Grupo Mexico SAB, the world's seventh-largest copper producer, said 30% of employees at the San Martin copper and gold mine (Zacatecas state) didn't report to work July 5 because of a national one-day protest. The strike also halted work at Grupo Mexico's Taxco zinc and silver mine. The National Mining and Metal Workers Union said about 80% of workers at mining and steel companies across Mexico joined the strike to support Grupo Mexico workers. Miners want the company to improve safety conditions. (Bloomberg, July 5)

Peru's National Federation of Miners, Metalworkers and Steelworkers called a nation-wide strike for July 10 and 11, in solidarity with more than 1,500 workers at the Casapalca mine who walked out in May. The conflict has claimed five lives so far. On July 13, the company owners agreed to sit down and talk with the workers and the authorities for the first time.

President Evo Morales pledged to personally negotiate with strikers who have shut down Bolivia's largest tin mine if the 4,800 employees return to work first. Miners at the state-operated Huanuni mine went on strike last week to demand greater administrative control of the mine's growing profits. The strike is costing Bolivian state mining company Comibol the production of some 25 metric tons (27 US tons) of tin ore each day—roughly 80% of the country's total tin output.

The National Intelligence Estimate has reached such findings before. Yet more evidence of what an astonishing success the Global War on Terrorism has been. From McClatchy Newspapers, July 11:

Calling al-Qaida the most potent terrorist threat to U.S. national security, the classified draft makes clear that the Bush administration has been unable to cripple Osama bin Laden and the violent terror movement he founded.

In the wake of the third deadly suicide bombing to hit the country in four months, Algeria's government has vowed to eradicate armed Islamist groups—but also warned of new attacks. Interior Minister Yazid Zerhouni called for "greater vigilance" from the population, and said the latest blast claimed by al-Qaeda would only bolster the government's "determination" to continue its crackdown. The July 11 truck bomb attack on the army barracks at Lakhdaria, which killed 10 soldiers and wounded 35, was designed to coincide with the opening in Algiers of the All Africa Games and the end of a lightning visit by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

After two decades of silence, architect Rosa María Alvarado Martínez come forward July 9 to say that at least three bodies—likely the remains of student protesters killed by the army at Mexico City's Tlatelolco Plaza in 1968—are buried under a hospital near the massacre site. Alvarado said the bodies were discovered in 1981 when the hospital was being renovated, but plainclothes men identifying themselves as police officers threatened to kidnap and kill her son if she went public. The site had previously been a vocational school where student occupiers confronted soldiers during the October 1968 protests. While official reports claim only 25 were killed at Tlatelolco later that month, human rights advocates have claimed up to 350 dead.

Honda, Nissan, Hershey's, Kellogg, Grupo Modelo and other multinational companies temporarily shut their plants in western Mexico after rebels attacked a key natural gas pipeline. The Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) guerrillas claimed responsibility for the explosions. The government ordered an increase in security at "strategic installations" across Mexico. The state monopoly Pemex said an explosion July 10 and two more last week affected different sections of the same pipeline linking Mexico City to Guadalajara. The explosions forced the evacuation of some communities but caused no injuries. In a statement July 10, the EPR said it was waging a "prolonged people's war" against "the anti-popular government."

A suicide bomber targeted a NATO patrol in a marketplace filled with children in Afghanistan's Uruzgan province July 10, killing 13 elementary-school students and at least four other people. Eight Dutch soldiers and at least 35 Afghans were wounded. The Taliban claimed responsibility. (Seattle Times, July 11) Meanwhile, three Afghan police officers and a civilian truck driver were killed when Taliban guerillas attacked the police vehicle with machine-gun fire in Paktia province. (News24, South Africa, July 11)