Venezuelan Minister for Prisons Iris Varela announced July 31 that she plans to release up to 40% of the country's prisoners in an effort to reduce prison overcrowding. Varela, who was appointed to the position by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez last week, said roughly 20,000 inmates who had committed minor crimes and who posed no danger to society would be conditionally released. Prison authorities will begin determining which inmates could be eligible for release starting this week. Varela's appointment, as well as the latest measures to reduce prison overcrowding, come in response to a deadly uprising at El Rodeo prison in Guatire, Venezuela. Over 25 people died during the June riot and stand-off when armed prisoners clashed with National Guard troops. Chávez has set aside nearly $100 million for reforming the Venezuelan prison system, which is notoriously overcrowded.

Some 150,000 protesters took to the streets in cities across Israel on the night of July 30—the biggest demonstrations the country has seen in decades—to demand action on rising rents, low salaries, and the high cost of living. The demonstrations—held in 12 cities including Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa—shows that the popular protest movement that has emerged over the past two weeks is only gaining momentum. Activist Daphni Leef, who initiated the first "tent village" protest in Tel Aviv, told a crowd of some 100,000 outside the city's art museum that "we don't want to replace the government, but to do more than that. We want to change the rules of the game." Noam Shalit, the father of captured soldier Gilad Shalit, also spoke at the rally.

Ollanta Humala was sworn in as Peru's president on July 28—with his populist base and the resource industries both seemingly afraid of being betrayed. "We're worried," said Mario Huaman, head of the General Workers' Confederation of Peru (CGTP), the country's largest labor group, which endorsed Humala in the election. "We’ll listen very carefully to what he says in the coming days and see if he shares our views. Then we'll decide our plan of action, our plan to fight. He promised change." Similar reservations were expressed by Renee Ramirez, general secretary of the Unitary Syndicate of Education Workers in Peru (SUTEP): "The new government has built up such great hopes that if it doesn't follow through there’ll be a big divorce. We’re not going to keep quiet. We threw our weight behind Humala but we didn't write him a blank check."

Mexican government and university researchers are warning about threats posed to the survival of 195 plant and animal species in the northern border state of Chihuahua. Studies by the Secretariat of the Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) have identified a broad gamut of species at risk, including birds, mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians, as well as scores of cactus and other plant varieties.

It appears that the hacker groups Anonymous and LulzSec have teamed up to issue a call to boycott PayPal, evidently if not quite logically in response to FBI raids in which 14 accused Anonymous members were arrested across the country. The only connection between the raids and the boycott seems to be that the 14 are charged in connection with a "distributed denial of service attack" against PayPal, which took down the company's website for four days in December. Here is the cyber-outlaws' joint communique, with jargon and propaganda words in bold:

As promised, Egypt's self-declared "Salafists" marched en masse on Tahrir Square, where secular opposition groups were holding a thousands-strong rally on Friday July 29. No violence was reported, but the Salafists were clearly vying with the secularists for control of the square—and the message. While the secularists chanted "The people want to topple the regime," the Salafists responded, "The people want to implement Sharia." As the secularists chanted "Peaceful, peaceful," the Salafists responded, "Islamic, Islamic." The Salafists also chanted "There is no God but Allah" and "Islamiya, Islamiya"; they also waved banners reading "Islamic Egypt," and Saudi flags. Plans for a new constitution is the new point of conflict. "Islamic law above the Constitution" was another popular Salafists chant. While the Muslim Brotherhood has continued to stay away from the Tahrir Square protests, the more radical Salafists have apparently opted for a strategy of confrontation with the protesters. Over the course of the evening, more and more of the secularists were intimidated into leaving the square, which was increasingly given over to the Salafists. (Radio Australia's AM, July 30; Egyptian Gazette, July 29)

The latest round of unofficial UN-brokered Western Sahara negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario Front ended without agreement last week, US Africa Command's Magharebia news site reports July 25. The eighth round of informal talks wrapped up July 21 in Manhasset, Long Island. "By the end of the meeting, each party continued to reject the proposal of the other as the sole basis for future negotiations, while reiterating their willingness to work together to reach a political solution in conformity with the pertinent resolutions of the United Nations Security Council," said UN Western Sahara envoy Christopher Ross. The UN News Centre on July 22 took a more optimistic spin, emphasizing plans to resume the dialogue after the autumn session of the UN General Assembly. “In order to find a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara […] the parties continued to deepen their discussions on the two proposals, including the issue of the electoral corps, mechanisms for self-determination, and the forms of guarantees,” said a statement issued by the office of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Western Sahara, Christopher Ross.

Jim Lobe on InterPress Service informs us that Israeli pundit Caroline Glick was among those cited in the manifesto of accused Oslo bomber Anders Behring Breivik. Now Glick has a screed in the Jerusalem Post of July 28 with the oxymoronic title "Breivik and totalitarian democrats." In it, she acknowledges that she was cited by Breivik, and frets that this demonstrated commonality of ideas is being used to discredit opponents of multiculturalism: