A week after border skirmishes were reported, Djibouti has accused neighboring Eritrea of illegally intruding into its territory. Djibouti's Foreign Minister Mahmoud Ali Youssef told AlJazeera June 20 that Eritrean troops crossed the border on the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait. "Eritrean troops entered Djiboutian territory and took more land," he said. "Right now, Eritrean troops are stationed inside Djiboutian territories."

In a bizarre irony for a state that rules in the name of Arab nationalism, Mauritanian authorities detained Mohamed Nema Oumar, publisher of Al-Houriya weekly, June 12, holding him for some 30 hours at a police station in the the capital Nouakchott—after an article he wrote criticized a politician for participating in festivities marking Israel's 60th anniversary.

More Nigerian government troops are being mobilized to the Niger Delta region, in preparation for military action against the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), after a militant attack on Royal Dutch Shell's Bonga oil field forced the company to halt production June 19. In a statement, President Umaru Yar'Adua said that the mobilization "does not amount to a declaration of war in the region but that the offensive by the military will be against criminality and criminals who take advantage of the situation in the Niger Delta to perpetrate criminality." (Nigerian Tribune, June 21) He appears to be indicating that the MEND are criminals, no?

Little more than a week after the Canadian government announced the completion of free trade talks with Colombia, that country's national daily, El Tiempo, reports [June 14] that the Águilas Negras (Black Eagles), a violent right-wing paramilitary organization, has sent threatening emails to the Canadian Embassy in Bogotá.

Two weeks after completing the exhumation of the largest mass grave found in Peru's history, the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) returned to Putis [June 18] to begin work on exhuming four additional graves from a December 1984 massacre. As the Peruvian government faces renewed pressure from the human rights community to divulge the names of those responsible for the massacre, EPAF returned to the remote site high within the Andes where 123 men, women, and children were shot more than two decades ago by the Peruvian military.

Chinese mining company Chinalco has gained rights to exploit copper at Peru's Mount Toromocho, to be used in electrification projects in China. The $3 billion project will entail the removal of the entire town of Morococha (Yauli province, Junín region). Residents voted to approve the relocation across the valley last year, on promises of government aid. But nearly half the residents supported a "no" campaign, rejecting the terms as inadequate. (BBC, June 17)

Riots erupted in Osaka's Kamagasaki district after a day-laborer was arrested June 12, and reportedly tied to a chair and beaten in police custody. When he was released the next day and told comrades what had happened, a protest of several hundred was held outside the police station. Riot police with body armor and water cannons were mobilized. At least seven were arrested in two nights of clashes. (Infoshop, June 16; UK Indymedia, June 15)

From Physicians for Human Rights, June 18:

Medical Evidence Supports Detainees’ Accounts of Torture in US Custody
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has published a landmark report documenting medical evidence of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on 11 men detained at US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, who were never charged with any crime. The physical and psychological evaluation of the detainees and documentation of the crimes are based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims. The report also details the severe physical and psychological pain and long-term disability that has resulted from abusive and unlawful US interrogation practices.