Human Rights Watch (HRW) on June 25 urged Hamas authorities to allow captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to communicate with his family and receive visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Shalit was captured in 2006 by Palestinian militants during a raid on an Israel Defense Forces post near the Kerem Shalom crossing in Israel. HRW claims that Hamas is violating the laws of war by blocking all access to Shalit.

President Alan García refused to sign an historic new law that would recognize Peru's international obligation to consult with indigenous peoples before proceeding with resource extraction projects that affect them. Despite broad appeal from the International Labor Organization of the United Nations, human rights groups and indigenous organizations, Garcia sent back the law to Congress with his objections just before the deadline late on June 21.

Peru is set to overtake Colombia as the world's top coca producer, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in its World Drug Report 2010 released this week. The agency cited a 6.8% increase in areas of Peru under coca cultivation in 2009 compared with 2008—despite an overall 5% decrease from 167,000 hectares in 2008 to 158,000 hectares in 2009 across the Andean region generally. This brought Peruvian territory under coca cultivation to 59,900 hectares. There was a 16% decline in areas under coca cultivation in Colombia for the same time period, to 68,000 hectares, and an increase of 1% in Bolivia. About 55% more coca is grown in Peru now than a decade ago, the report found. In 2009, Peru produced 119,000 tons of coca, representing about 45.4% of the Andean region's production, UNODC found. Colombia produced 103,100 tons, about 39.3% of the region's coca production, and Bolivia produced 40,200 tons, or 15.3% of the total.

Barack Obama's ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of US forces in Afghanistan—and his replacement by Gen. David Petraeus, who will step down as chief of Central Command—appears to represent a strategic shift within the administration. As a senator, Barack Obama opposed Petraeus' "surge" in Iraq, declared it would fail, and called for troop withdrawals. Now President Obama has turned to Petraeus to revive his own "surge" in Afghanistan.

Sweden's international prosecutor, Magnus Elving, announced June 21 that he would investigate the possible role of Lundin Petroleum in crimes against humanity committed in Sudan from 1997 to 2003. The investigation will examine allegations made in a report released by the European Coalition on Oil in Sudan (ECOS), which alleged that Sudanese troops attacked and displaced civilians so that Lundin could have access to land for oil drilling.

The US Supreme Court on June 21 ruled 6-3 in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project that the section of the PATRIOT Act criminalizing the provision of "material support" for groups designated "terrorist organizations" does not violate the First Amendment. The Court held that the law's prohibitions on "expert advice," "training," "service," and "personnel" are not vague, and did not violate speech or association rights as applied to plaintiffs' intended activities.

The number of trade unionists murdered around the world increased by 30% in 2009, according to an annual survey released on June 9 by the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). The majority of the 101 murders cited in the report took place in Latin America, with 48 in Colombia, 16 in Guatemala, 12 in Honduras, six in Mexico, four in Brazil and three in the Dominican Republic.

The Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Fedecámaras) filed a complaint at a meeting of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva on June 11 against the labor and business policies of President Hugo Chávez's leftist government. In addition to protesting the nationalization of businesses, the group charged that the government was "criminalizing protest" by labor unions and that the murders of some 200 unionists over the past five years had gone unpunished. On June 15 pro-government unionists protested in front of the Fedecámaras office in Ciudad Guayana in the eastern state of Bolívar, denying that there was repression of labor and charging that the business group, which supported a 2002 coup against Chávez, was trying to destabilize the government. (El Nacional, Caracas, June 11 from EFE; El Diario de Guayana, Venezuela, June 16)