From the Lebanon Solidarity website:

U.S. Citizens, Internationals and Lebanese risk safety to bring humanitarian aid to devasted Southern Lebanon
On August 12, at 7 AM, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to express solidarity will gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of the Israeli military. This campaign is endorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations. This growing coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for the purpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive military force by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.

This blurb appeared in the New York Times Aug. 8:

The authorities have banned a rights group founded in 2002 by a group of lawyers and led by Shirin Ebadi, the only Iranian to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The Interior Ministry said the group, the Center for Protecting Human Rights, had failed to obtain a valid operating permit. “Its activities are illegal and the violators of this decision will be prosecuted,’’ the ministry said. The group has defended dissidents and journalists and has repeatedly criticized Iran’s hard-line judiciary. Ms. Ebadi, who won the Nobel in 2003 and headed the Tehran City Court from 1975 until the revolution in 1979, after which women were banned from such posts, said her center needed no special permit under the Constitution. Last month, another of the center’s founders, Abdolfattah Soltani, was sentenced to five years in prison.

The Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee Foundation has reported a wave of recent murders in the municipalities of Arauquita, Tame and Saravena in the eastern Colombian department of Arauca. On July 27 in Tame, meat vendor Alberto Tovar Trujillo was murdered in the community of Alto Cauca and Omar Castaneda was murdered in the village of Botalon. On July 28, Euclides Galvis Moreno and Jose Ananias Duran Moncada were murdered in the community of Santa Clara in Arauquita. On July 30, Pedro Jaimes Rodriguez died in the hospital, a day after being wounded with a knife in Saravena municipality. Also on July 30, Floiran Cuervo Monsalve was murdered in the community of Puerto Nidia in Fortul municipality. Jose Calderon, a medical assistant at the San Ricardo Pampuri hospital in Saravena, was murdered on July 31. The authors and motives are unknown for all of these killings. (Adital, Aug. 4) The murders take place as the National Army carries out a massive military operation in the rural areas of Arauca department, with abuses against the civilian campesino population. The military operation began in early July in Tame and has spread to Fortul, Saravena, Arauquita and the departmental capital, Arauca. (Agencia Prensa Rural, Aug. 1)

Haiti's Collective for Mobilization Against the High Cost of Living held a sit-in on July 25 in front of the Hotel Karibe Convention Center in Port-au-Prince to demand cancellation of Haiti's external debt. The protesters carried signs with such slogans as: "We're not in debt," "We have nothing to pay," "France is the one that's in debt." (Haiti was born from a massive slave rebellion against French colonial rule in the late 18th century.) According to the collective's spokesperson, Guy Numa, Haiti currently pays $60 million each year in interest on an external debt of a little more than $1 billion. (Agence Haitienne de Presse, July 25)

On Aug. 4, a federal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, sentenced former federal police officer Julio Simon to 25 years of prison for the 1978 abduction and torture of Chilean citizen Jose Poblete Roa and his Argentine companion, Gertrudis Hlaczik, and the theft of the couple's eight-month-old daughter, Claudia Victoria.

It was the first such sentence since Argentina's Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that two amnesty laws passed in the 1980s were unconstitutional, clearing the way for trials over human rights abuses committed during the country's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Brian Tokar of Vermont's Institute for Social Ecology writes:

Murray Bookchin, the visionary social theorist and activist, died during the early morning of Sunday, July 30 in his home in Burlington, Vermont. During a prolific career of writing, teaching and political activism that spanned half a century, Bookchin forged a new anti-authoritarian outlook rooted in ecology, dialectical philosophy and left libertarianism.

From IRIN, July 29:

Lebanon is facing an environmental crisis after an Israeli air strike on the Jiyeh power station, about 20km south of Beirut caused 10,000 tonnes of oil to spill into the Mediterranean sea.

Israeli combat jets continue to pound Lebanon, ostensibly targeting Hezbollah missile sites. Israeli military authorities said jets hit 130 targets in Lebanon July 27 and early the 28th, including a Hezbollah base in the Bekaa Valley, where Israel said long-range rockets and rocket launchers were stored. Air-strikes also continued on supposed Hezbollah missile sites in Tyre which had been targeting Haifa. Israeli planes also destroyed a building said to belong to a Hezbollah militant in the southern village of Kfar Jouz, killing three and wounding nine, including four children. More people are believed trapped beneath the rubble. Ground combat continued in Bint Jbeil, a Hezbollah stronghold just north of the Israeli border. Hezbollah launched 14 rockets into northern Israel July 28, injuring two people. Since the fighting began on July 12, Israeli attacks have killed at least 440 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians. Hezbollah has killed 33 Israeli soldiers and 19 civilians. (JTA, July 28)