Survival International says it has received reports that Brazil's military has launched a major ground operation against illegal logging around the land of the Awá, said the be the "Earth's most threatened tribe." Hundreds of soldiers, police officers and Environment Ministry special agents have flooded the area, backed up with tanks, helicopters and close to a hundred other vehicles, to halt the illegal deforestation which has already destroyed more than 30% of one of the Awá's traditional territories (in Maranhão state). Since the operation reportedly started at the end of June 2013, at least eight saw mills have been closed and other machinery has been confiscated and destroyed. The operation comes at a critical time for the Awá, one of the last nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes in the Brazilian Amazon, who are at risk of extinction if the destruction of their forest is not stopped as a matter of urgency.

Colombia's largest rebel group FARC on July 19 announced that their fighters have captured a supposedly retired US Navy seaman in the south of the country. According to a statement on the rebels' website, they are holding New York native Kevin Scott Sutay prisoner after capturing the retired US official in the southern department of Guaviare. The FARC offered to release the hostage in the same statement. According to the rebels, the American hostage told them he served in the US Navy between November 2009 until March this year and is an Afghanistan war veteran. According to the rebel statement, the captive said he served as an anti-explosives expert in a naval engineer battalion.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on July 18 rejected Libya's request to suspend the order to hand over Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, son of the late Moammar Qaddafi. It also ruled that its forum is more appropriate than the Libyan forum because of the accused's stated preference, genuine fear of bias, and the scope of crimes alleged by each prosecutor. The scope of the ICC's allegations is broader than that stated in the Libyan charges, allowing for a wider spectrum of evidence. The ICC ruled that the Libyan government failed to show how his appearance in the ICC would create an irreversible situation, as is required for the court to order such relief in a request to suspend appearance.

Srinagar and other towns in India-administrated Jammu and Kashmir are under curfew following unrest over the killing of four protesters by the Border Security Forces (BSF) on July 18. The killings took place in the Gool area of Ramban district. According to locals in Ramban, protests erupted after BSF personnel roughed up a religious leader's brother following an argument over offering late-night Ramadan prayers. The BSF dismisses this version, saying a mob attacked their camp and tried to storm their storehouse of arms and ammunition. Separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani has called for a three-day general strike in response to the incident, while several other prominent separatists have been arrested. A clash between demonstrators and security forces at the town of Doda, in Chenab valley, left 20 injured, including five police officers. The Amarnath Yatra, an annual Hindu pilgrimage to a sacred cave associated with the god Shiva in the mountains of Kashmir, has been ordered suspended. (Hindustan Times, CSM, July 19)

The state government of Chiapas, Mexico, has cancelled a controversial forest protection plan that critics said failed to address the root causes of deforestation and could endanger the lives and livelihoods of indigenous peoples. The program is linked to California's cap-and-trade program through a complex "carbon offset" scheme that has yet to see the light of day. Carlos Morales Vázquez, the state's environment secretary, on July 8 told the Chiapas daily El Heraldo that the UN initiative that provided the model for the pact, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD), "was an utter failure, and the program is cancelled."

Peru's Constitutional Tribunal on July 16 issued a decision ordering the government to honor debt owed for land confiscated under the agrarian reform that began in the 1960s. The ruling stated that the government must uphold a similar order issued by the nation's highest court in 2001, which has gone unenforced. The new ruling sets a timeline, saying the government must pay off the debt within 10 years, and that the Finance Ministry must issue a payment plan within six months. The issue sparked a public spat last week when President Ollanta Humala asked the court to refrain from issuing any rulings on "sensitive issues"—an obvious reference to the land compensation question—until the Congress votes on appointing six new members to the court. The court's president, Oscar Urviola, charged that Humala had overstepped his bounds by trying to order the court.

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on July 16 denied (PDF) a motion by Guantánamo Bay detainees to end forced feeding of hunger-striking prisoners. The petitioners maintained that the practice was cruel and that it would interfere with their religious practices during the month of Ramadan, which began on July 8 and requires fasting during daylight hours. In her opinion, Judge Rosemary Collyer found that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide the case. She also noted that even if the court had jurisdiction, she would not have granted the order, saying: "there is nothing so shocking or inhumane in the treatment of Petitioners—which they can avoid at will—to raise a constitutional concern that might otherwise necessitate review." Collyer also pointed out that the Guantanamo staff had plans to accommodate the petitioners' religious needs during Ramadan.

Israeli forces used bulldozers to demolish the "unrecognized" Bedouin village of al-Araqeeb in the Negev desert on July 16—for the 53rd time in three years. The demolition came one day after thousands of Palestinian, Israeli Arab and Bedouin protesters took to the streets in towns across the West Bank, Gaza and inside the Green Line to oppose an Israeli bill that would forcibly expel tens of thousands of Bedouins from the Negev. Araqeeb, home to some 500 people, is one of about 40 Bedouin villages in the Negev not recognized by Israel's Land Authority. Following the 38th demolition of Araqeeb last year, villagers said they wanted apply with the Guinness Book of World Records to claim a record for the number of times Israel has demolished a village.