From the Washington Blade, July 31:

A fundraising event to benefit an LGBT community center in Lebanon last week took a surprise turn when stunned audience members were shown graphic photographs of beheaded corpses and images purportedly depicting U.S. soldiers preparing to execute gay Iraqis.

On July 27, Stavros Vitalis, representing the Panhellenic Macedonian Front, filed a libel suit against Greek journalist Takis Michas, author of Unholy Alliance: Greece and Milosevic's Serbia. Michas' book and work in the daily Eleftherotypia accuse Greek mercenaries in Bosnia of participating in the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre. In a media statement, Vitalis said that the Greek volunteers who fought in Bosnia under the command of Gen. Ratko Mladic were there to help the Serbs, "who were being slaughtered by international gangs that were also stealing their houses, their country and their dignity."

Mauritania registered its first suicide bombing Aug. 8 when an attacker blew himself up outside the French Embassy in the capital Nouakchott, injuring two security guards. The official Agence Nouakchott d'Information reported that the bomber was a Mauritanian. The country has seen growing attacks by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in recent months. Three Mauritanians were charged last week with murder in the presumed AQIM slaying of US national Christopher Legget. One was wearing an explosives belt that did not detonate when he was arrested in July. (NYT, Aug. 8)

After meeting in La Paz with his Colombian counterpart Álvaro Uribe Aug. 5, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced he will request the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) reject the opening of foreign military bases on the continent. "We will take the UNASUR meeting a draft resolution to not accept the presence of any foreign armed soldier in the region," Morales said. The UNASUR summit is to open Aug. 10 in Quito, Ecuador. (Prensa Latina, Aug. 5)

The Mexican Catholic bishops' conference issued a statement criticizing federal police for bursting into a Mass to apprehend an alleged cartel lieutenant Aug. 3. "We make an energetic protest against the lack of respect and the violence exercised on the part of the forces responsible for guaranteeing the security of all persons in our nation...by interrupting a religious act...at the moment in which holy Mass is celebrated," the bishops said in a statement signed by Auxiliary Bishop Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez of Guadalajara, conference secretary-general. "Nothing explains this kind of action inside a religious place and much less in these moments where Mexico is noted internationally as an insecure and violent country." (Catholic News Service, Aug. 4)

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, intervened to block release of a favorable report on Mexico's human rights situation. Leahy's action delays the release of $100 million in US anti-drug assistance. The Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year package, requires Congress to withhold 15% of the funding unless the State Department finds that Mexico is respecting human rights.

A Roma woman, Maria Balogh, was shot dead and her 13-year-old daughter gravely injured when their house in the village of Kisleta, Hungary, was attacked early Aug. 3—the latest in a series of attacks on Roma. She was the sixth victim of what police believe is an armed gang targeting members of Hungary's large Roma community. The other victims killed over the past year were similarly slain in night attacks on their homes, apparently without any provocation. (BBC News, Aug. 7; NYT, Aug. 3)

Chinese authorities released a letter Aug. 3 purportedly written by relatives of the exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer blaming her for last month's deadly unrest in Xinjiang. "Because of you, so many innocent people lost their lives in Urumqi on July 5," the letter says, the Xinhua news agency says. A friend and associate of Kadeer based in Germany said the letter was a forgery. China has blamed Kadeer for the violence between Uighurs and Han Chinese in which the government says nearly 200 people were killed. Kadeer denies the charges. (NYT, Aug. 3)