From Human Rights Watch, Sept. 4:

The de facto authorities in Tripoli, the National Transitional Council (NTC), should stop the arbitrary arrests and abuse of African migrant workers and black Libyans assumed to be mercenaries, Human Rights Watch said today. They should release those detained as mercenaries solely due to their dark skin color, Human Rights Watch said, and provide prompt judicial review to any for whom there is evidence of criminal activity.

The indigenous Telengit people in Russia's Altai Republic (see map) are turning to the international community to help stop a new gas pipeline to China that would cut through their sacred lands and a UN-recognized World Heritage Site. When first announced in 2006 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, the 2,700-kilometer Altai Pipeline was slated to be complete by the end of 2011, but construction is only about to begin now due to cost disputes. Cultural Survival warns that the pipeline would bisect the Ukok Plateau, sacred to the Telengit, and the Golden Mountains of Altai, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as Kanas National Park in China's Xinjiang province, one of that country's last undeveloped wilderness areas.

Hundreds of activists from throughout South Korea have gathered in force on Jeju Island, off the country's southern coast, to hold a "peace event" aimed at halting construction of a naval base slated to be used by US forces. The event, including a concert and cultural activities, opened Sept. 3—one day after riot police dispersed protesters at the island's Gangjeong village, who held a sit-in to block construction equipment. After the blockade was broken, and 38 arrested, work crew commenced construction of a perimeter fence around the construction site.

The UN on Sept. 2 issued its its report on the deadly May 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, criticizing Israel for using "excessive and unreasonable" force but finding that the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip itself is lawful. Prepared by a panel headed by former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer for the office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the report found:

Over the past days, more than 500 Tuaregs, including women and children, have crossed from Libya to Algeria, claiming they were forced to flee their homes by anti-Qaddafi fighters. The Tuaregs have taken refuge at the Algerian desert town of Debdeb, where they are receiving aid from the Red Crescent. Many fled from the Libyan desert city of Ghadames after it was occupied by anti-Qaddafi forces. Refugees said the fighters wrote "Death to Tuaregs" on the city's walls, and killed one Tuareg resident. The governments of Mali and Niger meanwhile report that hundreds of former Tuareg rebels who had gone to Libya to fight for Qaddafi are now returning home. Qaddafi backed the Tuareg insurgencies in Mali and Niger in the 1990s, and then recruited former rebels to fight for him when the Libyan revolution broke out. The reports from Ghadames indicate some anti-Qaddafi forces are now taking retribution against Tuaregs indiscriminately. The Tuaregs are the indigenous people of the interior Sahara, their vast and sparsely populated homeland now divided between the nations of Libya, Algeria, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. (France24, Sept. 2; Ennahar Online, Sept. 1; AFP, Aug. 30)

The president of Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, denied Aug. 30 any presence of elements of the Polisario Front in the country, in response to a question at a Benghazi press conference about claims aired by Moroccan media that TNC forces have arrested some 556 members of the Western Sahara armed independence movement. The Sahrawi government and the Polisario Front last week said they denied categorically the charges made by the Morocco Board News Service Aug. 25 that Polisario fighters serving as mercenaries for Qaddafi had been detained in Libya. The joint statement called for an urgent independent inquiry into the allegations, and invited the new Libyan authorities to issue a denial. (Sahara Press Service, Aug. 31)

Clashes between police and Shi'ite protesters continue in Bahrain, fueled by the killing of a 14-year-old boy by riot police Aug. 31. The government of the Persian Gulf island state said it would "await a full investigation" by the Interior Ministry before drawing any conclusions about the death. Media reports said the youth was hit with a tear-gas canister in the oil hub area of Sitra. The new protests erupted on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr festival. The death of another protester, the first since early July, comes days after King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa said he would pardon some imprisoned protesters as "reconciliatory gestures" after a Saudi-backed crackdown began in March. Street fighting centers around districts near the Pearl Roundabout, the center of anti-government protests that began in February. Bahrain demolished the landmark Pearl Monument at the center of the plaza in March after it became a symbol of the protests. (CNN, Sept. 1; FT, AlJazeera, Aug. 31)

Peru's new minister of energy and mines, Carlos Herrera Descalzi, said Aug. 31 that the Camisea consortium has been given two years to find new natural gas reserves to meet its export contracts, and that all gas from Lot 88, already under development in the rainforest of Cuzco region, would after that time be used to meet domestic demand. Herrera said the government was taking the move in response to "the just demand of the country." But he added: "All the contracts have been signed under the belief that there is more gas in Peru, that we were going to find more. What we are saying is that there is a two-year term to find more gas, a reasonable time frame for them to find more gas or to find another guarantee that isn't Block 88." President Ollanta Humala Tasso added after a meeting with leaders of the General Confederation of Workers of Peru (CGTP): "We have work to do on the issue of energy. We have failed to resolve the problem, and we want to do so in good faith, and without the necessity to resort to other methods." The previous administration of Alan García had started talks on changing the contract with the Camisea consortium, but those efforts stalled. (La Republica, Andina, Andina, Aug. 31)