Venezuelan authorities Oct. 30 announced the arrest of eight Colombians and two local residents suspected of paramilitary activities in western Táchira state near the border between the two countries. Interior Minister Tarek El Aissami said the detained Colombians included a known paramilitary leader. Two firearms were captured with them, he said. "All these people were intimidating the local population and especially threatening local businessmen," he told state TV. "These people were handing out pamphlets, as the paramilitaries do, saying social cleansing was going to start—that is to say murders and disappearances." (Reuters, Oct. 30)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Oct. 30 warned both the Colombian government and illegal armed groups that it will not hesitate to prosecute those who commit war crimes in the country's violent conflict. "There are many crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC, including forced displacement, disappearances, the use of child soldiers, sexual violence, torture, killings and hostage-taking," Marcelo Pollack, head of Amnesty International Colombia, told the Bogotá daily El Espectador.

In a private ceremony, US Ambassador William Brownfield and three Colombian ministers signed an agreement Oct. 30 to expand Washington's military presence in the Andean country. Officials said the plan will increase US access to seven Colombian bases for 10 years for "counterterrorism and counternarcotics" operations—without increasing the number of personnel beyond the cap of 1,400 now specified by US law. A Colombian government statement said the pact "respects the principles of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity and nonintervention in the internal affairs of other states."

The Pakistani media have quoted Taliban and al-Qaeda sources denying responsibility for the car bomb that ripped through a market in Peshawar Oct. 28, killing 105 people, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived on a visit to Pakistan. The same day saw a dawn attack in Kabul, in which six UN employees and three guards were killed in a gunfight that also left three assailants dead. Islamist denials of a hand in the attacks have sparked a frenzy of conspiracy-theorizing in the Pakistani press.

On Oct. 23 negotiators for deposed Honduran president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales gave up on talks to end a four-month political crisis in Honduras. The negotiations had been "worn down" by the intransigence of de facto president Roberto Micheletti Bain's government, Zelaya representative Mayra Mejía announced in Tegucigalpa.

On Oct. 23 the Washington, DC-based polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner released the results of a survey involving face-to-face interviews held Oct. 9-13 with 621 randomly selected Hondurans; the firm didn't give the margin of error. According to the survey, 60% of Hondurans disapproved of the June 28 removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office, while only 38% approved. Some 19% rated Zelaya's performance in office as "excellent" and another 48% as "good"; the poll showed 57% personally disapproving of Roberto Micheletti, de facto president since Zelaya's overthrow, while 28% approved.

A number of legal experts are challenging an August report by the US Law Library of Congress claiming the June overthrow of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya was in accordance with Honduras' 1982 Constitution. Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) requested the report from the library and released it Sept. 24, incorrectly attributing it to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. It has been cited regularly since then by US supporters of the de facto Honduran government.

The neo-Nazis arrested last week on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack in the Czech Republic were trained by a member of the Czech armed forces, authorities say. Czech national police commander Oldrich Martinu made the announcement on Czech TV Oct. 25. Military training of the far-right militants was also mentioned by Robert Slachta, head of the Organized Crime Detection Unit (ÚOOZ), after evaluating film footage of the training. In the footage masked men taught the neo-Nazis how to disable an opponent armed with a knife or gun.