Colombia's military committed "crimes against humanity" when it shot three people in the back and killed a man with a blow to the head during the March 1 raid on a guerilla camp in Ecuador, Quito's Interior Minister Fernando Bustamante told the Gamavision TV news program. The forensic evidence showing that the three were shot in the back is "undeniable," he said.

Colombia has for the first time extradited an imprisoned paramilitary leader to the US to face drug-trafficking charges. Bogotá agreed to the extradition of Carlos Jiménez Naranjo AKA Macaco because he was found to be continuing to run his criminal network from inside his prison cell—in violation of an agreement he had signed with the Colombian government, and the terms of the Justice and Peace Law.

Brazilian federal police May 5 occupied the indigenous reserve of Raposa/Serra do Sol, in the Amazonian state of Roraima, after 10 indigenous people were shot in an attack a day earlier. Three of the wounded were in serious condition and had to be taken to hospitals in the state capital, Boa Vista. The incident happened as the Brazilian supreme court was reviewing a government decision to expel invaders from the reserve.

A Brazilian court sentenced the accused killer of American missionary Sister Dorothy Stang, to 28 years yesterday—but acquitted rancher Vitalmiro Moura, known as "Bida," who was accused of having ordered the killing. Rayfran das Neves Sales confessed to the 2005 shooting of Stang at Anapu, in the Amazonian state of Pará. Stang had been campaigning on behalf of the landless rural farm-workers and against the pillaging of the forest by illegal cattle ranches.

Protesters blocked New York's Queensboro, Triborough, Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges and the Holland and Queens-Midtown tunnels May 7 to express outrage at the acquittal of three police detectives in the fatal 50-bullet shooting of unarmed Sean Bell at his his bachelor party at a Queens nightclub in November 2006. Hundreds were arrested. Protest leader Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking of the expected arrests, declared, "If you are not going to lock up the guilty in this town, then I guess you'll have to lock up the innocent." He was arrested later that day as he knelt to pray on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. Arrested with Sharpton were two survivors of the shooting, Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, and Bell's fiancée, Nicole Paultre. Small solidarity marches were held in Chicago and Atlanta.

Federal agents raided a Phoenix gun store May 6 in the biggest weapons bust in years. Authorities said the store was a source for at least 650 high-powered weapons, including 250 AK-47 automatic weapons, smuggled to Mexican drug cartels. The raid on X-Caliber Guns followed an 11-month investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Phoenix Police Department and the Arizona Attorney General's Office. Agents seized 1,300 weapons, closed down the business, and arrested owner George Iknadosian and two others, Hugo Miguel Gamez and Cesar Boroguez-Gamez. The Gamez brothers are accused of setting up a network of "straw purchasers" to procure weapons for the cartels.

In El Paso County, TX, commissioners voted 3-to-1 May 5 for a resolution demanding a halt to construction of the border wall, asserting it would interfere with the region's long-established way of life. Thousands cross the border daily between El Paso and Juárez on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, including students who attend classes in Texas. Commissioner Miguel Terán introduced the resolution, calling construction of the wall an act of racism. Although terrorist suspects have been arrested crossing the border with Canada, "we're not building walls over there," he said. "We're building them here."

A fence designed to separate the Roma from the majority community in Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic, has received approval from the local planning office. The remaining obstacle seems to be who will pay for the construction. People from the housing condominium who complained about the Roma are refusing to pay half of the costs, as municipal authorities demand. Ivan Veselý from the Romani association Dženo warns that if construction goes ahead, the country's international image will suffer. "The Czech Republic will discredit itself again," he said. Džamila Stehlíková, minister without portfolio for human rights, has failed to talk local officials out of the plan. (Prague Daily Monitor, May 7)