Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on July 22 ordered the demolition of eight Palestinian villages in the hills south of Hebron because the Israeli military needs the land for training exercises. A total of 1,500 residents will be evicted from their homes and have their lands confiscated in the villages of Majaz, Tabban, Sfai, Fakheit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba and Kharuba. Evacuation orders were first issued in 1999, but were frozen by an injunction from the Israeli High Court of Justice.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, top leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliated Islamic State of Iraq, announced in an audio message July 22 a new plan to free imprisoned militants, attack the Iraq's judiciary and retake lost territory. "We are setting off a new stage of our struggle, with the launch of a plan named 'Breaking the Walls,'" said the message, which urged the Sunni tribal leaders to send their men to join his movement. "On the occasion of the return of the Islamic State to the regions that we had evacuated from, I urge you to send your sons to join the mujahedeen to defend your religion and honor." He also threatened the US, saying "You will see them [al-Qaeda militants] at the heart of your country with God's willing, since our war against you has just started." (WSJ, RFE/RL, July 22)

The US government has determined that Bolivia now has fewer coca plantations but it is producing more cocaine because traffickers are using a more "efficient" process known as the "Colombian method," according to an interview with a diplomat in La Paz daily Pagina Siete. Said John Creamer, outgoing charge d'affaires at the US diplomatic mission in La Paz: "That is the paradox in Bolivia. There are fewer coca plantations in the past three years, but there's more production of cocaine." Creamer said that using the new process, producers "can obtain more cocaine with lesser quantities of coca leaves." He also warned of the "resowing" of eradicated coca fields. The Bolivian government boasts that it reduced coca leaf production for three consecutive years from 2009 to 2011, but according to UN figures overall coca production increased from 25,400 hectares in 2006 when Evo Morales took power to 31,000 hectares in 2010 (the last year for which the UN has data). Bolivian law allows the legal cultivation of just 12,000 hectares of coca for traditional purposes.

Following a wave of protests by local Aymara campesinos that left one dead earlier this month, Bolivian President Evo Morales agreed to revoke the permit for the Mallku Khota mining project in Potosí department July 10. The accord was announced after a gathering at the presidential palace of Aymara leaders from both sides of the conflict—those who oppose the project as a threat to local waters, and those who support it as source of new employment. The situation escalated after indigenous opponents of the mine detained—"kidnapped," in English-language media coverage—seven mining company employees. Under the new deal, the concessions granted to Canada-based South American Silver in 2004 will be cancelled, and the Mining Ministry will explore the possibilities of creating a state entity to exploit deposits of the rare element indium at Mallku Khota. Aymara leader Cancio Rojas, who had been jailed after the "kidnapping" incident, was released July 15, after paying a fine of 10,000 bolivianos (about $1,500), in an apparent compromise solution. Local Aymara comunarios said the mine personnel were illegally operating on their ayllu (communal land holding). (OCMAL, July 19; La Razón, July 15; EFE, July 11)

Winning international headlines July 20 was the seizure by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) of Albu Kamal, one of the three major crossings on the border with Iraq, after a brief battle. (Al-Arabiya, July 21) The FSA is linked to the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council (SNC), whose leaders this week visited the United Nations in a bid for international support. (World Policy blog, July 19) The SNC is clearly being groomed by the West, and is generally portrayed in the media as the sole leadership of the Syrian revolution. However the SNC/FSA is but one of several coalitions struggling to bring down the Assad regime.

One person was killed and 23 wounded as Colombia's army retook a base that had hours earlier been occupied by protesters in Cauca department July 17, local indigenous authorities said. Special forces troops were sent in to clear the 1,000 protesters armed with sticks who briefly took control of the "Berlin" army base, located in war-torn Toribio municipality. Photos showed Nasa indigenous protesters armed with sticks physically ejecting soldiers from the base. National Police backed up the army troops to evict the protesters, firing tear gas. Nasa indigenous authorities said army troops also opened fire. Defense Minister Carlos Pinzón, while not confirming the death, said the troops had "the right to defend themselves…if the indigenous initiate an aggression." President Juan Manuel Santos denounced the takeover of the base via Twitter, saying, "I do not want to see a single indigenous in the military bases." And: "Make no mistake. We will not allow attacks on those who defend us. Everything has a limit."

In the eighth YouTube edition of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade, World War 4 Report editor Bill Weinberg discusses the cultural survival struggles of the Quechua of Peru and the Tuareg of Mali—the first threatened by global capitalism, the second by the global jihad, in a demonstration of the paradoxical unity of opposites.

Brazil's indigenous affairs agency FUNAI issued a statement July 5 affirming the validity of a May 2010 ruling of the First Regional Federal Tribunal in Mato Grosso state that called for the return of usurped lands of the Xavante indigenous people. FUNAI demarcated the 165,000 hectares as Xavante indigenous territory in 1992, but ranchers and soy producers now in possession of the lands in question challenged creation of the reserve, to be called Marãiwatsede, near the towns of Cuiabá and Alto Boa Vista. The Xavante were pushed from their lands by Brazil's military government in 1966, and the Marãiwatsede area is now one of the most completely deforested areas of the Amazon Basin. When Xavante led by chief Damião Paridzané held protests at the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development last month to pressure for return of their lands, local ranchers in the Marãiwatsede territory launched an uprising, blocking roads and burning bridges.