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)

A double suicide attack killed at least 19 Shi'ite pilgrims and wounded 75 in a town outside Iskandariya Aug. 14. Two female suicide bombers detonated their explosives vests amid the group of pilgrims headed for Karbala to commemorate the birth of the Twelfth Imam. In another incident, a roadside bomb killed at least two pilgrims and wounded seven more as they walked through Karrada, a central Baghdad's neighborhood, embarking on the pilgrimage. (AlJazeera, Aug. 14)

The Polish government signed a deal Aug. 14 to host a 10 interceptor missiles at a site along Poland's Baltic Sea coast as a part of the US "missile shield" plan. The site, staffed by US forces, would complement a US radar installation to be based in the Czech Republic. Washington says those facilities, to be operational by 2013, would complete an anti-missile system already in place in the US, Greenland, and Britain. In return, Poland will receive "enhanced security cooperation"—most significantly, a separate missile defense system for its own armed forces. A US Patriot missile battery is to be relocated to Poland from Germany for this purpose, to be initially operated jointly with the US. (NYT, RFE/RL, Aug. 15)

Russia says it is gathering evidence for charges of genocide against Georgia, accusing it of driving 30,000 refugees out of South Ossetia. Georgia responded by filing a case against Russia at the International Court of Justice for ethnic cleansing between 1993 and 2008. (London Times, Aug. 13) Human Rights Watch reports that on Aug. 12, its researchers "saw ethnic Georgian villages still burning from fires set by South Ossetian militias, witnessed looting by the militias, and learned firsthand of the plight of ethnic Ossetian villagers who had fled Georgian soldiers during the Georgian-Russian conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia." (HRW, Aug. 13)

A suicide car bomb attack on security forces killed eight civilians and injured 19 at Zemmouri, Boumerdes province, 30 miles east of Algiers, Aug. 9. The checkpoint blast outside a barracks targeted troops of the Coast Guard and National Gendarmerie. Interior Minister Noureddine Yazid Zerhouni said the attack appeared to have been in retaliation for an army ambush that killed 12 rebels late last week. The ambush was said to be part of the army's pursuit of rebels behind a car bombing in Tizi Ouzou on Aug. 3 that wounded 25 people. (Reuters, Algeria Watch, Aug. 11) Three Gendarmes were also injured when a remote-controlled bomb targeted a patrol near Tassalast beach in Tizi Ouzou province Aug. 9. Two other bombs were dismantled by security services on Aug. 10 in the area of Tigzirt in Tizi Ouzou. (Magharebia, Aug. 12)

Sheikh Abdul Aziz, a leader of the separatist Hurriyat Conference, was killed as some 100,000 Muslim Kashmiris made an unprecedented attempt to breach the Line of Control (LoC) Aug. 11. In Chehel, about 28 miles from the LoC, where Abdul Aziz was shot, marchers pushed aside barricades and clashed with security forces, who fired on the crowd. One other marcher was reportedly wounded. Two armored cars were burnt in the nearby town of Baramullah. (London Times, NYT, Aug. 12) Twelve protesters were shot to death in different parts of India-controlled Kashmir Aug. 12—at least four of them at the funeral for Abdul Aziz in Bandipora. (Dawn, Aug. 13) The Press Trust of India places the two-day death toll in Kashmir at 21—mostly protesters shot by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). (PTI, Aug. 13)

With the Olympics in Beijing in full course, three security officials were killed Aug. 12 at a road block 30 kilometers from Kashgar, Xinjiang. The official Chinese press agency “Xinhua said assailants jumped from a vehicle passing through the checkpoint and stabbed the agents. "These were just some terrorists," said a local police officer in Yamanya, Shule county, where the attack occurred. A fourth security official was wounded in an attack in Yamanya town, according to the New China News Agency. The assailants remain at large. (WP, Aug. 13; AGI, TVNZ, Aug. 12)