Russia has dispatched the warship Neustrashimy to intercept a Ukrainian freighter, the Faina, carrying 33 Russian-built tanks and other war material seized by pirates off Somalia while en route to Kenya for an arms delivery. US naval ships are also in the area and "monitoring the situation," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "I think we're looking at the full range of options here." With worldwide pirate attacks surging this year, the hijacking could help rally international support behind France, which is pushing aggressively for decisive action against Somali pirates. The crew of the Faina are being held, and the pirates have warned against any effort to re-take the ship. (AP, BBC World Service, Sept. 26)

Three Lashkar-e-Jhangvi militants hurled grenades in an hour-long battle and then blew themselves up after police raided their hideout in Karachi Sept. 26, with authorities saying preventing they prevented major attack in the country's biggest city. "We have saved Karachi from death and destruction. We know who they were and what was their target in Karachi, but we cannot disclose it immediately," Sind provincial police chief Babar Khattak told AFP. The incident occurred hours before Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was due in the city, although there was no official indication that he was the target. Police said they also found the body of a kidnapped local businessman who supplied fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan, and recovered arms and explosives.

Pakistani soldiers fired at US OH-58 Kiowa reconnaissance helicopters that were escorting Afghan and US ground troops along the volatile border Sept. 25, sparking a five-minute ground battle between the countries' military forces. Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, in New York meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said only "flares" were fired at the helicopters, and that they had strayed across the border from Afghanistan into his country's territory. The incursion reportedly took place near Saidgai, in the Ghulam Khan region of North Waziristan.

Kidnappers holding 11 European tourists and eight Egyptians moved from Sudan into Libya with their hostages Sept. 25, the Sudanese government said. Sudanese authorities said a day earlier they had them all surrounded at their encampment near Jebel Oweinat, a mountain near where the borders of Egypt, Sudan and Libya meet. Egyptian officials have said the kidnappers are demanding a large ransom. One security source said they wanted 6 million euros to set the hostages free. "The Libyan authorities have been informed. They are now following the progress of the group," Ahmed said. Ali Youssef Ahmed, head of protocol in the Sudanese Foreign Ministry, told Reuters. (Reuters, Sept. 25; AlJazeera, Sept. 23)

The Camorra, the Naples organized crime machine, has declared "war on the state," Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told the Italian Senate Sept. 24, one day after the government authorized sending 500 soldiers to the Campania region in response to the shooting deaths last week of seven people, six of them African immigrants, in a suspected feud over drug turf in Caserta, north of Naples. Maroni called the killings of the Italian national and the immigrants from Ghana, Liberia and Togo an "act of terrorism." The last time soldiers were used to combat organized crime was in 1992, after Sicilian mobsters assassinated two top judges. Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said the soldiers were needed to cope with a "criminal emergency." (BBC, Sept. 25; LAT, NYT, Sept. 24)

China and Venezuela signed 12 energy agreements in Beijing Sept. 25, calling for the South American country to export half a million barrels of oil a day to the Asian giant starting next year. The deal was signed on the final day of a three-day visit to China by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez. The South American nation is the fifth exporter of crude oil in the world, but currently provides only 4% of Chinese imports of the product. The agreements also involve the construction of a new refinery in Venezuela with Chinese aid. (Radio Australia, Sept. 25)

Latin American currencies rose dramatically on Sept. 19 after the US government proposed an unprecedented $700 billion bailout of US financial companies holding bad debt. The Brazilian real went up 3.5% to 1.8298 to the US dollar, its biggest gain in six years, while the Colombian peso jumped 6.7% to 2,050.9 per dollar—the peso's biggest advance in at least 13 years, according to the Bloomberg news service. The rise in the currencies followed four days of equally dramatic declines as markets reacted to a financial crisis in the US that included the collapse of the Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. investment firm and a $85 billion bailout of the American International Group Inc. (AIG) insurance company. The real fell 4% from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, while in Mexico City, stock prices on the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) fell 8.3% between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17. (Bloomberg, Sept. 19; La Jornada, Mexico, Sept. 18)

On Sept. 15, at least 12,000 Colombian sugar cane cutters went on strike to protest the systematic violation of their labor rights and human rights. The workers cut sugar cane for 16 sugar mills in the Cauca river valley, primarily in the department of Valle del Cauca but also in the neighboring departments of Cauca, to the south, and Risaralda, to the northeast. The same day the strike began, hundreds of agents from the Mobile Anti-Riot Squad (ESMAD) of the Colombian National Police, together with army soldiers and private sugar company guards, attacked a group of striking cane cutters from the Incauca and Providencia sugar mills, injuring more than 100 workers, at least five of them seriously.