President Evo Morales announced Aug. 24 he has put all of Bolivia's gas and oil installations under military protection, as protesters in Santa Cruz, Chuquisaca and Tarija departments prepare new actions to resist national control of the hydrocarbon resources. "I've spoken with armed forces commander in chief, General Luis Trigo, who has precise instructions to safeguard and defend the Bolivian people," Morales told a meeting of pro-government labor unions in Cochabamba. "The government will protect the pipelines and valves." (AFP, Aug. 25)

The first US war resister deported from Canada was sentenced to 15 months in prison Aug. 22 at a court martial hearing in Colorado. Pte. Robin Long, 25, of Boise, Idaho, was also given a dishonorable discharge after pleading guilty to charges of desertion. The sentence was the longest any convicted army deserter has received since the beginning of the current Iraq war, according to retired US Army Col. Ann Wright, a former diplomat who resigned from her post in protest at the war's outset. Wright testified against the legality of the Iraq war on Long's behalf. Of the thousands of soldiers sentenced for desertion or going AWOL, only former army sergeant Kevin Benderman received an equal term in 2005.

In a charter flight that left on Aug. 12 from Seattle, Wash., US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported 106 people—including eight women—to Indonesia, Philippines and Cambodia. The 49 Filipinos, 44 Indonesians and 13 Cambodians were taken from different locations around the US to the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma in preparation for the flight. The deportees included 46 people with criminal convictions. ICE officers and medical staff with the Division of Immigration Health Services accompanied the flight, along with consular officials from the countries involved.

From Aug. 11 to 16, agents arrested 42 foreign nationals in an ICE-led operation targeting street gangs in the metropolitan area of Salt Lake City, Utah. The sweep was carried out with the assistance of the US Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Attorney's Office, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and the Salt Lake City and Midvale police departments. One of the arrested immigrants was from Guatemala, one was from Honduras, three were from El Salvador and the rest were from Mexico. Of the total 42 people arrested, 10 face federal charges for reentry after deportation; one faces federal charges for illegal possession of a firearm; and 11 others are being prosecuted on state charges. The remaining 20 people were arrested on administrative immigration violations.

Deadly violence is reported across Mexico Aug. 23. In Hidalgo, the bullet-riddled body of state police chief Raymundo Zamorano was found on a roadside a day after he was kidnapped at gunpoint while patrolling the streets of Pachuca in his official car. A Tabasco state police officer was gunned down at a police highway checkpoint near Villahermosa by hitmen in three pickup trucks. A second officer was wounded in the shooting. In Chihuahua state, 13 people, including four police officers, were killed—mostly in Ciudad Juarez, where prosecutors and judicial authorities were holding a regional summit. Among those killed in the city was Jesús Blanco, the new municipal police chief of Villa Ahumada. Two police were also killed in an armed attack on a checkpoint in Mazatlán, Sinaloa. In Valladolid, Yucatán, a taxi driver supposedly linked to the city's narcomenudista (low-level dealer) network was assassinated. (AFP, El Universal, El Universal, Aug. 23)

Afghanistan's interior ministry says US-led forces killed 76 civilians in an Aug. 20 operation—directly contradicting the US military, which said 30 suspected Taliban died. "Seventy-six people, all civilians and most of them women and children, were martyred during the operation by coalition forces in Shindand district of Herat province," the ministry said Aug. 22. "Nineteen women, seven men and the rest children all under 15 years of age," were killed in the operation, the statement said—one of the highest civilian deaths tolls since the 2001 US-led invasion.

A Los Angeles Times report, "US debates going after militants in Pakistan," mostly quotes unnamed US officials as saying direct intervention in Pakistan is being viewed with greater seriousness as the country spins out of control. One attributed quote is from Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said some two months ago a team of up to 30 advisors would be sent to Pakistan this summer to operate out of a base near Peshawar, where a "significant number" of Pakistani military and Frontier Corps personnel would be put through a counterinsurgency training program. (LAT, Aug. 23)

The International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI) has called for an international campaign on behalf of several labor activists in Iran who have been sentenced to public whipping, prison terms and even death—mostly for participating in a May Day march in Sanandaj, and protests against the march's repression. The sentences were announced earlier this month. IASWI provides the following list of persecuted activists: