After three days of searching, Nuevo León state police on July 25 uncovered a total of 51 bodies from a clandestine narcofosa ("narco-grave") in a garbage dump in Benito Juárez municipality, outside Monterrey. There have been numerous such grisly findings in Mexico in recent months, but authorities say this was the biggest. Most of the bodies are of people age 20-30, and three are female. Some were some burned and mutilated. Police estimate they were buried within the past two weeks. Identification is pending forensic work.

The Colombian government is denying reports of a mass grave found in the Meta department on the eastern plains, charging that the allegation is a strategy to derail the Andean nation's free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union (EU). A group of NGOs and activists headed by Sen. Piedad Córdoba reported last week that a grave containing 2,000 bodies had been found in the Meta municipality La Macarena, next to an army installation. The finding was corroborated by an international human rights commission led by six members of the European Parliament.

Hugo Rodas Morales, author of Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz, socialismo vivido, a new biography of the Bolivian socialist leader who "disappeared" in the military coup d'etat of July 1980, says that the martyred activist's remains are buried under the central flagpole at the headquarters of the armed forces high command in the Miraflores district of La Paz. Rodas cites a confession by School of the Americas graduate Col. Édgar Franco Montenegro that Quiroga Santa Cruz was buried below the high command flagpole after the coup. "We know that the remains are hostage of the armed forces," said Rodas. "The recognition of this reality is documented, there is no doubt that the remains are there."

On July 1 the Peruvian government notified Father Paul McAuley, an environmental activist in the northern Amazonian department of Loreto, that the Interior Ministry is rescinding his residency, which he has held since 2006. The order to expel the British priest, who has called Peru home for the past 20 years, comes on the heels of his efforts to ensure accountability for the massive June 19 PlusPetrol oil spill, which contaminated several rainforest communities.

On July 21, over 80 indigenous Yukpa people arrived in Caracas for the third time from the Sierra de Perijá and began a protest vigil in front of the Venezuelan Supreme Court. The protesters are demanding a ruling on an appeal introduced in February to determine that three arrested Yukpas can be judged under indigenous law rather than the national legal system.

Three months have now passed since the Deepwater Horizon oil gusher began in the Gulf of Mexico. The "spill" (as it is generally called, not quite accurately) was only last week brought under tentative and temporary control. Politicians exploit the disaster, while some environmentalists warn (hyperbolically, we hope) of a potential "Earth extinction event" if it isn't contained. Our June Exit Poll (extended into July for lack of responses) was: "Will future generations note April 20, 2010 as a greater turning point than Sept. 11, 2001?" We finally received the following responses:

Police raided and shut down electrical workers unions across Iraq in mid-July, carrying out an order from the Ministry of Electricity that prohibits "all trade union activities at the ministry and its departments and sites" and authorizes police "to close all trade union offices and bases and to take control of unions' assets properties and documents, furniture and computers."

Rallies have been held in London, Paris, New York, Berlin, Ottawa and other cities around the world to support Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic for adultery. Ashtiani has been incarcerated since 2005 and has already received received 99 lashes. She was initially sentenced to death by stoning, but the execution was put on hold earlier this month after an international outcry. "We do want to save her life," said Maryam Namazie, a protest organizer in London. "We are hoping this will be a stepping tone to ending stoning and executions in Iran once and for all."