At the People's Summit being held on the sidelines of the Rio +20 UN environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Oriente (CIDOB) denounced President Evo Morales for violating the rights of indigenous peoples in Bolivia's eastern lowlands. Announced CIDOB vice president Nelly Romero: "We have unmasked the double standard that [Morales] has in his discourse on the international level, making believe that he is a defender of indigenous peoples, of the rights of the indigenous peoples of Mother Earth, of the natural resources and the forest." Celso Padilla, president of the Continental Council of the Guaraní People, noted the death of two indigenous leaders in a traffic accident on the cross-country march now underway to oppose construction of a highway through the TIPNIS indigenous reserve. "This wouldn't have happened if the president had not been infatuated with building the highway through the TIPNIS; the only one responsible is him." (Erbol, June 20)

In a statement issued June 19 at its Stuttgart headquarters, US Africa Command chief Gen. Carter F. Ham said last year's Operation Odyssey Dawn, the NATO mission in Libya, "imparted important lessons [for] the Defense Department's newest combatant command" and said it "welcomes a new African partner to the fold while still dealing with some of the residual challenges left by the former regime." Gen. Ham said that AfriCom "is forming a new military-to-military relationship with the Libyans and is working to strengthen its long-term military-to-military relationship with the Tunisians." Speaking about the Pentagon's future role on the African continent, Ham stated: "It is probably not going to be very often where Africa Command goes to the more kinetic, the more offensive operations in Africa. But nonetheless, we have to be ready to do that if the president requires that of us." (US Africa Command, June 19 via AllAfrica)

Thousands of Egyptians filled Cairo's Tahrir Square June 19 to protest the ruling military council's assumption of new powers, amid contesting claims by both presidential candidates of victory in the weekend's election. "General Ahmed Shafik is the next president of Egypt,'' said a spokesman for his campaign, asserting that the candidate won some 500,000 votes more than Muslim Brotherhood challenger Mohammed Mursi. Protesters chanted "Down with military rule!" The rally was jointly called by the Muslim Brotherhood and the April 6 Youth Movement to oppose a decree by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) dissolving the Islamist-led parliament, following a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling last week decried as a "military coup." (AlJazeera, June 19; Ahram Online, June 15; Aswat Masriya via AllAfrica, June 14)

Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's leading presidential candidate, this week appointed Gen. Oscar Naranjo, former chief of Colombia's National Police, to work as an "external advisor" for public security if he wins the July 1 election. Peña Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), called Colombia a "successful example" for Mexico in the fight against drug cartels. Naranjo is credited with helping take down Medellín Cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar in 1993, and more recent gains against the FARC guerillas. In a press conference with Peña Nieto, Naranjo employed the rhetoric of Colombia's so-called "democratic security" model: "Security, understood as a democratic value, is expressed in policies that are totally inclusive, that protect everyone." An official biography of Naranjo distributed to reporters lists him as an "honorary member" of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

After six weeks without generating any nuclear power, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda this week succeeded in lobbying local authorities in Fukui prefecture to approve the restart of two reactors at the Ohi nuclear complex, raising the specter of widespread power shortages over the summer. The archipelago nation got more than 30% of its electrical energy from nuclear generation before the Fukushima disaster that gradually shut down the whole nuclear production network was shut for safety checks and upgrades after last year's Fukushima disaster. Activists opposing the return to nuclear power are holding a cross-country "March for Life" from Fukushima to Hiroshima—where they will meet with hibakusha, survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings of August 1945. The dwindling hibakusha have re-emerged as a voice warning of the dangers of radiation since the Fukushima disaster. (LAT, 命の行進-2012, June 15)

A US prosecutor has filed drug trafficking charges against a retired Colombian police general who was former President Alvaro Uribe's security chief, newspaper El Tiempo reported June 15. According to the charges filed before the Eastern District Court of Virginia, retired Gen. Mauricio Santoyo Velasco collaborated with paramilitary organization AUC and Medellín-based crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado between 2000 and 2008. Santoyo was Uribe's security chief between 2002 and 2006 after which he was named military attaché in Italy.

Iran announced June 12 that it plans to build its first nuclear-powered submarine—days before talks with world powers on its nuclear program were set to begin. "Preliminary steps in making an atomic submarine have started and we hope to see the use of...nuclear submarines in the navy in the future," deputy navy commander Abbas Zamini was quoted as saying by Iran's Fars News Agency. (Reuters, June 12) Last month, Israel received its fourth German-made submarine—capable of launching nuclear warheads. Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the submarine would increase Israel's capabilities "in the face of the growing regional challenges." The Dolphin-type military submarine is one of six Israel has ordered from Germany, which subsidizes the sales. (AP, May 3) Germany's Der Spiegel newspaper, citing unnamed sources, said it has learned that Israel is arming the submarines with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Officials said the German government has known about Israel's nuclear weapons program for decades, despite official denials, and assumed nuclear arms would be used on the subs. (Der Spiegel, June 3)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) will analyze information regarding the Colombian army murdering civilians and disguising them as guerillas killed in combat to artificially inflate its enemy kill count. "We are asking [the government] about this issue, they have responded to us about the cases currently under investigation. We are preparing a report about this, but for now we are in the process of analyzing," said the court's outgoing prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in an interview with Spanish news agency EFE June 13.