US war resister Corey Glass, an Iraq war veteran who served with the National Guard, won a stay of removal from a Canadian federal court July 9. Glass, who came to Canada in 2006, was scheduled to be deported the next day. He will remain in Canada while the court reviews and decides on his applications for leave and judicial review. A federal court also ordered the Immigration and Refugee Board to reconsider the failed refugee claim of Joshua Key, who came to Canada in March 2005, after deserting during a two-week break from serving in Iraq.

On July 10—one day before the 13th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre—a Dutch court ruled it has no jurisdiction in a civil suit against the United Nations by genocide survivors from the eastern Bosnian town. Survivors' association Mothers of Srebrenica is seeking compensation for the failure of Dutch UN troops to prevent the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 civilians in the so-called "safe area." The Hague District Court found the UN's "absolute immunity" means it cannot be held liable in any country's national court.

From the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), July 10:

NEW YORK - The American Civil Liberties Union filed a landmark lawsuit today to stop the government from conducting surveillance under a new wiretapping law that gives the Bush administration virtually unchecked power to intercept Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls. The case was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work—which relies on confidential communications—will be greatly compromised by the new law.

For the past two weeks, some 200 troops from Mexico's elite Federal Preventive Police (PFP) have occupied the village of Zimapán, Hidalgo, the scene of protests over a toxic waste site that the Spanish firm Befesa is scheduled to open this month. Heavily armed troops—some in ski masks and full riot gear—arrived in military-type trucks backed up by helicopters June 12, and continue to patrol the town's streets. The former bishops of the conflicted San Cristóbal diocese in Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz García and Raúl Vera López, have demanded the withdrawal of the PFP. (vaXtuxpan, June 30; La Jornada, June 17; Radio AMLO, June 15)

As popular organizations called a one-day general strike July 9 to protest rising food and fuel prices, Peru's President Alan García accused leftist opponents of plotting to overthrow him. "What we are seeing is a conspiracy that is underway," García told reporters. Protesters filled the streets of cities across the country, halting traffic and shutting down rail access to Machu Picchu, Peru's top tourist destination. "They want to attack the democratic system...and take power by force," García said.

US authorities could demand the extradition of two FARC guerilla leaders arrested by Colombian commandos during their rescue of 15 hostages, Justice Department officials said July 7. FARC leaders Gerardo Antonio Aguilar Ramírez AKA "César" and Alexander Farfán Suarez AKA "Enrique Gafas", were indicted by a US federal court in May 2006, on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization and of holding hostages. The US also holds them personally responsible for kidnapping three US contractors, who were freed in the Colombian military operation after five years in captivity.

The Matsés, a tribe of 2,500 people in the remote Peruvian Amazon, have rejected plans by the Peruvian government to explore for oil on their land. The government has created five exploration "lots" overlapping Matsés territory, and signed deals opening them to two companies, Pacific Stratus Energy and Occidental Oil & Gas of Peru. "No adequate process of consultation was carried out during the creation of these lots, not as the lots were being auctioned, nor when the contracts were signed between the oil companies and the Peruvian government," said a statement from Matsés Council. "This is in clear contravention of the International Labor Organization's Convention 169 and the United Nations' Declaration of Indigenous Peoples' Rights."

Uncontacted indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon are being killed and having their houses burned to the ground by illegal loggers, according a statement from the International Indigenous Committee for the Protection of Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (CIPIACI). The loggers have invaded the Murunahua Territorial Reserve, a remote area near the Brazilian border set aside in 1997 for uncontacted indigenous peoples, and built an illegal network of roads, the statement charges.