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)

Our July issue featured stories on the widely divergent ways in which Cuba and North Korea have responded to critical oil shortages since the Soviet collapse (a foreshadowing of a reckoning the whole planet will have to face, sooner or later), as well as the South American Regional Infrastructure Integration project (IIRSA). The July Exit Poll was: "Will 'peak oil' paralyze world commerce and industry before IIRSA can complete its gridding of the South American continent?" We received three intelligent responses.

Another turn of the screw. The NYPD unveils draconian new regulations in the ongoing crackdown on the Critical Mass bicyclists. The elitist New York Timess refuses to put this fine July 21 column by Clyde Haberman online for free, but we present it here in the interests of free speech and open discourse:

Thousands of people demonstrated across Latin America the week of July 17 to protest Israel's air and ground attacks in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip starting the week before.

About 500 protesters rallied on July 17 outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in a demonstration organized by Argentine Arab associations, leftist groups and activist organizations, including the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Anibal Veron piquetero ("picketer") organization of the poor and unemployed. "Today the state of Israel is applying state terrorism and a plan for extermination the way the [1976-1983] Argentine dictatorship did," Confederation of Arab Entities of Argentina vice president Roberto Ahuad told the French news service AFP.