Top FARC commander Jorge Briceño Suárez AKA "Mono Jojoy" was killed Sept. 23 by Colombian government forces. President Juan Manuel Santos confirmed the death of the guerilla leader from New York City, where he is attending the UN General Assembly. The head of the FARC's Eastern Bloc and member of its Secretariat was killed in an air operation in La Macarena region in the central department of Meta. Some 20 other guerrillas were killed and five members of the security forces were injured in the operation, Defense Minister Rodrigo Rivera said.

Federal agents searched homes of anti-war activists in Chicago and Minneapolis Sept. 24 in an investigation of possible links with terrorist organizations. Some 20 FBI agents spent most of the day searching the Logan Square residence of activists Stephanie Weiner and Joseph Iosbaker. In Jefferson Park, neighbors saw FBI agents carrying boxes from the apartment of community activist Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the Arab American Action Network. Chicago activist Thomas Burke said he was served a grand jury subpoena that requested records of any payments to Abudayyeh or his group.

The popular major of Pollica, a town south of Naples on Italy's Tyrrhenian coast, was assassinated Sept. 6 next to his home in the fishing hamlet of Acciaroli. Angelo Vassallo, noted for his efforts to preserve the environment and for standing up to organized crime, was killed with nine lethal shots as he drove his car. Anti-mafia judge Raffaele Marino stressed that Vassallo paid for his stand on respect of the law.

Priciliano Rodríguez Salinas, mayor of Doctor González, a town outside Monterrey, Nuevo León, was shot to death Sept. 23. A group of armed men intercepted the PRI-affiliated mayor as he was arriving at his home near city hall. A companion who was with him in the vehicle was also killed. (Poder 360, Sept. 24)

Sponsor governments of the Middle East peace process called on Israel to extend its settlement moratorium. In a statement released Sept. 21, the Quartet—the US, EU, UN and Russia—called upon Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to extend the 10-month settlement freeze due to expire at the end of September. "The Quartet noted that the commendable Israeli settlement moratorium instituted last November has had a positive impact and urged its continuation," the statement read.

A Canadian-Iranian writer credited with starting the blogging movement in Iran faces the death penalty over his work, two watchdog groups said Sept. 23. Hossein Derakhshan was arrested after returning to Iran in November 2008 and charged with "collaborating with enemy states, creating propaganda against the Islamic regime, insulting religious sanctity, and creating propaganda for anti-revolutionary groups," according to the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) and PEN Canada. According to the two organizations, prosecutors are now calling for Derakhshan to face the death penalty after he was convicted by Tehran's revolutionary court earlier this year. "The proposed sentence is a travesty," said CJFE president Arnold Amber, calling on the Canadian government to intervene. (AFP, Sept. 23)

From AP, Sept. 15:

Cops: Driver using GPS when bus hit NY bridge
SALINA, N.Y. — A double-decker bus driver may have been distracted by his own GPS device when he drove the vehicle into a railroad bridge in central New York, killing four passengers, authorities said Wednesday.

An armed commando of some 40 men with assault rifles ambushed a patrol of the State Ministerial Police (PME) in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero Sept. 18, killing eight and leaving a ninth seriously wounded. The police were attempting at arrest a homicide suspect in El Revelado, Teloloapan municipality, near the border with Mexico state. The bodies of some of the dead officers are reported to have been mutilated when they were recovered. (La Jornada Guerrero, BBC News, LAHT, Sept. 18)