At least seven children were killed in a US air raid against a suspected al-Qaeda hideout in the Zargun Shah district of eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province June 17. The victims are believed to have been students at a madrassa near a mosque at the targeted compound. The Coalition statement expressing regret for the loss of life said residents in the area had confirmed that al-Qaeda fighters were present in the area all day. "This is another example of al-Qaeda using the protective status of a mosque, as well as innocent civilians, to shield themselves," said Major Chris Belcher. The mosque is said to have been slightly damaged in the strike. (AKI, June 18)

Twenty-one protesters who were arrested at an anti-trade protest in Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 15 were released on the 18th on conditions that they do not return to the protest lines. Authorities said they faced a variety of charges, including assaulting police, mischief and weapons-related offences. Protests against a Halifax conference to promote the "Atlantica" free trade zone proposal turned violent when about 50 yooung people dressed in black and wearing balaclavas broke away from the larger group. Running through downtown Halifax, the youth hurled paint-filled light bulbs, fire-crackers and rocks at police, businesses and journalists. Police used pepper spray and electric stun- guns to subdue the protesters. Some protesters said the break-away faction was provoked after police started using stun-guns on others. (Canadian Press, June 19)

A trial on the apparent CIA kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan has been suspended to allow time for Italy's supreme court to rule on whether prosecutors overstepped their constitutional bounds. The trial is not expected to resume until late October. The Italian government conteds that the prosecutors should not have sought the extradition of the US agents, and thus revealed their identity.

International aid agency Oxfam has announced it is pulling out of Gereida, the largest camp in Darfur, where more than 130,000 have sought refuge. The agency cited inaction by local authorities from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which controls the region, in addressing security convers and violence against aid workers. Oxfam urged the international community to do more to pressure all parties to the Darfur conflict to end attacks on civilians and aid workers.

From the AP, June 19:

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Tuesday issued a "Ten Commandments" for motorists to keep them on the road to salvation, warning drivers against the sins of road rage, abuse of alcohol or even simple rudeness.

From Reporters Without Borders, June 18, via International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX):

Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep outrage at the murder of Filaih Wadi Mijthab, editor of the daily "al-Sabah", whom kidnappers snatched from his car on 13 June 2007 as he was driving to work.

The June 18 New York Times features a front-page above-the-fold story by Jeffrey Gettleman, "In Ethiopian Desert, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality"—the first significant account in the "newspaper of record" of the forgotten war on the Ogaden people (which apppears proudly on the Ogaden Online website). The lead photo features dread-locked rifle-toting guerillas of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), with whom Gettleman trudged across the desert, in an area closed to outsiders by Ethiopian government decree. He visited war-ravaged villages where residents told him account after harrowing account of government troops burning homes, killing and abducting residents, and engaging in wholesale rape and torture with impunity.

A lawyer for the United Steelworkers has asked the US State Department to investigate infiltration by Colombia's illegal paramilitaries into President Alvaro Uribe's first electoral campaign, based on a video showing then-candidate Uribe meeting with a group that included a man identified as Frenio Sánchez Carreño, leader of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) in the violence-torn city of Barrancabermeja.