Ecuador's granting of asylum to WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange "should be an opportunity to start at home," said Gerardo Jumí Tapias, leader of the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations  (CAOI). "Democracy should begin at home and cannot be reduced to a discourse for the juncture," he said, adding that protection of human rights and free expression is laudable but should apply to all citizens, not just a high-profile foreigner. "This is an opportunity for us to review throughout the continent, where many governments present themselves before the world as protectors of human rights, but violate the human rights of indigenous peoples in their own countries."

At least two were killed when three car bombs exploded near interior ministry and security buildings in the Libya's capital Tripoli on Aug. 19—the first lethal attack of its kind since Moammar Qaddafi's fall last year. The first bomb blew up near the interior ministry's administrative offices in Tripoli but caused no casualties.

The campesino communities of Ayavaca and Huancabamba in Peru's northern Piura region held assemblies Aug. 16 and issued a statement pledging to resist recently announced plans by Chinese mining company Zijin to move ahead with the long-contested Río Blanco copper project. The communities cited the need to protect threatened watersheds, wetlands and cloud forests in the high Andean region, noting that they have been officially listed as "fragile ecosystems" under Peruvian law. The local jalca ecosystem, which exists only in Peru's northern Andean regions near the border with Ecuador, is richer in water than the more arid high plains known as punas elsewhere in the country. Read the statement: "Ayavaca and Huancabamba are today more alert than ever and ready to commit our lives for the defense of water for future generations." (Megaproyectos, Aug. 16; CONDESAN)

Five soldiers were killed in an attack by presumed Shining Path guerrillas Aug. 15 on a military base in Mazangaro, Junin region, in Peru's Apurimac-Ene River Valley (VRAE). According to La Republica, the attack could be in response to the army's seizure three days prior to the assault of 800 kilos of precursor chemicals used in the production of cocaine. (InSight Crime, Aug. 16) Two days after the attack, Peru's special anti-terrorism prosecutor, Julio Galindo, asserted that the Shining Path column in the coca-growing region was financed not only by the narco traffic, but by illegal gold-mining and logging. He said the state is attempting to crack down on the guerilla column's money laundering networks, which he characterized as "very technical." He also referred to the area of guerilla operations as the VRAEM—including the Mantaro River in the acronym, a western tributary of the Apurimac-Ene, in an implicit acknowledgement that the insurgency is spreading. (Perú21, Aug. 18; El Comercio, Aug. 17)

Hamas security forces on Aug. 15 arrested a senior Salafi sheikh who was injured in an Israeli airstrike in June . Sheikh Abu Suhaib Rashwan was detained as he left a hospital, where he was recovering from wounds sustained in the June 20 airstrike in Rafah. The missile strike on a motorcycle wounded Rashwan and a companion, Ghaleb Ermilat, who the IDF described as a "global jihad operative." Israel accused the two of being behind an ambush along the Egyptian border two days earlier that killed an Israeli civilian, and said they were members of Tawhid wal Jihad, a "global jihad terror movement that is responsible for ongoing terror attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers."

At least 30 people were killed when an elite Tactical Response Team of the South African Police Service opened fire on striking workers at South Africa's Marikana platinum mine near Rustenburg in North West province on Aug. 16. An estimated 3,000 strikers, many armed with clubs and machetes and chanting war songs, had gathered on a hill near the mine, and refused orders to disperse. Police used tear gas and water cannon before resorting to gunfire; there were some reports that strikers also used firearms. The mine, owned by British platinum giant Lonmin, had been shut two days earlier following the deaths of 10 workers in clashes between rival unions vying for control of the strike. Lonmin considers the strike illegal, and had threatened to sack 3,000 rock-drill operators if they failed to return to work.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling in Sarayaku v. Ecuador on July 25, found in favor of a Kichwa community's right to consultation prior to industrial projects on their land—a decision that could have implications for many indigenous peoples across the Americas. The court found that the government of Ecuador violated the indigenous community's rights by allowing an Argentine oil company, Compania General de Combustibles (CGC), on their land without proper consultation. The community of Sarayaku filed the suit in 2006, after CGC, partnering with ConocoPhillips, felled forests, destroyed a cultural site, and drilled hundreds of boreholes for seismic surveying on tribal lands despite never gaining permission to do so from the community. As tensions rose, the Ecuadorian government set up military camps on indigenous land.

The San José de Apartadó Peace Community in Colombia's northern Urabá region, one of several citizen peace initiatives by local communities demanding their right not to take sides in the war, is once again under threat—seven years after a massacre that forced many residents to flee the village. Several outlying hamlets (veredas) continue to adhere to the Peace Community, and their leaders are now facing escalated harassment. On July 30 and 31, Germán Graciano, a Peace Community leader, received phone calls from men who identified themselves as members of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a paramilitary group. The callers demanded he agree to collaborate with them, or "purchase coffins for himself and his family."