From the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Aug. 13:

Washington, DC – In a special session, the US Senate unanimously approved $600 million in emergency spending for border security. This comes on the heels of the 2010 Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriations Bill (HR 6080) passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday. Included in the $600 million is $176 million for 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to form a "strike force" that would be deployed along the Southwest border as needed; $32 million for drones to do unmanned surveillance on the border; and $80 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including $50 million for new personnel.

A crowd of about 300 villagers blocked a main road in eastern Afghanistan Aug. 12 and chanted "Death to the US!" The protest came after a raid by US forces in which they said three innocent villagers were killed at Zarin Khil, Sayed Abad district, Wardak province. Village elders said US troops stormed into a family’s house and shot three brothers—all young men—and then took their father into custody. Local police are said to be investigating the allegations. NATO forces rejected the claim, saying those killed in the overnight raid were "suspected insurgents", and that a local Taliban commander was detained.

President Barack Obama said Aug. 11 that the US can complete its combat role in Iraq safely at the end of this month and meet a deadline for removing troops from the country by the end of 2011. The statement came after a cabinet meeting which was addressed via video by the US commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno. But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, in his comments after the meeting, acknowledged that Iraq has still failed to form a new government five months after national elections.

Colombia's new President Juan Manuel Santos met with his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chávez in a first step to restore bilateral relations Aug. 10. In a symbolically charged move, the meeting took place at the Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino, a monument to Simón Bolívar near Santa Marta on Colombia's northern coast, where the liberator died in 1830.

A judge in Medellín acquitted ten soldiers on Aug. 6, including a colonel and major, of participation in the massacre of eight civilians at the "peace community" of San José de Apartadó in the northern Urabá region in February 2005. The case has been viewed as a critical measuring stick for the ability of the Colombian court system to render justice in the cases of thousands of killings of civilians in the country's armed conflict.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Aug. 9 issued a statement calling on governments to work to improve the human rights conditions of the world's indigenous peoples. The statement, made on the International Day of World's Indigenous People, urged world governments to come into compliance with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the UN in 2007. The treaty outlines the global human rights of the approximately 370 million indigenous people and bans discrimination against them.

From the Amnesty International, Aug. 10:

The Taleban and other insurgent groups should be investigated and prosecuted for war crimes, Amnesty International said, following the release of a UN report showing a rise in targeted killings of civilians in Afghanistan by anti-government fighters.

Sudanese Guantánamo Bay detainee Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi on Aug. 9 reached a plea agreement with the US government setting out the maximum sentence he can receive at his military tribunal. The details of the plea agreement will remain sealed until he is released from prison, but it is reported to limit his sentence to between 12 and 15 years. According to al-Qosi's lawyers, the government will allow him to serve his sentence at Camp 4, a facility at Guantanamo reserved for the best behaved detainees. Additionally, al-Qosi is said to have waived credit for the eight years he has spent in detention.