On July 31, ABM Janitorial Services Inc. lured 42 of its employees to its office in King of Prussia, Penn., in the suburbs just northwest of Philadelphia, where US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were waiting to arrest them for immigration violations. The company had sent the workers a memo telling them to attend a 4:30 PM meeting at the offices for training and discussion on new policy procedure, according to Kate Ferranti, a spokesperson for Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represented most of the workers. The employees that attended the meeting were promised one hour of overtime, and were told that they could pick up their weekly paychecks at the beginning of the training; they were warned that if they did not attend, their paychecks would be withheld and they could face disciplinary actions, including termination.

The Mexican Government Secretary (Segob) announced that the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) is pursuing an investigation "without any limits" into the "forced disappearance" of Edmundo Reyes Amaya and Alberto Cruz, presumed militants of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR). Segob also called upon the EPR and the government-appointed Mediation Commission to work to establish conditions for a peace dialogue. (El Financiero, Aug. 14) But the Mediation Commission announced it is temporarily suspending its activities, citing lack of good will on the part of the government. The Commission said the admission of the "forced disappearance" was a "positive" move, but insufficient. At a press conference, Commission member Carlos Montemayor protested lack of access to PGR files on the case. (Milenio, Aug. 14)

Drug-related murders in Mexico have already exceeded last year's total despite the deployment of 30,000 troops to tackle the issue. The Mexican newspaper El Universal said (Aug. 16) 2,682 people across Mexico had been killed since the start of this year, compared to 2,673 in 2007. More than one-third of this year's drug-related killings occurred in Chihuahua. The state has seen 1,026 deaths since January, including 780 in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, where 2,500 soldiers have been deployed to combat narco gangs. (BBC, Aug. 17) At least 10 people were killed, including a four-year-old boy, in a shoot-out Aug. 16 in the Chihuahua mountain town of Creel. The fighting began when men armed with AK-47s opened fire from trucks on a group leaving a dance hall. (El Universal, Aug. 17)

Five opposition governors are declaring a strike next week in Bolivia, vowing to "radicalize" tactics after talks with President Evo Morales broke down. The governors are asking Morales to refund state shares of oil and natural gas income that his government has used to give stipends to elderly citizens. Hours after the Aug. 10 recall referendum, Morales called for regional governors (prefects) that were ratified in their posts to negotiate. Department leaders from Santa Cruz, Beni, Pando, Tarija and Chuquisaca first announced they wouldn't attend the talks at the presidential palace. On Aug. 12, holding their own meeting at Santa Cruz, the prefects capitulated and agreed to meet with the president. But talks broke down over demands for the repeal of the Direct Tax on Hydrocarbons. (AP, Prensa Latina, Aug. 15; AP, Aug. 13)

Colombia's decades-long civil war, US-backed anti-drug measures and resource-hungry multinational corporations are pushing the country's indigenous peoples towards "extinction," local leaders warn. War alone uproots 20,000 Indians from their ancestral homes each year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most of Colombia's 84 indigenous groups have been forced at some time to flee political violence over the past decades. "We lose our identity when we're displaced," said Luis Evelis Andrade, president of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). "We feel lost in the big cities and it's an alien habitat for us. Our ties and traditions are with our Mother Earth. Once we leave (our lands), our language and family structures begin to break down."

Seven people were killed and nearly 50 wounded, including several children, in the most serious Colombian terror attack this year, when a bomb hidden in a trash can exploded at Ituango, a small town in Antioquia department, as residents celebrated a festival the night of Aug. 14. Officials blamed the blast on the FARC guerillas, who they claimed were retaliating for efforts to eradicate nearby coca plantations. President Álvaro Uribe expressed his solidarity with the victims and said, "We reaffirm our iron will to defeat terrorism." (Milenio, Mexico; Ottawa Citizen, Canada, Aug. 16; AP, Aug. 15)

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are demanding the presence of Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo in peace talks the government has brokered following days of angry protests. Marcial Mudarra, subdirector of the Regional Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples (CORPI), is representing the communities in talks with Peru's General Directorate of Original and Afro-Peruvian Peoples. (AIDESEP, Aug. 15) EFE reports that Pluspetrol suspended part of its operations at Bloc 56 of the Camisea natural-gas fields after armed protesters seized the facilities in the Amazonian region of Cuzco Aug. 9. Protesters oppose the government's new polcies promoting oil exploration on indigenous lands. On Aug. 16, the Amazonian indigenous coalition AIDESEP announced that talks had broken down and the occupation would continue, EFE reported. (EFE, Aug. 16; Bloomberg, Reuters, Aug. 12; EFE, Aug. 11)

Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Aug. 16 that Russian-backed separatists in Abkhazia have seized 13 villages in Georgia and the Inguri hydropower plant. Russian army units and separatist forces shifted the border of breakaway Abkhazia toward the Inguri River, setting up a temporary administration in the seized villages. The power plant and most of the villages are in a buffer zone established by the 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire. The buffer zone stretches from Abkhazia's Gali region and Georgia's Zugdidi region, including a narrow strip between Abkhaz territory and the Inguri. Abkhazia's de facto president Sergei Bagapsh acknowledged the Abkhaz move into the buffer zone would violate the ceasefire terms, but asserted that Georgia was the first to break the truce. (AP, Aug. 16)