Police detained 89 demonstrators after more than 6,500 people flooded Tel Aviv's Habima Square the night of June 23 to protest the arrest of Daphni Leef, a leader of last summer's mass movement against inequality and the high cost of housing in Israel. Tel Aviv's district police commander Aharon Eksel told newspaper Haaretz, "Protesters crossed the line. They set out to clash with the police." Police also said the protest was illegal, because no permit had been applied for. Protesters responded that the lack of a permit was intentional, to make the point that permits are difficult to obtain. Clashes were reported from nearby Rabin Square, where protesters attempted to break into banks, and broke the window of one. The elite police "Special Forces" riot squad was mobilized to the scene. The gathering was publicized as an attempt to reboot last year's movement, under the slogan, "Emergency protest! Returning power to the people!" (Allison Kilkenny on The Nation blog, June 25; Haaretz, June 23)

Three Federal Police officers were killed in a shoot-out at a food court in Terminal 2 of Mexico City's Benito Juárez International Airport on June 25, sending travelers scrambling for cover under tables and into bathrooms. Although initial accounts said police were met with gunfire when they tried to arrest suspected traffickers, the Public Security Secretary later admitted that both sides in the shoot-out were uniformed Federal Police. A team of agents was apparently trying to arrest two other uniformed agents, who responded with gunfire. No civilians were reported wounded. Prosecutor General Marisela Morales says she has ordered in investigation into cartel infiltration of police at the airport. Mexico City's own Federal District Prosecutor General of Justice (PGJDF), which oversees a "Secure Airport" program to coordinate police forces at Benito Juárez, said it had detected no signs of personnel at the facility being co-opted by traffickers. (Excelsior, Notimex, El Universal, June 26; LAT, June 25)

After more than a week of student anti-austerity demonstrations in Sudan, President Omar al-Bashir finally responded to the movement on June 24, telling a gathering of students affiliated to his ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum that the protesters are "bubbles and aliens" who will be "dealt with." He urged students not to listen to the "conspirators, traitors and collaborators"—words usually used to describe armed rebels in Darfur and South Kordofan. He also implied the protesters are tools of the US: "We are not afraid of being overthrown by anybody. Not America or anyone else because it is Allah who gives the rule." In comments the next day, Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud said the government had no choice but to cut spending in response to a budget gap. "If international oil prices go up, we'll increase fuel prices," he told reporters in Khartoum. "We will not retreat from the decision to lift the subsidies."

The Ninth Indigenous March, now camped at Yolosa on the edge of the Bolivian Altiplano, held a celebration June 21 of the Aymara New Year festival, Willkakuti or "Return of the Sun"—marking year 5520 in Aymara calendric reckoning. For the first time, the festival was jointly honored by the Aymara and indigenous peoples of Bolivia's Amazon lowlands who have joined together for the Ninth March under the respective leadership of the National Council of Ayllus and Markas (CONAMAQ) and the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Oriente of Bolivia (CIDOB). Leaders of the two groups pledged to renew their commitment to fight for the protection of Mother Earth and indigenous rights in both the Altiplano and Amazon. (CONAMAQ statement [PDF], June 21)

A US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent shot a man to death in Honduras during a raid on a smuggling operation in the wee hours of June 23, the US embassy announced. The man who was killed had been reaching for his weapon, and the agent fired in self-defense, the statement said. The incident marks the first confirmed time a DEA agent has killed during an operation since the agency began deploying teams to Latin America over a generation ago.

Mexico's government admitted June 23 that it had mistakenly identified a detained man as the son of the country's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquín Guzmán AKA "El Chapo"—leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Just a day earlier, a man arrested in the Guadalajara suburb of Zapopan was paraded before the media as Jesús Alfredo Guzmán AKA "El Gordo"—his capture hailed as the most important blow against the cartel in years. But a lawyer purporting to speak for the Guzmán family released a statement denying that the suspect in custody was the fugitive kingpin's son. The arrested man's mother spoke to journalists, denying any link to Joaquín Guzmán or the Sinaloa Cartel. The Prosecutor General was forced to acknowledge that the arrested man was in fact Félix Beltrán León, a car salesman. Nonetheless, Beltrán León and his brother Kevin were ordered jailed for 40 days while they are investigated for organized crime links. (BBC News, El Universal, June 23; BBC News, LAT, June 22)

Paraguay's Senate voted June 22 to remove populist President Fernando Lugo from office—a move blasted by Lugo as an "express coup d'etat." While saying he would abide by the decision, he added, referring to himself in the third person: "Today it is not Fernando Lugo who is receiving a coup, but Paraguay's history, its democracy." Legislators quickly swore in the vice president, Federico Franco, as Paraguay's new leader. The Senate move came the day after Paraguay's lower house Chamber of Deputies voted to impeach Lugo over charges of malfeasance—mostly related to a clash last week between peasant squatters and police that left 17 dead. The affair had already led to the resignation of Lugo's interior minister and chief of police. The Senate gave Lugo just two hours to defend himself in a public trial; he declined to appear, instead sending lawyers to request 18 days to prepare his defense. They were rebuffed by the Senate president, Jorge Oviedo, leading to the vote of 39 to 4, with two absent.

One protester was gravely hurt with a head injury as National Police attacked a demonstration against the planned Conga gold mine project in Peru's northern city of Cajamarca June 21. Seven were arrested as police unleashed tear gas, and protesters responded with sticks and hurled rocks. Authorities said five police officers were also injured in the confrontation in the city's Plaza Bolognes—which came as Cajamarca's regional president Gregorio Santos was leading a rally against the mine in the city's Plaza de Armas, just a few blocks away. (El Comercio, June 21) When two rights attorneys—Genoveva Gómez of the Defensoría del Pueblo (human rights ombudsman) and Amparo Abando of the National Human Rights Coordinator— entered at city's National Police headquarters to inquire after the seven detained, they were themselves attacked by police, both suffering bruises. (Celendin Libre, June 22)