Following recent Turkish air-strikes on the border area of Iraq's Kurdistan Region, Iranian artillery and drones struck a village in Sidakan district of Erbil province on July 10, killing one civilian and wounding two more. The mayor of Sidakan said a young girl who was working in the fields outside the hamlet of Dere was killed in the attacks, and her two bothers wounded. Orchards and pastures were also set ablaze in the strikes. Sidakan has frequently come under attack by Turkish warplanes targeting presumed strongholds of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and the Iranian attack was apparently aimed at an allied Kurdish armed group that opposes Tehran, the Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).

The high court of Ecuador's Pastaza province on July 12 upheld a lower court ruling to protect the land rights of the Waorani indigenous people from oil drilling. The Pastaza Court of Justice rejected the Environment Ministry's appeal of the lower court decision to bar plans to open 180,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest to oil development before "prior consultation" with the Waorani is carried out. (AFP, July 12) Simultaneously, however, the Ministry approved the environmental assessment plans to drill for oil in a sensitive area of Yasuni National Park, where isolated or "uncontacted" indigenous peoples are believed to be living.

Seven Crimean Tatars were detained in Moscow on July 10 while holding a peaceful picket calling for an end to ethnic and religious persecution in Russian-annexed Crimea. Around 20 activists—most in their 50s and 60s, veterans of the Crimean Tatar national movement—gathered in Red Square with placards reading: "Our children are not terrorists"; "The fight against terrorism in Crimea is a fight against dissidents" and "Stop persecution on ethnic and religious lines in Crimea." The picket was held in advance of an appeal hearing for four Crimean Tatars facing "terrorism" charges for their membership in the civil organization Hizb ut-Tahrir. The detained protesters were charged with holding an unauthorized demonstration. One of those arrested is the father of one of the "terrorism" defendants.

A new agreement was announced July 5 between Sudan's opposition coalition, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), and the ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC). The agreement, brokered by the African Union and Ethiopia, provides for power to be shared through a Sovereign Council, to be made up of five members of the FFC, five members of the military, and one chosen jointly as a nominal president. (Jurist) Among the FFC's constituent groups are two armed rebel factions active in the conflicted Darfur region, the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). After the new transition deal was announced, these two groups both issued statements denying Sudanese media reports that they had dropped out of the FFC—claims that may originate in a TMC stratagem to remove the Darfur question from the opposition agenda. (Sudan Tribune)

Rebel groups seeking independence for Indonesia's West Papua region have announced formation of a new united army under a single command. Three major factions have come together as the West Papua Army, under the political leadership of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).  The three tendencies agreed to unite in a "Vanimo Border Declaration" issued in May, the ULMWP's UK-exiled leader Benny Wenda announced July 5, appealing for international support. "We welcome any assistance in helping us achieve our liberation," he said in a statement. "The ULMWP is ready to form an independent West Papua. Politically and militarily we are united now. The international community can now see without a doubt that we are ready to take over our country. Indonesia cannot stigmatize us as separatists or criminals any more, we are a legitimate unified military and political state-in-waiting." The new force unites the West Papua Liberation Army, the West Papuan National Army and the West Papua Revolutionary Army. (Al Jazeera, Radio New Zealand)

Deforestation in Brazil's portion of the Amazon rainforest rose more than 88% in June compared with the same month a year ago—the second consecutive month of rising forest loss under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. According to data from the Brazilian Space Agency, deforestation totaled 920 square kilometers (355 square miles). (The Guardian, July 3) An analysis of satellite data by BBC News finds that "An area of Amazon rainforest roughly the size of a football pitch [soccer field] is now being cleared every single minute." A sobering study published June 24 in the journal Nature: Climate Change warns of a feedback loop in which climate change fueled in large part by rainforest destruction may itself become a cause of rainforest destruction and biodiversity loss: "Deforestation is currently the major threat to Amazonian tree species but climate change may surpass it in just a few decades." (Courthouse News Service)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is calling for an independent investigation of the "outrageous" bombing of a migrant detention center at Tajoura, outside Libya's capital Tripoli July 2. The attack killed at least 44 migrants and refugees, including women and children, and injured more than 130. Guterres noted that the UN had given its exact coordinates to the warring parties in the ongoing Libyan conflict. This was also emphasized by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, which said in a statement: "Coordinates of such centres in Tripoli are well known to combatants, who also know those detained at Tajoura are civilians." UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet said, with requisite caution: "This attack may, depending on the precise circumstances, amount to a war crime."

Sudan's opposition coalition, the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), has renewed its call for the Transitional Military Council (TMC) to hand power to a civilian-led authority, and announced a general strike to press this demand starting July 14. The call was issued a day after the "Millions March" demonstrations of June 30—which again saw security forces firing on protesters, leaving seven dead and more than 180 wounded. The TMC has formed an investigative commission into the June 3 attack on a pro-democracy sit-in outside the army headquarters, in which over a hundred were killed. (Sudan Tribune, Al Jazeera)