Given that when the Libyan rebellion first broke out, Qaddafi actually tried to play to the West by portraying the rebels as al-Qaeda terrorists—and even claimed the West was supporting him against a jihadist insurgency!—it is a sure sign of his desperation that he is now threatening to dispatch suicide bombers to European capitals in retaliation for the NATO bombardment. "Hundreds of Libyans will martyr in Europe," Qaddafi said in a defiant speech before thousands of Libyans in Tripoli's Green Square July 9—the second such comment so far this month. "I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth." The latest threats come as Qaddafi-loyalist forces launched a counterattack on rebels attempting to push toward Tripoli from Misrata, 125 miles to the east. (LAT, July 10)

The Kichwa people of Sarayaku, a remote community in Ecuador's Amazonian province of Pastaza, have brought suit against the Quito government before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. The case charges that Ecuador signed a contract with Argentina's General Combustible Company (CGC) to explore and drill and drill for oil in an area known as Block 23, covering part of Sarayaku’s ancestral territory, in 1996. The indigenous community was not consulted, even though it was granted legal title to its lands in 1992. In 2002 and early 2003, the Ecuadoran armed forces occupied the lands in question as workers began seismic testing, at which time Sarayaku leaders were threatened and harassed for defending their territory, the suit charges.

In the early hours of July 9, FARC guerillas attacked the central plaza of the indigenous Nasa village Toribio in Colombia's Cauca department, leaving two civilian residents dead and 73 injured. The attack, with improvised explosives, came at the start of a market day in the village. One National Police officer was also killed, and three injured. Damage was caused to several homes, small businesses and public buildings in 400 square-meter area. The injured were evacuated from the village for medical treatment. In a statement, the region's traditional indigenous authorities said the attack "demonstrates the deterioration of the guerillas and the total disrespect of all the armed actors for life and human dignity."

Famed Argentine folksinger Facundo Cabral was shot to death early July 9 by unknown gunmen who ambushed his car on the way to the airport in Guatemala City. A total of eight bullets struck Cabral and his Nicaraguan concert promoter Henry Fariña. The singer’s white Range Rover and a Chevrolet Tahoe carrying his bodyguards attempted to seek cover in a fire station. A firefighter witnessed gunfire from two black vehicles. Initial claims that the attack was an armed robbery have now been dropped; there is some speculation that Fariña, who survived, was the actual target of the attack. Authorities said one of the attackers’ vehicles, pock-marked with bullet-holes and strewn with casings, has been located in El Salvador. Cabral, 74, rose to fame in the 1970s, an icon of protest music in an era of harsh repression across Latin America. Guatemala's President Alvaro Colom personally called his Argentine counterpart, Cristina Fernandez, to tell her of the slaying. (NDTV, LAT, La Republica, Lima, July 10; ThirdAge, July 9)

The Honduras Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by former Guatemalan vice president Eduardo Stein, presented the report to current Honduran President Porfirio Lobos, Honduran chief justice Jorge Rivera Avilez and OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza in Tegucigalpa July 7. The report concludes that the June 28, 2009 removal from office of former President Manuel Zelaya was in fact a coup d'etat—and not a constitutional succession as some of Zelaya's opponents claimed. The report further asserted that National Congress overstepped its powers when it nominated its speaker Roberto Micheletti as interim president. According to the commission, the interim administration was therefore illegal and a "de facto regime."

For the first time in three years, the Israeli state confiscated uncultivated land in the West Bank last week, to "legalize" a nearby settlement outpost. Acting on orders from the government, the Civil Administration declared 189 dunams of land belonging to the Palestinian village of Karyut to be state land, so as to retroactively "legalize" houses and a road in the Hayovel neighborhood of the settlement of Eli. The expropriation was carried out under an Ottoman land law dating from 1858 that allows uncultivated land to be declared state land. Hayovel was built on Karyut lands in 1998 as a temporary outpost, and later permanent houses and an access road were added.

In a resolution that passed 406-6, the US House of Representatives on July 7 threatened to cut off funding to the Palestinian Authority if it pursues recognition of statehood outside of negotiations with Israel. The text of the resolution "affirms that Palestinian efforts to circumvent direct negotiations and pursue recognition of statehood prior to agreement with Israel will harm United States-Palestinian relations and will have serious implications for the United States assistance programs for the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority." It also calls on the Obama administration to review assistance to the Palestinians, which runs to about $500 million a year, in the light of negotiations with Hamas toward a unity government. The Senate passed a similar non-binding resolution last month.

In another contradictory message on the Libya intervention, the House of Representatives July 8 defeated 199-229 a bipartisan measure sponsored by Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Justin Amash (R-MI) to defund all US military operations in the North African country, but passed 225-201 a separate measure sponsored by Tom Cole (R-OK) to deny funding for equipment and training to the Libyan rebels. The second measure, which comes as an amendment to an annual Pentagon spending bill, forbids the Defense Department from providing "military equipment, military training or advice, or other support for military activities, to any group or individual, not part of a country's armed forces, for the purpose of assisting that group or individual in carrying out military activities in or against Libya."