Mauritanian refugees in SenegalMauritania's new government resigned July 3, pre-empting a no-confidence motion filed by dissidents from the ruling National Pact for Democracy and Development (PNDD). But President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi immediately reappointed Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf. (AFP, July 3) The no-confidence measure was also supported by the main opposition parties, the Democratic Forces Rally (RFD) and New Forces for Change (NFC). NFC Prime Minister Zeine Ould Zeidane was forced to resign in early May, after a year in office marked by a food crisis and terror attacks. Opposition leaders denounced the return to office of many officials from the Maaouya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya dictatorship, ousted in 2005. (Afriquenligne, July 3)

The New York Times July 3 alluded to an Israeli role in the dramatic rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC hostages in Colombia: "On Colombian television, Ms. Betancourt wept and smiled as she recounted a chain of events that seemed scripted for film, complete with Colombian agents infiltrating guerrilla camps and borrowing Israeli tracking technology to zero in on their target." But a July 4 report from Israels' YNet indicates the Israeli role in the operation may have been far greater:

Amid generally ebullient news coverage, reports are starting to emerge that the "impeccable" hostage-rescue mission in Colombia was actually a sham to disguise the payment of a ransom. Swiss public radio cited an unidentified source "close to the events, reliable and tested many times in recent years" as saying the operation had in fact been staged to cover up the a $20 million payment by the US and Colombian governments. The hostages "were in reality ransomed for a high price, and the whole operation afterwards was a set-up," the public broadcaster said.

Pascual Serrano, writing for the pan-Latin American radical left online journal Rebelión, raises the possibility that the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other FARC-held hostages was not the clear-cut tactical victory portrayed by Betancourt and Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe—but a cynical play to exploit quiet European negotiations that were already underway to win their release, while beating the Europeans to the punch for a propaganda coup.

Colombia's President Álvaro Uribe, surrounded by Ingrid Betancourt, members of the military and 11 other rescued Colombian hostages, called upon the FARC to make "peace" in a massive press conference July 2 in Bogotá. Boasting that not a single shot was fired in the rescue operation, Uribe said: "This is an invitation to the FARC to make peace, to start releasing the hostages they still hold captive."

A UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter belonging to US-led coalition troops was shot down by small-arms fire south of Afghanistan's capital Kabul July 2. The crew apparently survived, but Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington: "I am, and have been for some time now, deeply troubled by the increasing violence there. The Taliban and their supporters have, without question, grown more effective and more aggressive in recent weeks, and as the casualty figures clearly demonstrate."

Thousands of workers at the Iran Khodro Car Manufacturing Company are reported to be on strike. The protest began in the form of hunger strike on June 28, and expanded across the company, with thousands of workers joining protests and strike actions since then. Workers' demands include:

Over a five-day period ending June 24, ICE Fugitive Operations Teams carried out a series of coordinated sweeps through southeast Wisconsin, the Chicago metropolitan area, southwestern Kansas and central Nebraska, arresting a total of 158 people, of whom fewer than 90 were "fugitives" who have failed to comply with deportation orders.