In mid-July Citgo—the US oil distributor owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA)—began a program to distribute compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) to low- and middle-income families in Houston and Corpus Christi, Tex.; Lamont, Ill.; Lake Charles, La.; and Washington, DC. Ultimately the program is intended to supply some 460,000 of the energy-saving lightbulbs to homes in these cities and in Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Madison, Wisconsin.

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva arrived in Bogotá on July 18 for a three-day visit to Colombia that included joining Colombian president Alvaro Uribe in the inauguration of a meeting of business leaders from the two countries. On July 19 Lula and Uribe met in the Hatogrande estate on the outskirts of the capital to sign accords on investment, the environment and biofuels, and on security along the 1,500-km border Brazil and Colombia share in the Amazon region.

On July 15 Abdallan Guzmán Cruz, a former deputy in Mexico's federal Congress, charged that unknown persons broke into his home in Morelia, Michoacán, the night of July 7 and stole papers that he had gathered during years of investigation into the disappearance of five relatives from 1974 to 1976, during the Mexican military's "dirty war" against suspected leftists. He said some books formerly considered "subversive" were also stolen, along with 60,000 pesos (about $5,900) and some rings, but other valuable objects were not touched. Guzmán Cruz is an activist in the Diego Lucero Foundation, a human rights group. Another activist from the foundation, Jose Francisco Paredes Ruiz, went missing in September 2007; no information is available on where he is now and on his physical condition.

Excavations at the ex-military barracks at the Mexican village of Atoyac, Guerrero state, to discover the remains of an estimated 470 "dirty war" victims, are expected to conclude this week. Overseen by Argentine anthropologist Claudia Bisso, the excavations were undertaken by the Prosecutor General of the Republic (PGR) following a years of pressure from the local Association of the Families of the Detained, Disappeared and Victims of Human Rights Violations (AFADEM). AFADEM vice president Tita Radilla Martínez said other sites are being identified where excavations will be demanded. She also called for former military leaders to appear in court to reveal the whereabouts of mass graves. "If Gen. Mario Arturo Acosta Chaparro is called to testify, surely he could say where the bodies of our relatives are." (La Jornada Guerrero, July 20; La Jornada, BBC, July 19)

In a letter from chancellor Jaime Bermúdez, the Colombian government formally rejected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's offer to mediate in a peace process with the FARC guerillas. The letter also objected to Ortega's reference to the FARC as "brothers," calling it "offensive to the Colombian nation to grant this kind of treatment to...a terrorist group that commits crimes against humanity." (ANMCLA, July 20)

Cambodia informed the UN Security Council July 20 that Thai forces have violated its territory near the ancient Preah Vihear temple, with hundreds of troops facing off across the border. While Cambodia is not yet calling for UN intervention, some 300 were Thai troops equipped with grenade and rocket launchers were sent to the Phra Viharn national park July 19, with another 2,400 soldiers in Kantharalak district of Thailand's Si Sa Ket province. Some 2,000 Cambodian soldiers have been mobilized to the Cambodian side.

At least 10 were killed in a battle between two rival groups in the Mohmand district of Pakistan's Mohmand Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) July 19. Hundreds of supporters of Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban—popularly known as the Pakistani Taliban—fought members of a breakaway faction of the group, local authorities said. A spokesman for Mehsud's group claimed his fighters had killed 15 members of the rival group and captured 120 others, including Shah Khalid, their senior commander.

The US military and NATO force in Afghanistan (ISAF) say the July 17 raid against "high-priority Taliban targets" in Herat province led to the deaths of two key insurgent tribal leaders—identified as Haji Nazrullah Khan and Haji Dawlat Khan—and a significant number of their followers. The US/ISAF statements denied claims of local tribal elders that dozens of civilians were killed in the air-strike in the Zirko valley of Shindan district.