The Associated Press reported June 6 that hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK guerrillas. The reports were denied by Ankara. The following day, Reuters reported that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said parliament's approval would be needed for such an incursion. "A parliament decision is necessary to launch a cross-border operation and the steps would be taken accordingly," Erdogan was quoted by state-run Anatolian agency. AP reported that Turkey's top commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said: "The Turkish soldier is not a bully of the neighborhood. There is need for political directives." However, he did say several areas near the border have been declared "temporary security zones."

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), June 3:

Cindy: Do not say good-bye
The U.S. needs you, not the criminals and thieves

Dear Sister Cindy Sheehan, Greetings...

I have read your article ("Good-bye America... you are not the country that I love anymore"), in which you declared resignation and your plan to stay away from the arena of struggle against war and the occupation of Iraq.

From the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM), June 4:

At 6:30 AM this morning, 4 June 2007, oil workers struck the pipeline company in Basra, Iraq, bringing an immediate stop to the free flow of oil products, including kerosene and gas through pipe number 42.

The Egyptian government has refused to allow human rights groups to observe the military trial of 33 leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood, undercutting the government’s claims that civilians will have a fair trial before military courts, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint press release June 4.

Two women journalists, Zakia Zaki and Sanga Amach, have been killed by gunmen in Afghanistan in the past week. Zaki, who was killed in an attack at her home late June 5, ran a private radio station, partially funded by a Western media group, and was headmistress of a school in Parwan province. She was recently warned by some local commanders to shut the station or face death, the head of Afghanistan's Independent Journalist Association said. "She believed in freedom of expression, that's why she was killed," Rahimullah Samander told Reuters. Amach, a news presenter on a private television station in Kabul, was killed at her home on June 1. She had also received threats from unidentified persons. Some arrests have been reported in her case. (Reuters, June 6)

Vang Pao, a revered leader of the Hmong-American community and a former general in the Royal Army of Laos, is among 10 men charged with plotting to overthrow the Laotian regime. An undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives secretly recorded a Feb. 7 luncheon meeting with Vang Pao, former California National Guard Lt. Col. Harrison Ulrich Jack and others at a Thai restaurant near the state Capitol in Sacramento. They then walked to a recreational vehicle parked nearby to examine machine guns, grenade launchers, anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel mines and other weapons, according to the agent's affidavit.

The EU's carbon trading scheme has increased electricity bills, given a windfall to power companies and failed to cut greenhouse gases, according to an investigation by BBC Radio 4's "File on 4" program. According to the consumer watchdog Energywatch, after two and half years the scheme has yet to cut in carbon dioxide emissions.

Ecuador has offered to drop plans to develop the country's biggest oilfield at Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) in the Amazon basin if developed nations pay it to protect the land. President Rafael Correa hopes wealthy governments and environmental groups will pay $350 million annually to leave the oil in the ground and help slow global warming.