinea

Security forces in Guinea fired teargas to disperse a protest against alleged electoral fraud, called in defiance of a government ban on public demonstrations, a Reuters witness said on Monday. Dozens of marchers, most of them women, had taken to the streets of the capital city Conakry to peacefully protest against what they said was fraud in the June 27 election. Former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo won the poll with nearly 40 percent of the vote and will go forward into the July 18 run-off with second-placed Alpha Conde, according to provisional results released last week. But losing parties in the poll, widely seen as the West African state’s best chance in half a century of securing democratic civilian rule, said they have evidence of rigging such as ballot-stuffing and falsified voters’ cards. “I will not accept any public order disturbance by people contesting things for which they have no proof and while the Supreme Court has not pronounced its verdict,” caretaker prime minister Jean-Marie Dore told state television late on Sunday. Candidates have eight days from Monday to lodge formal complaints with the Supreme Court, which will rule on the validity of the election within three days.

news.yahoo.com

Central Africa

The Central African Republic has called on the United States for military support to help “neutralise” LRA rebels terrorising the country, state radio said Monday. Rebels of the

Lord’s Resistance Army “have been on Central African territory since February 2008 when they were chased out of Uganda, and have been committing violations of all kinds and sowing terror among the population,” it quoted Foreign Minister Antoine Gambi as saying.

Gambi made the comments in a speech at the US embassy in Bangui during a reception Sunday marking US Independence Day. “The danger the LRA represents for Uganda has been transposed to the Central African Republic. We hope that the United States of America can contribute to the efforts of the Central African armed forces, backed by the Ugandan forces, with the aim of neutralising the LRA,” the minister said. In May, US President Barack Obama promulgated a law to develop a comprehensive strategy to protect civilians from LRA attacks in the four countries in which they have been active, Uganda, DR Congo, south Sudan and the CAR.

news.yahoo.com

India

A young man was killed Tuesday when security forces opened fire at stone-throwing protesters in Indian Kashmir, police said, the latest in a series of deaths that have stoked public anger. Crowds had poured on to the streets of Srinigar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, vowing revenge and chanting “we want freedom” and “blood for blood” after the death of another protester on Monday. Indian police and paramilitary forces struggling to control a wave of protests in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley have now killed at least 12 civilians in less than a month. “The young man was killed when security forces opened fire at a very violent rally,” a police officer who declined to be named told AFP of Tuesday’s death. Srinagar has been at the centre of furious separatist demonstrations since June 11 when a 17-year-old student died from a police teargas shell. The latest death occurred when security forces opened fire to disperse a demonstration triggered by the death of another protester who had gone missing on Monday and whose body was later found in a stream.

news.yahoo.com

Thailand

Thailand extended emergency rule across about one quarter of the country by three months on Tuesday over lingering fears of unrest, despite calls from rights groups for the sweeping powers to be lifted. The state of emergency, imposed in April after mass opposition protests broke out in the capital, will be maintained in Bangkok and 18 other provinces — out of a total of 76 — but lifted in five others, officials said. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said there were still reports of activity by the anti-government “Red Shirts”, whose protests in Bangkok erupted into the country’s worst political violence in decades. “The government still needs the tools to ensure peace, order and stability for a while,” he said. The emergency law bans public gatherings of more than five people and gives security forces the right to detain suspects for 30 days without charge. The authorities have used the powers to arrest hundreds of suspects — including most of the top leaders of the ” Red Shirt” protest movement — and shut down anti-government TV channels, radio stations and websites.

news.yahoo.com

July 5, 2010

Turkey- Turkey threatens diplomatic break with Israel over raid

India – Indian opposition parties call strike over fuel prices

Georgia- Clinton: US support democratic forces in Georgia

Russia – 2 police killed in Ingushetia

Mexico – Mexico’s drug war heats up near Arizona border

Mexico – Main opposition claims victory in Mexico polls

Venezuela – Rejects US accusations of rights abuses

Turkey

Turkey has for the first time threatened to break diplomatic ties with Israel over its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May. Turkey’s foreign minister said a break could only be averted if Israel either apologized or accepted the outcome of an international inquiry into the raid. The Israeli government said it had nothing to apologize for.  Ankara curtailed diplomatic relations with Israel after the naval raid, in which nine Turks were killed. Turkey – which until recently was Israel’s most important Muslim ally – withdrew its ambassador and demanded that the Israelis issue an apology, agree to a United Nations inquiry and compensate the victims’ families.

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10505386.stm

India

The strike has disrupted flights and rail services Normal life has been disrupted in many parts of India because of a strike called by opposition parties against fuel price rises. The effect of the 12-hour stoppage is being felt most in states where opposition parties are in power. Transport has been hit and businesses and schools are shut in the financial capital Mumbai, Calcutta and Bangalore. he government expects the increase in fuel prices to add nearly 1% to an inflation rate already over 10%. Millions of Indians will be affected, the opposition says. The government announced fuel prices rises last month in an attempt to cut the budget deficit. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies and India’s Communist parties issued separate strike calls against the rise in fuel prices.

Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/south_asia/10505004.stm

Georgia

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday pledged U.S. support for this former Soviet state, which is recovering from an August 2008 Russian military invasion and seeking to consolidate its democracy. Speaking to a couple of hundred women from rights groups, political movements and other organizations, Clinton said the U.S. “will stand with you” in pursuit of a stronger Georgian democracy. She did not mention Russia or its invasion until it was raised by a member of her audience. The invasion remains a point of contention between Washington and Moscow and complicates U.S. relations with Georgia.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100705/ap_on_re_eu/eu_clinton

Russia

Russian officials say two police troopers have been killed in an ambush in the restive Caucasus republic of Ingushetia. A spokesman for the republic’s Interior Ministry says a convoy of two ministry trucks came under automatic weapons and grenade fire on Sunday night. Two police troopers died and another five were seriously wounded. Ingushetia, along with neighboring Chechnya and nearby Dagestan, suffers frequent attacks on police and soldiers. The violence is attributed to separatist insurgents and to criminal groups.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100705/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_caucasus_violence

Mexico

Very few residents dare to drive on one of the roads out of this watering-hole for migrants, fearing they will be stopped at gunpoint. They worry they will be told to turn around after their gas tanks are drained or, worse, be kidnapped or killed. A shootout that left 21 people dead and six wounded on the road last week is the most gruesome sign that a relatively tranquil pocket of northern Mexico is quickly turning into a hotbed of drug-fueled violence on Arizona’s doorstep. The violence in recent months is grist for supporters of the state’s tough new law against illegal immigration, who are eager to portray the border as a lawless battlefield of smugglers both of drugs and humans. Nogales, the main city in the region, which shares a border with the Arizona city of the same name, has had 131 murders so far this year, nearly surpassing 135 for all of 2009, according to a tally by the newspaper Diario de Sonora. That includes two heads found Thursday stuffed side by side between the bars of a cemetery fence.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100705/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_nogales

Mexico

Mexico’s main opposition party, which ruled the country for most of the last century, claimed victory in state elections marked by a blood-stained campaign. “The results that we have in hand show that our victory was convincing,” Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) national leader Beatriz Paredes told reporters, after exit polls suggested they had won at least nine out of 12 governorships up for grabs. The elections — also for mayors and local deputies in 14 states — were the last major test ahead of presidential polls in 2012 and were seen as an unofficial referendum on President Felipe Calderon’s war on violent drug gangs. Voting took place under heavy security in some states, following a campaign marred by threats and attacks, including the high-profile killing of the favorite for governor of northeastern Tamaulipas, PRI candidate Rodolfo Torre.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100705/wl_afp/mexicovotecrimedrugs

Venezuela

Venezuela’s top diplomat accused U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton of attacking his country for seeking Latin American unity and opposing U.S. influence in international affairs. He said she has “an obsession” with nations that stand up to Washington. “This new attack against our country from Hillary Clinton … demonstrates a policy of intrigue, aggression and desperation,” Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro was quoted as saying by Venezuela’s state-run news agency. Earlier Sunday in Azerbaijan, Clinton said the United States is challenging crackdowns on human rights in several countries including Venezuela. The other offenders on Washington’s radar include Belarus, Iran and Cuba — all close allies of President Hugo Chavez. Clinton, who is traveling through Europe, said the trip aims to demonstrate the Obama administration’s commitment to democracy and human rights. In Poland on Saturday, she warned that in some countries “the walls are closing in” on the likes of unions, religious groups, rights advocates and other organizations that are critical of governments. Maduro denied Venezuela violates the rights of government opponents.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100704/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_venezuela_us

Algeria

A bomb at beachside checkpoint in eastern Algeria killed three gendarmes and injured one other, according to reports Monday. The homemade bomb was detonated at 9:00am (0800GMT) Sunday at a checkpoint in Ziama-Mansouriah near Jijel, around 360 kilometers (220 miles) east of Algiers, El Watan and Liberte newspapers reported. The bomb was detonated remotely as the gendarmes passed through the checkpoint, according to the newspapers. The incident has not been officially confirmed.

Ref: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100705/wl_africa_afp/algeriaunrest

July 2, 2010

Mexico – 21 killed in Mexican gang shootout near US border

Guatemala – Guatemalan gov’t warns of conspiracy against it

Somalia – 17 Somalis die in battle between gov’t, insurgents

China – China installs 40,000 security cameras in Urumqi

Turkey/Israel – Turkey and Israel hold first talks since flotilla raid

Nepal – Illegal arms trade flourishes in Nepal tourist area

Mexico

A massive gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the U.S. border Thursday left 21 people dead and at least six others wounded, prosecutors said.

The fire fight occurred in a sparsely populated area about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from the Arizona border, near the city of Nogales, that is considered a prime corridor for immigrant and drug smuggling. The Sonora state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that nine people were captured by police at the scene of the shootings, six of whom had been wounded in the confrontation. Eight vehicles and seven weapons were also seized. All of the victims were believed to be members of the gangs. The shootings occurred near a dirt road between the hamlets of Tubutama and Saric, in an area often used by traffickers. Gangs often fight for control of trafficking routes and sometimes steal “shipments” of undocumented migrants from each other, but seldom have they staged such mass gun battles.

news.yahoo.com

Guatemala

Guatemala’s government accused opponents Thursday of conspiring against it, and claimed they could be preparing to oust President Alvaro Colom. In advertisements published in local newspapers, Colom’s administration says Guatemala could face a “break with institutional order equal to what they did in Honduras.” Former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a June 2009 coup. The ads did not specifically mention a coup, or identify the purported plotters. But the ad said “there are groups of businessmen, politicians, mafias and criminals that have joined in a common strategy” to “erode” and “wear down” the government. Colom has faced criticism over violent crime, and an anti-poverty aid program that critics say lacks transparency. Opposition congresswoman Nineth Montenegro of the Encounter for Guatemala party said people are fed up with the country’s problems with killings, kidnappings and drug trafficking, but ruled out the chances of a coup.

news.yahoo.com

Somalia

An artillery shell struck a building where families had sought shelter, killing 11 people, part of a day of violent battle in the Somali capital that saw a total of 17 people killed Thursday, an emergency official said. The shell that struck the building also wounded 22 others. Five children and three women were killed in the blast, said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service. “It was a grisly scene. I haven’t seen such a massacre in recent days,” Muse said. The fighting between Somali troops and Islamist rebels killed six civilians earlier in the day, Muse said. Twenty-one civilians were wounded in the earlier fighting. Radio Mogadishu, the state-run radio station, reported that President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed visited the front lines. The station’s website showed him standing near sandbags while wearing army fatigues. Somalia’s weak, U.N.-backed government is battling an Islamist insurgency that controls much of the country’s south and center. Somalia has not had a functioning government in nearly 20 years.

news.yahoo.com

Turkey

Israel and Turkey have held their first high-level meeting since the row over the killing of Turkish activists on an aid ship bound for Gaza, officials say. Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer held secret talks with Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, reportedly in Brussels on Wednesday. Turkey later confirmed the meeting but said nothing substantial was agreed. Ankara curtailed diplomatic relations with Israel in May, after the naval raid in which nine Turks were killed.  The country, which had been Israel’s most important Muslim ally, has demanded an apology and compensation for the victims’ families.

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Nepal

The central Kathmandu tourist district of Thamel has become a centre for illegal trade in guns and small arms. Kathmandu’s police chief said the area was becoming increasingly violent because of its popularity with the city’s drug dealers and criminals. With cheap restaurants, backpacker hostels and shops, Thamel has long been the tourist capital of Nepal. Most tourists spend at least a day here before heading out into the country to go trekking or rafting. But in recent years, the cafes selling banana pancakes and vegetarian food have been joined by strip bars and dance clubs, many of them employing underage girls who have been trafficked into the capital from the countryside.

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July 1, 2010

Puerto Rico  - Police, protesters clash at Puerto Rico’s Capitol

Venezuela – US envoy concerned about relations with Venezuela

Nigeria – Sect leader threatens retaliation

Algeria –  Al-Qaeda-linked group claims attack on Algeria forces

South Africa – American tourist shot and wounded in South Africa

Pakistan – Vengeful new militant group emerges in Pakistan

India – Street violence hits Indian Kashmir for 3rd summer

Puerto Rico

A protest at Puerto Rico’s Capitol has turned violent with police using pepper spray and wielding their batons in clashes with demonstrators. The violence broke out when protesters including some local university students attempted to enter the legislature Wednesday afternoon. Authorities had closed access to the general public after groups announced plans for a protest against budget cuts and other policies of Gov. Luis Fortuno

. Television footage showed protesters throwing eggs and barricades at police who were lined up shoulder-to-shoulder at the top of the Capitol steps. Officers struck some people with batons as they charged the entrance. Police chief Jose Figueroa Sancha said protesters also vandalized several cars outside the legislature.

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Venezuela

The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Venezuela expressed concern Wednesday that President Hugo Chavez’s government has focused its agenda on opposing Washington and said he fears trade between the countries is fraying. Ambassador Patrick Duddy, who will soon end his assignment in Caracas, said he hopes the two countries can improve cooperation in some areas. “But these are difficult times for the bilateral relationship,” he said. The United States remains Venezuela’s leading trade partner and the top buyer of Venezuelan oil, though oil exports to the U.S. have slipped recently as Chavez has sought to diversify his customers. Venezuela exported $28.1 billion in oil and other goods to the U.S. in 2009, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures — a 45 percent decline from the previous year as crude prices dropped and oil output declined. Venezuelan exports to the U.S. have since sharply increased in the first months of this year. The country imported $9.3 billion in goods from the United States in 2009, a 26 percent decline from 2008. “I am concerned that our long-standing commercial ties are weakening,” Duddy said. “I am concerned that the government of Venezuela has decided to define its economic, political and social agenda in terms of opposition to the United States, rather than seeking a positive course of cooperation with us.”

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Nigeria

A leader of a radical Muslim sect that left 700 people dead in Nigeria last year has issued a videotaped threat. Imam Abubakar Shekau told a Nigerian journalist that he intends to retaliate for last year’s violence. Before the interview, Shekau, the sect’s second-in-command, was believed to have been killed by police. Nigeria’s Daily Trust newspaper says a reporter got the 25-minute interview after being blindfolded and driven to a hideout near Maiduguri, the site of much of the July 2009 violence. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the authenticity of the recording. Police officials could not be immediately reached for comment. The group called Boko Haram seeks the imposition of strict Islamic Shariah law in Nigeria.

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Algeria

Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 11 Algerian security forces, a foreign security source in neighboring Mali told AFP Thursday. “Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for killing at least 11 Algerian policemen, “the source told AFP in Bamako, speaking on condition of anonymity. The claim was made in a written statement… in the form of leaflets dropped on the border between Mali and Algeria.” The Algerian paramilitary police officers were attacked in their vehicles at dawn on Wednesday near Tinzaoutine, about 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) south of the capital Algiers, El Watan daily reported.

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South Africa

A 35-year-old American was shot and robbed while walking to his hotel but his life is not in danger, a police spokeswoman said Thursday. The victim, identified as David James Bueche, was assaulted by four males as he was looking for his accommodation in Johannesburg’s affluent Sandton area late Wednesday, Brig. Sally De Beers said. Following the assault, Bueche entered a house and the occupants called paramedics. They discovered he had a gunshot wound, De Beers said. The victim had complained of chest pain, but was not aware of the wound, she said. “He is out of danger, stable and recovering,” De Beers said. Bueche flew into the country from Los Angeles, and told the investigators that he was not here for the ongoing World Cup. South Africa’s high crime rate has been a concern since the country was awarded the World Cup bid, and officials have stressed they are doing all they can to keep World Cup visitors safe. South Africa has one of the world’s highest murder rates, with at least 50 people killed each day. The shooting is a reminder of dangers still facing hundreds of thousands of fans here to watch the tournament.

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Pakistan

Pakistani authorities now believe a dangerous new militant group, out to avenge a deadly army assault on a mosque in Islamabad three years ago, has carried out several major bombings in the capital previously blamed on the Taliban. The emergence of the Ghazi Force was part of the outrage among many deeply religious Pakistani Muslims over the July 2007 attack by security forces against the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, a stronghold of Islamic militants. The fierce attack, in which scores of young, heavily armed religious students died, inspired a new generation of militants. These Pakistanis have turned against a government they felt has betrayed them and, to their dismay, backed the U.S. role in neighboring Afghanistan. The brief but bloody history of the Ghazi Force illustrates the unintended results of Pakistan’s policy of promoting Islamic extremists to fight India in the disputed area of Kashmir. That policy — which Pakistan denies it pursues — now threatens regional stability as the U.S. and Pakistan’s other Western partners pour billions of dollars into the country to stop the rise of Islamic militancy.

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India

It is summertime in Indian-controlled Kashmir and the streets are roiled by unrest. Young separatist protesters in jeans and bandanas hurl rocks at Indian troops, who respond with tear gas, baton charges and live ammunition. At least 11 people have died in the past three weeks of street violence, and a round-the-clock curfew is in force. Shops, businesses, schools and government offices are shut. Authorities have postponed college examinations and have blocked text messages on cell phones in an attempt to prevent demonstrators from mobilizing. It is the third summer in a row that deadly protests have erupted, a symptom of the tensions permeating this Muslim-dominated Himalayan region, which has long chafed under Indian rule and is patrolled by hundreds of thousands of troops. A two-decade-long Islamic insurgency has waned but popular anger has not. Even moderate Kashmiris hoping for greater autonomy within India, which is predominantly Hindu, have been frustrated by the government. “The unrest has become a cycle where what people are fighting for is not even acknowledged as a political issue by New Delhi,” said Sheikh Showkat, a law professor at Kashmir University.

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June 30, 2010

Honduras – US slams accusations it was behind Honduras coup

Mexico – Mexico vote goes ahead despite slain candidate

Venezuela – Venezuela Opposition TV Station Owner, Son Indicted

Bangladesh –  Clashes as Bangladesh Jamaat protest leaders’ arrests

India – Maoist rebels ambush Indian troops, killing 27

Honduras

The U.S. Ambassador to Honduras says accusations by former President Manuel Zelaya that the United States was behind the coup that ousted him are “absurd.” Ambassador Hugo Llorens says the United States had nothing to do with the coup on June 28, 2009, when the Honduran army hustled Zelaya out of the country for allegedly violating the constitution. An embassy statement Tuesday said the United States “had no prior knowledge or participation.” Zelaya made the accusations Monday in a letter on the coup’s anniversary. He now lives in the Dominican Republic. The United States refused to recognize the interim government that replaced Zelaya. Honduras is now governed by a President elected in previously scheduled elections.

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Mexico

Drug cartels fund a tenth of Mexico’s economy. They have infiltrated many local and state police forces and staged assaults on army bases. Now they’re violently inserting themselves into politics, killing the leading candidate for governor of a northern state only days before Sunday’s elections in 12 states. The assassination of Rodolfo Torre in the border state of Tamaulipas on Monday capped the deadliest month yet in President Felipe Calderon’s military-led offensive against drug traffickers. Carefully planned attacks — including an ambush that killed 12 federal police officers — have served as chilling reminders that Mexico’s drug cartels can get to anyone, anywhere, armed with sophisticated weaponry and billions of dollars to pay off informants. Mexican officials said Sunday’s voting would go forward as planned, including in Tamaulipas, where Torre’s replacement as candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party had not even been named.

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Venezuela

Guillermo Zuloaga, president of Venezuela’s Globovision television network, and his son were formally charged Tuesday with alleged hoarding of new vehicles. Prosecutor Jose Gregorio Morales announced to reporters that he presented to a Caracas court the “conclusive act” whereby he accused Guillermo Zuloaga and his son, also named Guillermo, in a case that was initiated more than a year ago. The crime of generic usury is punishable by a prison term of one to three years and that of criminal association carries two to five years, Morales said at a brief press conference. In addition to being the president of Globovision, a network fiercely critical of the Venezuelan government, Zuloaga is the owner of automobile dealerships, and the case involving him and his son was opened after authorities seized on May 21, 2009, 24 new vehicles on a property he owns in Caracas.

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Bangladesh

At least 30 people were injured in clashes Wednesday between Bangladesh police and supporters of the country’s biggest Islamic political party whose leaders were arrested on charges of hurting Muslim religious sentiments. Witnesses said the clashes occurred in

Brahmanbaria district, some 150 km (93 miles) east of the capital Dhaka and home to many supporters of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, who had taken to the streets to protest their leaders’ arrest on Tuesday. Jamaat is a political ally of the opposition Nationalist Party led by former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia. Police had arrested the three men after another religious group, the Bangladesh Tarikat Federation, filed a court case in March against them, saying they had compared the Jamaat party chief with Prophet Mohammad. In Islam, Mohammad is beyond comparison. Police named the arrested leaders as Jamaat chief Moulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, his deputy Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid and another key party leader Moulana Delwar Hossain Saidee. Jamaat said around 25 other party members were detained overnight in various districts. Metropolitan Magistrate Mehedi Hasan Talukder approved the arrests as the accused had failed to comply with a summons to appear in court to hear the charges against them.

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India

Maoist rebels ambushed paramilitary troops in eastern India, killing at least 27 in the latest bold attack by the guerrillas, a senior police official said. A 63-member patrol of the Central Reserve Police Force was ambushed in dense forest Tuesday evening in the Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh state, said Sunder Raj, a senior local police official. Ten troops were wounded, he said. Girdharilal Naik, another police officer, said the paramilitary soldiers also fired at the insurgents, numbering up to 200, and the fighting lasted nearly 90 minutes. The rebels fled after police reinforcements reached the remote area that is a stronghold of the rebels, who are also called Naxals, after the village of Naxalbari where their movement started in the 1970s. Inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, the rebels have tapped into the rural poor’s growing anger at being left out of the country’s economic gains and are now present in 20 of India’s 28 states.

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June 29, 2010

Lebanon (reported from) – Hezbollah not interested in dialogue with US

Mexico – Mexico drug hitmen kill state governor candidate

Mexico – Mexico to press ahead with vote despite slaying

Haiti – US issues Haiti travel alert after Americans slain

Venezuela – Chavez: Israel and US ‘empire’ are enemies

Sudan – Sudan to shut border with Libya over ‘banditry’: ministry

Kenya (reported from) – Violence rises in Rwanda as election nears

China – China denies military exercise aimed at U.S.

India – Curfew widened in Kashmir after civilian deaths

Lebanon (reported from)

Hezbollah’s deputy chief said Monday his group is not interested in a dialogue with Washington until the U.S. changes its Mideast policy, which he said is totally biased in favor of Israel. Sheik Naim Kassem was responding to leading U.S. expert on the Middle East Ryan Crocker who told Congress earlier this month the United States should break with long-standing policy and start talking to the Iranian-backed group. Crocker, who retired from the Foreign Service last year as the State Department’s most experienced Mideast hand, told a Senate hearing that the United States stands to gain more than it would lose by negotiating with Hezbollah, which the U.S. government classifies as a terrorist organization. The Obama administration, however, appeared unwilling to change course. Jeffrey Feltman, the State Department’s chief Mideast official, told the same Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing: “Our policy is nonengagement with Hezbollah, for all the reasons you know, and I don’t anticipate that policy changing.”

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Mexico

A popular gubernatorial candidate in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas was murdered by suspected drug hitmen on Monday in the worst sign so far of political intimidation by smuggling gangs. Traders sold Mexico’s peso heavily as TV images showed the bodies of Rodolfo Torre, 46, and four aides from the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which holds power in Tamaulipas, lying on a highway. They were ambushed on their way to a campaign event for the July 4 state election. It was Mexico’s highest-level political murder in some 16 years and the latest blow to the country’s image as a stable emerging market as drug gangs brazenly fight security forces deployed to quash their power and try to sway Sunday’s vote for governors, mayors and local deputies in a dozen states. “We worry about the collateral effects that this crime could have, like a possible fall in foreign investment,” said Rafael Fernandez de Castro, an advisor on foreign affairs to President Felipe Calderon.

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Mexico

Mexican politicians vowed to press on with elections despite the assassination of the leading candidate for governor of a border state, urging frightened citizens to vote and show they are not intimidated by drug cartels threatening the country’s democracy. Gunmen ambushed Rodolfo Torre’s campaign caravan Monday less than a week before he was expected to win the governor’s race in Tamaulipas, a state torn by a turf battle between two rival drug cartels. Four other people were killed: three of the candidate’s bodyguards and a state lawmaker. President Felipe Calderon called the attack an attempt drug gangs to sway Sunday’s elections for governors and mayors in 12 states. He warned that cartels want “to interfere in the decisions of citizens and in electoral processes.”

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Haiti

The U.S. Embassy is advising travelers to exercise caution in Haiti after four U.S. citizens were killed in separate robberies near Port-au-Prince’s airport. All those killed were visiting relatives in Haiti, embassy officials told The Associated Press on Monday. The attacks occurred over three months and in three different locations. The warning comes as scores of Americans are streaming in to provide post-earthquake aid and help with reconstruction. It says authorities believe criminals may be targeting travelers arriving from the United States and advises caution in arranging transport from the airport. Haitian police spokesman Frantz Lerebours said he had no information about the attacks. Some worry the warning could hamper efforts to court investment to rebuild Haiti’s once-viable tourism sector in hopes of reviving the impoverished country’s moribund economy. Crime rates are high across the Caribbean, including countries still known as tourism hotspots. Jamaica has the region’s highest murder rate; this month the U.S. Embassy in Kingston advised visitors to be on alert for gang violence there.

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Venezuela

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounced Israel as a “genocidal” government on Sunday as he hosted Syrian President Bashar Assad on his first visit to Latin America. Chavez has drawn close to Syria and Iran, and cut ties with Israel last year to protest its military offensive in the Gaza Strip. “We have common enemies,” Chavez said, describing them as “the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel.” Chavez had particularly strong words for Israel throughout Assad’s visit. He reiterated his view Saturday that the Golan Heights — captured from Syria by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — should one day be returned to Syria. “Someday the genocidal state of Israel will be put in its place, in the proper place and hopefully a real democratic state will be born,” Chavez said Saturday. “But it has become the murderous arm of the Yankee Empire who can doubt it? Which threatens all of us?” Assad on Sunday called Israel a state “based on crime, slaughter.”

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Sudan

Sudan will close its border crossings with Libya next month as it ramps up security on the frontier in response to banditry, the interior ministry said on Monday. Interior Minister Ibrahim Mahmud Hamid issued the order with the “aim of reorganising” police along the border, according to a statement on the ministry’s website. Passage on a highway to the boundary “has become subjected to threats and attacks from rebels and outlaws who commit robberies and extortion,” the statement said. “The decision will be enforced starting on the first of July 2010 and until other directives are issued,” it said. Libya’s border with Sudan passes through the troubled Darfur region, where the United Nations estimates 300,000 people have died in a war that started in 2003 when ethnic rebels revolted against the Arab-dominated government. The decision to close the border comes amid worsening tensions between Sudan and Libya, which is harbouring a rebel leader wanted by Khartoum.

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Kenya

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton presented Rwanda’s leader with a global citizen award last fall and lauded him for freeing the minds of his people. Now as an election approaches, critics fear Paul Kagame’s government is instead smashing dissent. A former dissident general has been shot, an opposition Rwandan journalist killed and an American lawyer jailed in the run-up to the August presidential vote. A top opposition political party says some of its members have been beaten by police while in detention and that one is missing. Rwanda’s government insists it played no part in either the general being shot or the journalist being killed, and the country’s top spokeswoman accused “frustrated” politicians of suggesting that a crackdown is under way. But human rights groups say the government is ensuring that opposition parties are excluded from the political process. “It has been extremely worrying for quite some time,” said Carina Tertsakian, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who specializes in Rwanda. “Rwanda is a country where there is not much freedom of expression, but in the months leading up to the August elections we really have seen a further crackdown on any form of opposition, dissent or criticism,” she said.

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China

China denied on Tuesday media reports that an artillery drill in the East China Sea was in response to a planned military exercise between South Korea and the United States. The 6-day, live ammunition exercise starting on Wednesday in the East China Sea off China’s coast was seen by some analysts as a “response to a (planned) joint exercise between the United States and Republic of Korea navies in the Yellow Sea,” said the China Daily, the country’s official English-language newspaper. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said there was no such link and a Chinese military officer said the timing was coincidental. “This is a regular military exercise,” the spokesman Qin told a regular news conference. “This is not related to the situation on the Korean Peninsula.” Li Daguang, a professor at China’s National Defense University and a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officer, said the exercise was “not aimed at the U.S.-South Korea joint exercise.”

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India

Authorities in Indian-ruled Kashmir placed more towns under curfew on Tuesday as protests over the killing of eight residents spread through the insurgency-hit region. Eight  Kashmiri civilians have been killed in incidents involving Indian security forces in less than three weeks, with paramilitary troops struggling to contain violent protests against rule from New Delhi. Sopore town, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kashmiri summer capital Srinagar, has been under curfew since Friday after two young men died when soldiers opened fire as protesters attacked their vehicle. On Sunday and Monday three more protesters were killed — including a nine-year-old boy — in Sopore and the neighboring town of Baramulla as troops tried to quell angry demonstrations. “We have imposed a curfew in Baramulla town and in some parts of Srinagar,” a police spokesman who declined to be named told AFP. Separatist leaders urged people to observe a general strike for two days from Tuesday to denounce the killings. The strike closed shops, businesses and schools in Srinagar and other towns in Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.

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June 28, 2010

Egypt –  Several thousand Egyptians protest police abuse

Turkey – Turkey closes airspace to some Israeli flights

Mexico – Attack on Mexico political rally kills 3, wounds 6

Colombia – City Council Chairman Shot in Colombia

India – ‘Injuries in Indian Kashmir as curfew defied’

Gaza – Gaza gunmen ‘set fire to UN summer camp for children’

Egypt

Several thousand Egyptians, joined by top opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, protested on Friday what they call authorities’ systematic use of torture in the largest demonstration yet sparked by the alleged beating death of a young man by police this month. The death of Khaled Said has become a rallying point for pro-reform activists and rights workers who say police abuse is rampant and made possible by a three-decade-old emergency law. “It’s a clear-cut message to the regime that the Egyptian people are sick and tired of practices that are inhumane,” said ElBaradei to reporters after the protest. “If they don’t get the message then there is a problem with the regime, the writing is on the wall,” he added, describing Said’s death as a “heinous crime.” Witnesses say police officers dragged 28-year-old Said, a businessman, out of an Alexandria internet cafe and beat him in the entrance of a nearby building while the neighborhood looked on.

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Turkey

Turkey has closed its airspace to some Israeli military flights following a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Turkish prime minister and officials said Monday. An official said civilian commercial flights were not affected. Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Toronto that Turkey imposed a ban on Israeli flights after the May 31 raid on a Turkish ship that was part of a six-vessel international aid flotilla, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency. The prime minister, who is in Canada to attend a summit of the Group of 20 major industrial and developing nations, did not elaborate. A Turkish government official said, however, that the ban was for Israeli military flights and that commercial flights were not affected. It was not a blanket ban and each flight request would be assessed case-by-case, the official added. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with government rules that bar officials from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.

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Mexico

A mob armed with clubs, stones and guns attacked a political rally in southern Mexico on Saturday, sparking hours of clashes that left three people dead and six more wounded.

Municipal police officer Mario Lopez said the attack in the town of Nachig, in Chiapas state, happened during a morning campaign event for Domingo Perez, a mayoral candidate representing the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, in Aug. 4 elections. Hundreds of people armed with clubs and stones attacked the rally. Lopez said some pulled out weapons and fired on people gathered in a town park. The violence lasted several hours and left a toll of three dead and six wounded — two seriously, according to local prosecutors. Some 15 homes and 20 cars were burned.

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Colombia

The chairman of the city council of the northwestern Colombian city of Medellin was wounded when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, police said Sunday. John Jaime Moncada Ospina’s bodyguards returned fire, killing one of the assailants. The 50-year-old Moncada Ospina’s vehicle was intercepted in Laureles, a neighborhood in the western section of Medellin, the capital of Antioquia province, a police spokesman said. A police officer assigned to the politician’s security detail returned the assailants’ fire, “killing one of them,” the police spokesman said. Medellin Mayor Alonso Salazar condemned the attack and called for a security meeting Sunday with military, police and civilian officials.

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India

Seven people were injured Monday when security forces clashed with protesters who defied a curfew in Indian Kashmir, officials said, as authorities tried to end growing separatist demonstrations. Sopore town, 50 kilometres (30 miles) north of Kashmir’s summer capital Srinagar, has been under curfew since Friday after two young men died when soldiers opened fire as protesters attacked their vehicle. Violence has risen in recent months in Muslim-majority Indian Kashmir, where two decades of rebellion against rule from New Delhi have left thousands dead. On Sunday, another man was killed when security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse protesters in Sopore who had defied the curfew. Monday’s clashes erupted when mourners tried to march through the streets carrying the man’s body. Police said security forces fired shots in the air and tear gas to disperse stone-throwing protesters. Authorities have closed all schools and colleges in the Kashmir valley for two days to thwart further protests, an official statement said.

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Gaza

This is the second attack on a UN summer camp in five weeks Masked gunmen in the Gaza Strip have set fire to a United Nations-run summer camp for children. This follows a similar attack in May on another UN-run summer camp. Some militants view the UN as a symbol of the West and claim that the summer camps allow boys and girls to mix freely – something that the UN denies. The attackers tied up the guard at the camp in central Gaza before setting fire to chairs, tables, easels and other equipment. The UN says about 25 armed men attacked the beach camp in the middle of Sunday night. Nobody was hurt, and nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack. But in a similar incident last month a previously unknown Islamist group said its had attacked a UN summer camp in Gaza city. The head in Gaza of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian refugees condemned the attack as “cowardly and despicable”.

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