A helicopter was used for the first time June 13 to help local police hunt poppy plantations in suburban Beijing. The chooper was deployed around mountainous areas in Yanqing district, sending video images of the ground back to the headquarters. "If there is any poppy plantation in these areas, they will be easily discerned by police in the headquarters," said Zhao Wenzhong, a senior officer with the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Four Uighurs from Guantánamo Bay have been released in Bermuda where they hailed their new freedom—but the United Kingdom reproached its overseas territory, saying it should have been consulted on the move. US authorities ignored demands by China for custody of the men, who had served seven years at Guantánamo, flying them June 11 to Bermuda, which accepted them in a guest-worker program. "Growing up under communism, we always dreamed of living in peace and working in free society like this one," Abdul Nasser, speaking on behalf of the four, said in a statement released by their lawyers. Speaking to the people of Bermuda, the statement added: "Today you have let freedom ring."

As Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed election results that show him winning by more than 62%, supporters of his opponent Mir Hossein Moussavi flooded the streets and clashed with riot police in Tehran June 13, saying the vote was rigged. Protesters in Tehran's Moseni Square smashed store fronts and started fires. Moussavi and his supporters said before the votes were counted that the process was tainted, and urged a halt to the counting because of what he called "blatant violations."

Authorities have arrested five suspects in the killing of a journalist in the northern Mexican city of Torreón, Coahuila, the federal Prosecutor General's office announced June 12. Hooded gunmen abducted the journalist, Eliseo Barrón, 35, from his house on May 25, and his body was found the next day. He covered the police for the local newspaper La Opinión, and had written about a police corruption scandal shortly before he was killed. The Prosecutor General's office said the five men had been stopped by soldiers who found drugs and weapons in their car. One of the men, Israel Sánchez Jaimes, confessed to being part of the Zetas narco gang and said he killed Barrón after the group had abducted him. Mexico's drug war has made the country one of the most dangerous in the world for reoporters. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 27 reporters have been killed since 2000 and another eight are missing. (NYT, June 12)

First, the local police in Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city, lost their assault rifles after an armed confrontation with federal agents while protesting the arrest of city officers for suspected drug corruption. Now police in the city will be stripped of cellphones. The legislature in Nuevo León state, this week approved a bill banning city and state police from carrying personal cellphones while on duty in an effort to stop corrupt officers from communicating with narco gangs. Federal forces raided police stations this month in 18 towns in Nuevo León, detaining 78 officers suspected of working with narcos. The operation came after soldiers found lists of police names in the possession of suspected traffickers. (AP, June 10)

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a senior judge in Russia's volatile southern republic of Ingushetia June 10, the latest in a series of attacks in the largely Muslim region. Aza Gazgireyeva, deputy head of Ingushetia's supreme court, died of bullet wounds shortly after her car came under fire in the town of Nazran. The attackers also injured several bystanders before escaping in two cars. Investigators as saying Gazgireyeva was likely killed for her role in investigating the 2004 attack on Ingush police forces by Chechen fighters. (AlJazeera, June 10)

Militants bombed two mosques in in Pakistan June 12, killing at least eight, including a cleric who was an outspoken critic of the Taliban. In Lahore, a suicide bomber detonated his payload inside the religious complex run by Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi, a leading Sunni cleric who was vocal in his opposition to suicide attacks and other Taliban tactics. The attack seemed aimed specifically at Naeemi, whose quarters near the entrance of the mosque were completely destroyed. At least four others were killed in the attack. Another mosque bombing in Nowshera, northwest of Islamabad, killed at least three and injured more than 20.

Following the wave of violent unrest in the Amazon region, on June 10, Peru's congress temporarily suspended two decrees issued by President Alan García that would open vast areas to corporate exploitation and allow companies to bypass indigenous communities in winning permits for resource extraction. The following day, police used batons and tear gas to turn back protesters who marched on the congress building in support of indigenous demands that the laws be overturned. At least 20,000 students, trade unionists and indigenous Peruvians from both the Andean highlands and Amazon lowlands joined protests. Some of the students reportedly hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at police. Several were arrested, but police did not release a figure.