Members of the Human Rights Commission of Bolivia's lower-house Chamber of Deputies announced Aug. 30 that they will visit three indigenous leaders from the contested Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS), who for weeks have refused to leave the remote rainforest reserve to avoid being arrested by National Police troops. Leaders Fernando Vargas, Adolfo Chávez and Pedro Nuny have been maintaining a vigil at the office of the TIPNIS Subcentral of the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR) since orders were issued for their arrest on charges related to a supposed attack on a rival CONISUR leader, Gumercindo Pradel. The three wanted leaders charge the government of President Evo Morales with attempting to divide the organization to undermine resistance to a planned highway through the reserve. (ANF, Aug. 30; NACLA, Aug. 27)

Indigenous and environmentalist protesters clashed with police in Ecuador Aug. 27, as a mobilization dubbed a zapateo (foot-stamping) against plans to open the Yasuni Amazon reserve to oil drilling was held in both Quito and Cuenca. Carlos Pérez, leader of the ECUARUNARI indigenous alliance, said police fired rubber bullets on protesters in Quito, leaving 12 hurt—claims denied by the Interior Ministry. At the capital's Plaza de la Independencia, protesters were confronted by an organized counter-demonstration made up of supporters of the ruling Alianza PAIS. After the march, protesters held a public assembly in the city's Plaza Bolívar, where they agreed to meet every Thursday outside the Environment Ministry in an ongiong campaign until their demands are met. The movement is demanding a consulta popular—public discussion and referendum—on the fate of Yasuni. Ecuador's National Assembly is currently considering President Rafael Correa's proposal to open oil blocs within the reserve. (El Universo, Guayaquil, Aug. 29; AFP, Aug. 28)

Less than a year before Colombia's 2014 elections, the country's Supreme Court ordered the arrest Aug. 29 of a presidential primary candidate for former President Alvaro Uribe's Democratic Center party. Luis Alfredo Ramos, former senator and governor of Antioquia,  is under investigation for suspected ties to paramilitary groups—the latest elite figure to be linked to the "para-politics" scandal. Judicial authorities are probing Ramos' purported collaboration with Freddy Rendón AKA "El Aleman"—a now "demobilized" commander of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). Ramos is also suspected of links to Juan Carlos Sierra AKA "El Tuso"—another AUC commander now imprisoned in the US on drug trafficking charges. "El Tuso" is reported have made major contributions to Ramos' political campaigns. Ramos is expected to be arrested imminently.

Mexican army troops on Aug. 27 disarmed members of the "community police" force after a brief scuffle on the coastal highway in Guerrero state. Some 800 members of the self-defense patrol and their supporters were marching from the pueblo of El Paraíso, Ayutla de los Libres municipality, to  Cruz Grande, Florencio Villareal municipality, when approximately 200 troops in armored vehicles surrounded them, and demanded they surrender their rifles and machetes. In a few minutes of physical struggle, some 300 patrol members were disarmed, and 10 detained. Women, children and elders also participated in the march, which was called to demand liberty for movement leader Nestora Salgado García and 13 "community police" members from Olinalá pueblo.

Canada-based Kinross Gold is said to be rethinking plans for expansion of its massive open-pit mine at Tasiast, Mauritania, after a strike shut the facility for 10 days this month. Amid the shut-down, rating experts at the Bank of Montreal downgraded Kinross and removed the expansion of the Tasiast mine from production forecasts for the company. Some 1,500 workers, representing 98% of the labor force at the mine, walked off the job Aug. 8, demanding better health coverage and respect for Mauritania's labor code. The conflict seems to have begun when managers demanded the mine remain in operation during the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Fitr. The strike, called by Mauritania's main trade union confederation, the CGTM, was resolved Aug. 19 under terms that were not made public. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), with which the CGTM is affiliated, is demanding "urgent clarification" on the fate of one worker for subcontractor Canary Log, allegedly found dead under "obscure circumstances" near the mine site during the strike.

A 225-foot "megaload" of oil field equipment being hauled along US Highway 12 through northern Idaho and Montana, bound for a tar-sands site in Canada, was repeatedly blocked by protesters this month. As it passed through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation Aug. 6, some 100 tribal members and their supporters blockaded the road, some throwing rocks as state police moved in. Authorities said 20 protesters were arrested, charged with misdemeanors for "disturbing the peace." Several Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee members were among those removed by police. The load was able to proceed after two hours, but was blocked again Aug. 13 by environmentalist protesters outside Missoula, Mont. (AP, Aug. 13, AP, Aug. 8, AP, Aug. 7; AP, Buffalo Post, Missoulia, Aug. 6)

Survivors of the 1988 chemical weapons attack on northern Iraq's Kurdish city of Halabja, which left up to 5,000 dead, announced this month that they will bring suit against companies that supplied chemical agents to the Saddam Hussein dictatorship. The head of the Association of Halabja Martyrs and Victims, Lokman Abdulkadir, said the group has identified 27 companies as complicit in the attack, and will appeal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to open a case against them. "The verdict of the ICC will be of utmost impoorrtance in terms of recognition of the Halabja massacre as a genocide," Abdulkadir said. "We want the companies selling those chemical weapons to the Baath regime to be called to account, be judged and pay compensation to the victims and their families." The companies are of US, German and French origin.

A three-vessel Freedom Flotilla carrying some 50 West Papuan and indigenous Australian protesters bound for the restive Indonesian territory of West Papua began its voyage from Queensland, Australia, this past week—to the dismay of both Austrailian and Indonesian authorities. The protestors, who hope "to reconnect two ancient cultures and to reveal the barriers that keep human rights abuses in West Papua from the attention of the international community," expect to make landfall in early September. "The initiative of Indigenous Elders of Australia and West Papua will build global solidarity and highlight the abuses of human rights and land rights carried out under the occupations of their lands on an international stage," the statement on the Flotilla's website reads.