Activists in Nairobi say police used tear-gas against several hundred protesters marching on the offices of Kenya's president and prime minister to demand action over a growing hunger crisis in the East African nation on July 7. Dinah Awuor Agar, the president of a group of low-wage workers known as the People's Parliament, said the demonstrators were holding a peaceful procession when riot police charged them. Agar said police chased down protesters, beat them with batons and arrested them, despite the fact Kenya's new constitution allows peaceful demonstrations. Charles Owino, a police spokesman, said police dispersed the protesters because the demonstration was illegal. East Africa has been hard hit by drought a rising food prices. (AP, July 7)

Mauritanian security forces repelled a militant attack on an army base located in the southeastern town of Bassiknou near the border with Mali, authorities said July 6. The attack was reportedly carried out by militants of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Mauritanian military claimed the militants were pushed across the border into Mali, and that its troops had killed at least 10 of the attackers and captured several other.

A new report by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon into the violence along the Israeli-Lebanon border on Nakba Day harshly criticizes the Israeli army for using unnecessary force in firing on protesters. The report was released this week to the 15 members of the Security Council, with a copy also passed on to Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper. The study focuses on the events of May 15 when thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon marched on the Israeli border. As the protesters tried to scale the fence, Israeli troops opened fire, killing seven and injuring 111, the report finds. The report states that Israeli troops "used direct live fire against unarmed demonstrators" and urged the army to avoid doing so in situations where there was no immediate threat to life.

A roadside bomb killed two US soldiers July 7 at a checkpoint outside Victory Base Camp in Baghdad. The attack follows the deadliest month for US troops in Iraq in two years. June saw 15 US soldiers killed in Iraq, nearly all in attacks by Shi'ite militias. The 46,000 US troops currently stationed in Iraq are to leave by year’s end under a 2008 withdrawal agreement. However, the White House is "offering" to keep up to 10,000 soldiers in the country beyond that deadline, if asked by Iraq's government. (AP, July 7)

For weeks all eyes have been on the Libyan rebels who have seized the coastal city of Benghazi in the east of the country from which they have repeatedly advanced on Tripoli—and repeatedly been driven back. Now a new advance has been launched on Tripoli from the interior Nafusa Mountains to the southwest, and reached the Gualish plains that flank the capital on the south. The army of Berber rebels has received air-drops of arms from France, and is apparently coordinating its advance with NATO air-strikes. "We waited before launching this assault and finally got the green light from NATO this morning and the offensive began," an unnamed rebel leader from the hilltown of Zintan told AFP. The rebels have gained strength and legitimacy from the recent defection to their ranks of Gen. Mohammed Ali Dhech, a key figure from Qaddafi's army. (Middle East Online, July 7; FT, July 1)

The US has brought Somali terror suspect Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame to the US to face a civil trial in New York after holding him at sea for two months, the Obama administration disclosed July 5—immediately prompting harsh criticism from both civil libertarians and Republicans. Warsame was captured by US forces on April 19 in what prosecutors would identify only as somewhere "in the Gulf region." He was detained on a US Navy ship for interrogation until being sent to the US for trial this week. In an appearance July 5 at US District Court for the Southern District of New York, he pleaded not guilty to charges of providing material support to a terrorist group and conspiring to teach and demonstrate how to make explosives. The indictment charges Warsame with providing material support to the Somali insurgent group al-Shabaab and to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. If convicted, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

Henry Castellanos Garzón AKA "Romaña", a leader of Colombia's FARC guerillas, was sentenced in absentia to 22 years and nine months in prison for orchestrating numerous attacks and kidnappings in Meta department, Colombian media reported July 5. At the trial in the departmental capital Villavicencio, prosecutors cited reports by residents of La Uribe municipality that they had been victims of displacement, theft, threats and homicide by FARC fighters on the orders of Castellanos Garzón. "Romaña" was convicted of terrorism, conspiracy to commit crimes and aggravated theft, and orders for his arrest were reissued by the judge. However, the order seemingly contradicts widespread reports last year that Romaña was killed along with the FARC's former second-in-command, "Mono Jojoy," in a raid know as "Operation Sodoma." (Colombia Reports, July 5)

The Tahrir, a Canadian ship taking part in the planned aid flotilla to Gaza, was forced to return to Aghios Nikolaos harbor in Crete after an attempt to reach international waters was thwarted by coast guards after just 15 minutes on July 4. But another flotilla vessel, the Dignite al Karama, managed to slip past Greek authorities that night, and is believed to have reached international waters. Activists on board will have to decide whether to proceed to Gaza without the other vessels that remain immobilized in Greece. The vessel's passengers include Olivier Besancenot, head of the New Left Party in France, and French member of the European Parliament Nicole Kiil-Nilsen. Charges have meanwhile been dropped against the captain of the US ship Audacity of Hope, who was arrested near Athens. (AlJazeera, AlJazeera, July 5)