The Chamber of Representatives of the Colombian Congress voted 62-43 the night of June 14 to approve a law recognizing civil unions. The law would allow same-sex couples to register if they have lived together for two years and are not in other marriages or civil unions. If one partner dies, the survivor would automatically inherit and would receive social security payments and other work-related benefits. The Senate is expected to approve the law and send it to rightwing president Alvaro Uribe for approval on June 19; supporters expect no obstacles from Uribe. Although some Latin American cities have recognized same-sex unions--including Mexico City last November--no country in the region has passed a national law for civil unions. (El Diario-La Prensa, NY, June 16 from AP)

On June 12, more than 150 ICE agents executed search and arrest warrants at three sites in Portland, Oregon, connected with the Fresh Del Monte company and its Portland fruit and vegetable processing facility, arresting about 165 workers and three managers. Searches were carried out at two offices of American Staffing Resources Inc, a US recruitment company responsible for staffing at the Portland Fresh Del Monte plant. A search warrant was also executed at the Fresh Del Monte office within the plant. As part of the criminal investigation, a federal grand jury in Portland has returned indictments against three individuals alleging immigration, document fraud, and identity theft offenses.

Work crews and police arrived early June 15 to demolish twelve more homes at the village in Karasai district outside Almaty, Kazakhstan, where an embattled Hare Krishna commune is based. "The houses were literally crushed into dust," Hare Krishna spokesperson Maksim Varfolomeyev said. "By ten o'clock it was all over." The temple remains standing, but the devotees have been ordered to destroy it. Human rights activist Yevgeny Zhovtis said the local administration chief "doesn't care about the political damage to Kazakhstan's reputation—or to its desire to chair the OSCE." Asked to explain the latest demolitions, one local official told the Norway-based rights watchdog Forum 18: "Here in Kazakhstan the Hare Krishnas are considered to be non-traditional." (Forum 18, June 15) Ironically, the raid comes days after senior Kazakh officials arrived in Romania for an OSCE conference on combating discrimination. (Forum 18, June 6)

The government of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca apologized for the first time June 15 for a police raid on striking teachers in the central plaza of the state capital one year ago that led to Mexico's worst political unrest in years. Oaxaca Government Secretary Manuel Garcia Corpus issued the statement on behalf of Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whose refusal to negotiate with the strikers sparked the crisis. "The government of Ulises Ruiz gives the people of Oaxaca a public apology for the events that arose after the 14th," Garcia Corpus told the government news agency Notimex, refering to the police raid of June 14, 2006. (AP, June 15)

Supposed Jemaah Islamiyah leader Abu Dujana was arrested June 9 by Indonesia's elite anti-terrorist Detachment 88 in a raid in the southern Java town of Yogyakarta, authorities say. The reportedly Afghan-trained Dujana is accused of assisting and harboring Jemaah Islamiyah militants Ali Ghufron, now on death row for leading the October 2002 Bali bombings; Azahari Husin, who was killed in a police raid in 2005; and the fugitive Noordin Moh Top. He is also accused of moving arms and supporting militants in conflicted Sulawesi. Additionally, authorities also they have uncovered evidence that Dujana repeatedly wired money to the Philippines, and assert a link to Islamist insurgents on Mindanao. (Balita News, June 15)

From the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), June 13:

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the shooting of a Mexican journalist who had received death threats in connection with his investigation of the slaying of a U.S. journalist during violent street protests last fall in the southern city of Oaxaca.

The UN is expected to release a report shortly that will shed light on human rights violations of migrants in the United States. The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council by Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants Jorge Bustamante, who conducted a controversial fact-finding mission in the US from April 30 to May 17. The visit was arranged to investigate concerns including arbitrary detention, separation of families, substandard conditions of detention, procedural violations in criminal and administrative law proceedings, racial and ethnic discrimination, arbitrary and collective expulsions and violations of children’s and women’s rights. [UN press release, May 17]

From ZNet, June 12—George Monbiot's latest in his series of exchanges with Alexander Cockburn over the question of global warming:

The Conspiracy Widens
So at last, and after only seven requests, we have some references. And, to no gasps of surprise, they reveal that the "papers" on which Alexander Cockburn bases his claim that carbon dioxide doesn't cause global warming have not been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In fact they have not been published at all.