An Aug. 11 story from NewScientist.com notes recent findings by scientists that the world's largest frozen peat bog is melting. An area stretching for a million square kilometres across the permafrost of western Siberia is turning into a mass of shallow lakes as the ground melts, according to Russian researchers just back from the region. The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tons of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

The US government is seeking dismissal of a case brought by a "rendition" victim who says he was tortured in Syria, citing rarely used "state secret privilege." US officials argued Aug. 9 in a Brooklyn court that the case should be dismissed because it would "force the government to reveal classified information" about the plaintiff's alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer who also holds Syrian citizenship, was detained when he was changing flights at New York's JFK Airport to return to Ottawa from Damascus in September 2002. He was sent to Syria, where he says he was tortured for 10 months. Thanks largely to the efforts of his wife in Canada, he was eventually released by the Syrian government, which claims it did not torture him. Arar denies any terror links and was never charged with a crime. He now charges the US government with violating the Torture Victim Protection Act and his Fifth Amendment right to due process.

The African Union (AU) Aug. 9 reversed its position on the coup in Mauritania, giving a tacit conditional support to the new military junta. The move came after Nigeria's foreign affairs minister, Ambassador Olu Adeniji, led a delegation of four AU ministers landed in the Northern African State. Adeniji said the delegation had meetings with all the stakeholders in that country, from the leader of the military council, to labor unions and human rights groups—and found they all supported the coup. "The amazing thing is that there was no single dissenting view," he said.

At Unocal's final shareholder's meeting Aug. 10, an overwhelming majority approved the $17.5 billion merger with Chevron. Chief Executive Charles Williamson said Unocal considered a sale only after being approached months ago by China National Offshore Oil -- known as CNOOC -- which wanted to buy the California-based oil company. Unocal then solicited offers from other outfits, ultimately choosing Chevron on April 4.

A Nuevo Laredo police officer was killed and the ex-officer she was driving with injured in an attack by unknown gunmen Aug. 10—just two days after the US consulate in Nuevo Laredo re-opened—having closed its doors for a week in protest of ongoing violence in the Mexican border town. Adriana de Leon was the 15th law-enforcement officer to be killed among 110 slayings in Nuevo Laredo so far this year. A city council member was also among the recent vicitims. The town remains occupied by 1,200 federal agents, and a midnight curfew is in effect. The new violence also comes as the city government is offering to bring in tourists from San Antonio for free to convince them the city is safe. (Houston Chronicle, Aug. 11)

AllAfrica.com runs a story from Nigeria's Abuja Daily Trust on the insistence of Niger's President Mamadou Tandja, has dismissed reports that his country is experiencing a famine. "The people of Niger look well-fed as you can see," he told the BBC. He acknowledged there are food shortages in some areas following poor rains and locust invasions, but said this was not unusual for his country. (How comforting.) Tandja said the idea of a famine was being exploited for political and economic gains by opposition parties and the United Nations. The World Food Programme denied that the scale of the problem had been exaggerated.

A Taliban spokesman called Hakimi said guerillas destroyed a US military vehicle Aug. 9 in Ghazni Province. "The Americans suffered loss of life in the attack," Hakimi said. US military sources acknowledged that a vehicle was destroyed by an improvised explosive device in Ghani, injuring two servicemen. Meanwhile in northern Faryab Province, leaflets have been distributed warning female candidates against running in the September parliamentary elections, the Mazar-i-Sharif daily Sahar reported.

The Cuban government welcomed a decision by a three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to retry five Cubans convicted of spying. The five were sentenced four years ago to at least 15 years in prison on charges of spying on US military installations and exiles. However, the appeals court found that the original trial was unfair, citing a biased atmosphere against the Cuban regime in the Miami area. Cuba has campaigned intensively for the men's release, calling them the "Five Heroes." Last month, a United Nations panel also questioned the impartiality of the verdict and called the sentences unduly harsh.