Peruvian Defense Minister Rafael Rey Sept. 1 denied reports that he is seeking US military bases in the country, saying his words had been distorted. Rey caused a media splash when he spoke to RPP radio news earlier that day in defense of US plans for military bases in Colombia, saying that they did not pose a threat to the region, and adding: "In Peru, the collaboration with the North Americans against narco-trafficking is very positive, and unfortunately we cannot count on North American aid for the anti-subversive struggle, which is now mixed with the narco-traffic in the zone of the VRAE." (RPP, Sept 1)

A Peruvian air force M-17 helicopter crashed Sept. 2 in the coca-growing region known as the Apurímac and Ene River Valley (VRAE) after being hit with rifle fire from presumed Sendero Luminoso insurgents, killing the pilot and co-pilot and gavely wounding an army solider on board. The attack occurred at San Antonio de Carrizales, Santo Domingo de Acobamba district, Huancayo province, Junín region, where the crew were attempting to rescue three soldiers wounded in a confrontation with presumed senderistas that morning. A second helicopter on the mission returned to the military base at Pichari, Cusco region. The rescue operation was abandoned. (El Comercio, La Republica, Lima, Sept. 3)

A hip-hop artist who works with youth cultural programs in the violence-torn Medellín district of Comuna 13 was killed Aug. 25 by gunmen on a motorbike in the city's barrio of Eduardo Santos. Identified only as "Colacho," the youth rapped with the group C15, according to the Medellín anti-militarist group Red Juvenil (Youth Network). The group states that hundreds of youth have been assassinated this year in Medellín's popular barrios. (Red Juvenil, Aug. 28)

South American leaders met a special UNASUR summit in Buenos Aires at the end of August to discuss Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's proposal for permanent US military bases on his teritory, after Uribe refused to attend the UNASUR sumit in Quito earlier in the month. The Argentina summit failed to produce an explicit declaration rejecting the US bases, only stating broadly that "the presence of foreign military forces cannot threaten the soveriegnty of any South American country." (PTS, Argentina, Sept 3) The regional group also extended an invitation to Washington to attend the next summit and put forth its case on the issue. US amabassador to Colombia William Brownfield said the US will accept the invitation. (Colombia Reports, Sept. 2)

Gunmen stormed El Aliviane drug rehab center in Ciudad Juárez Sept. 3 and executed at least 16 people, lining the victims up behind the building and shooting them one by one. (LAT, Sept. 3) Meanwhile in Michoacán, the state sub-secretary for Citizen Protection, José Manuel Revueltas López, was assassinated in a two-truck drive-by shooting just outside the state Public Security Secretariat in Morelia, the capital. Two body-guards and a by-stander were also killed in the attack. (La Jornada, Sept. 3)

Christian Poveda, a French film-maker who wrote a documentary about gangs in El Salvador, was shot dead at Tonacatepeque, near San Salvador, Sept. 2. Police say Poveda was driving back from filming in La Campanera, an poor outlying district that is a stronghold of the Mara 18 gang, when he was apparently ambushed. His latest film, La Vida Loca, focused on the hopeless and brutal lives of fantastically tattooed members of Mara 18. (London Times, AlJazeera, Sept. 3)

A top UN official Sept. 3 urged Israel to ease its two-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow materials to repair damaged water and sanitation systems. To drive his point home, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the territory Maxwell Gaylard led his enterouge to the edge of a sewage-polluted reservoir in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City. "The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip," said Gaylard in a press statement.

A Sept. 2 report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime boasts that 800,000 Afghan farmers have stopped cultivating poppies—but warns that drug lords are forging stronger ties with both insurgent groups and corrupt officials. The UNODC report, "Afghan Opium Survey 2009," documents a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second consecutive year, dropping by as much 22% since 2008. Prices for opiates are also at a 10-year low. But, signaling improved efficiency, heroin production was down only 10%.